Take That!

I'm delighted to see that Take That have managed to make such an amazing come-back, because they're just the nicest guys ever. The thing that always impressed me about them was how genuine their interest was in their fans & how much time and energy they put into signing autographs, taking pictures, etc. Whatever it was the fans were asking for.

Most artists that I've met over the years have been very selective in who they were being nice to. So whenever we filmed with them, they would be very friendly to me, the director, the producer & whoever else who seemed 'important'. But Take That were an exception. They would treat everyone equally. They would spent time with and afterwards even remember the name of the person bringing the teas and coffees. And when they came to the studio repeatedly, they would ask after people's sick family members and whatever else they remembered from the conversations they had last time. This was all the kind of stuff that happened behind the camera and something the larger public never got to see, but it's something that really impressed me and always stayed with me.

Their overall attitude also rubbed off Robbie Williams, even when he was in the midst of his 'rebellion'. I remember stumbling out of a Paris hotel after a particularly heavy night with a small group of people that included Robbie Williams & Brian Cannon (The slightly insane photographer of most of the old Oasis album covers and the inspiration for the lyric 'Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball')

Anyway, Brian and I legged it into the car as fast as we could, we did not want to look at and/or talk to anyone. We just wanted to make it through that day without puking or collapsing & I know that Robbie felt as bad as we did. Still, Robbie stopped to talk to each and every fan outside that hotel, with us cursing him and telling him to get his arse in the car or we were going to miss the bloody train (there was a general strike in France that weekend that included all the airports, so we all had to take the Eurostar back to London)

Still, back to Take That. I'm just happy that after all this time they are back. And I love their new track 'Shine' and the video for it, in which Mark Owen looks a bit like the Artfull Dodger. Very cute.

It is kind of bizarre though to think of them as a boyband these days and pictures of them pouting at the camera make me laugh. They just seem to old for that now. Still, if anyone deserves renewed success, they do.

Now, I still need to write down the whole stupid tabloid trap that I walked into back in the Take That days. Where the newspapers branded me as 'The most hated girl in Britain' for allegedly going out with Robbie (which wasn't true). Anyway, it's a long and embarrassing story so I'll have to really sit down for that one.