Finding Heaven

Part 9: Pray

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon in early July, 1993. Gary was lounging in his hotel room, lying on his stomach, casually perusing over the set list for their Party Tour. When the November gigs finished, Nigel had spoken to the creative time and tried to make changes; mostly to sequencing and production, but there was the odd song Nigel wanted changing and the choreography too. The lads had subsequently kicked off and any changes were immediately vetoed, much to Nigel's annoyance and enormous displeasure. The fully grown man then proceeded to be in the longest bad mood in history, as far as the boys were concerned. All had felt the brunt of it at one time or another, it was almost like Nigel was taking it in turns to focus all his passive aggressiveness on just one of the lads at a time. No one was immune to Nigel's bad temper, not even his favourite 'boy', Gary Barlow.

Since the moment Gary had awoken that morning, Nigel was practically knocking down his door, barraging him with questions asking how the second album was coming along. It was followed by him shoving more notes on the upcoming tour dates under Gary's nose, and changing the lads' schedule yet again, to fit in even more promo. The lads had been pushed to the extreme of exhaustion in the last week or so; it had began with the completion of the video for their recent single, Pray; and then they went full steam on promoting the single, with a mass of magazine interviews, TV spots and photoshoots, as well as driving to seemingly every radio station up and down the country, in between Gary working on their second album, and them all rehearsing for the July tour dates. It had been a hectic time to say the least. So with Nigel then on top of all that, deciding to take on the attitude of the impetulant child; it was safe to say it had left all the lads both physically and mentally exhausted.

The rest of the lads were having a small lie in, but Gary who could not afford such luxuries was instead going over the set list trying to work out how they were supposed to find time to finish rehearsals before their first show. Time was worryingly short, and Gary felt less than confident they were anywhere close to being ready for the summer tour dates.

A small knock came on the door, and Gary barely raised his head. The door was on the latch, anyway, and he knew who it'd be.

Sure enough, Howard slowly pushed the door wide, and tentatively entered the room. Sheepishly looking around, he asked, "HE's not around here is he?"

Reaching a temporary impasse in his work, Gary dropped his head, collapsing it on to the pieces of paper strewn across his bed, "You're lucky", he mumbled, "– he was literally here only ten minutes ago, talking about the tour again".

Howard immediately rolled his eyes, "Saying what, this time?" A note apprehension clear in his tone.

"He says there's a venue that has a strict noise curfew, so we need to drop two songs from the set for that date" Gary said.

"Fuck sake – which?"

"I'm just trying to work it out, now".

"Want a hand?" Howard asked diving on the bed.

The impact sent all the loose papers flying, and Gary quickly scrambled to grab them before they flew far enough to fall on to the floor. Tutting loudly, he gave Howard an irritated look, "It's fine – I'll do it later".

With that Gary smoothed out the pages, pushed them to the side and turned over on the bed to find Howard now leaning up against the headboard reading a music sheet.

"Is this for the new album?"

"Eh...yeah," Gary said, desperately trying to snatch it from Howard's hands. Howard was of course, far too quick for him, and with the stretch of his long arm, he held it aloft, quite comfortably out of Gary's reach...