A bizarre blend of characters spent their Friday evening seeing Jason Donovan at The Symphony Hall.
While I’m personally upset that I will never get that time back, I’m sure I’m in the minority.
Women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, gay men, slightly strange looking teenagers with their parents and unco-ordinated middle aged blokes wearing Christmas jumpers screamed and whooped from the moment the 40-year-old strode on stage dressed in black suit and tie to the moment he finished his encore an hour and a half later.
He opened with half a dozen crooner songs from his new album Let It Be Me and the audience tried their best to execute dance moves from their seats. Then the lights dimmed and the former Neighbours star announced that it was ‘time to journey back’ two decades and almost everyone rose to their feet.
He returned to the stage without his jacket – I guess that meant he was ready to rock – and broke into his 80s hit Nothing Can Divide Us.
Even Donovan picked up on the fact that the crowd were only really interested in listening to his old material. He said: ‘‘Okay so you just want to hear the old stuff, I’m not sure what that says about the virtue of this tour but it’s all good.’’
He then churned out the hits from his early albums punctuated by vomit-inducing spiels about the environment, his dad and the important things in life.
Still, everyone else seemed to enjoy it and Donovan delivered his biggest hits Any Dream Will Do and Too Many Broken Hearts as an encore.
I, however, couldn’t wait to escape.
