26/05/97 - AUTOGRAPH SESSION AND CONCERT

I was very surprised when I was told that Bryan was going to do
an autograph session at Virgin megastore in Lisbon - he rarely
does autograph sessions and I think he was the first
international artist to do such at thing in Portugal. I got
there at 1.30 and at 3.30 Bryan finally arrived (half an hour
late). There were hundreds of people there, most of them were
young girls, and when Bryan arrived many girls were just
hysterical, screaming and jumping.

Bryan was wearing a cream tight shirt, dark blue jeans (the
jeans he wore the night before I met him in the hotel) and
boots. When I finally managed to ask Bryan an autograph he
remembered me. After leaving the music store I went to 'Coliseu
dos Recreios' where the concert was going to be. The concerts,
which were supposed to be in Cascais and Porto, were both
tranferred only 4 days before to Lisbon. This was an unique
concert for Bryan, as I'm sure that he hasn't played in such a
small venue for a long time. It was so small that there wasn't
even a B-stage.

The concert was sold out and according to a magazine there were
3500 people there. For the first time in our lives Ana and I
were in the front row of a concert, in front of Dave. There was
no opening act. The concert started at 9.30, the first 6 songs
they played were the the first 6 songs of the "18 til I die"
album, in the same order. Bryan was wearing the same clothes he
had at the autograph session.

During "Everything I do..." and "Please forgive me" Bryan went
to the sides of the stage, stayed there for a while and some
girls were able to touch him. Some songs followed like
"Heaven", "Cuts like a knife" and "This time", which almost
everybody knew the lyrics of. In fact, I think that the old
songs were more popular than most of the new ones.

Many girls threw flowers and there was a balloon as well (it
was a condom actually) and Bryan seemed to be having a good
time throwing the balloon to the fans with his hands, feet and
head several times. He seemed to be having a great time and was
in a good mood. The crowd and the 100 fans in the bridge behind
him very enthusiastic, most people were singing along and were
surely enjoying the concert.

The highlight of the evening was "Hey Elvis". Bryan said that
this song was for people who believed that Elvis was still
alive and that he could be alive and couild even be here that
night. Then someone wearing an Elvis costume appeared in the
back.  A girl was taking some photos and using the flash (which
was forbidden) and one of the security guys was going to take
her camera. Luckily for the girl, Bryan saw everything and
tapped the man's shoulder with his foot as if to say it was
alright.

Bryan asked who wanted to go on stage and sing a song in
Portuguese and invited a guy who didn't sing anything. Then he
invited another guy who played a song and offered him a beer.
Bryan asked him if the woman who was next to him was his wife
and after his affirmative answer he let her join her husband.
She gave Bryan a kiss and went with her husband to the bridge.

They didn't play most of the songs they usually play on the B-
stage, as I've already said, there was no B-stage. Instead,
they played songs like "Touch the hand", "There will never be
another tonight" and "All for love". The last song was "I'll
always be right there" (acoustic) which was fabulous. I was a
bit disappointed because they only played for 2 hours.

27/05/97 - CONCERT

I had to wake up early in order to go to school. After I had
lunch I went to the concert with my friend Luisa and arrived
there at 3.30.

 I made it to the front row again, this time in front of Keith.
They hit the stage at 9.30 and opened again with "The only
thing..." Keith remembered me and my friend and he looked at us
a lot. When he was looking at us I showed him our "HI KEITH"
banner and he smiled to us, he seemed to like it. When I was
going to take a photo of him he saw me with the camera and
posed for the picture. Then he pointed at us, I don't know
why!!

This concert was very similar to the other one. Instead pf
"please forgive me" and "This time" they played "House arrest".
I preferred the first show and even Bryan seemed to enjoy it
more but afterwards he told a friend of mine that he preferred
the second. Bryan was wearing a white shirt without sleeves,
black trousers and boots.

A girl went on stage and wanted to sing and he let her sing but 
he took the wire of the microphone! He also asked who wanted to
sing a song in Portuguese and the guy who went on stage was
Carlos, who I had met before the concert. Bryan asked where he
was from and when he said Porto, we could hear the crows
booing. There's always a rivalry between Lisbon and Porto,
especially now that FC Porto won the football championship (3
years in a row). Bryan asked him how many times Porto has won
the championship and he sang a football song. Bryan decided to
invite another guy on stage and he sang another football song,
this time from a team in Lisbon (Benfica). Half of the crowd
was singing along and the other half was booing (including
me!), so Bryan decided to ask another guy to go on stage. This
guy sang a very popular song and I was very happy when he
finished because I couldn't wait to see Bryan and the band
playing again. 

In my opinion, the highlight of the concert was when they
played "Heaven". Everybody was singing along and we couldn't
hear Bryan's voice. He stopped singing some times, I think he
wanted to hear us sing. That was wonderful! The last song was
"I'll always be right there" again and the concert was over.

Now I'm a bit sad as I know that Bryan won't probably come to
Portugal in the next 2 or 3 years, but I'll never forget those
2 fantastic nights - 2 nights to remember all life long!!!