Big Gay Out

I managed to get on the guest list for the Big Gay Out festival at Finsbury Park, which is Europe's largest gay festival. Years ago, I went to the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, which was an exciting and naughty display of floats, though I didn't get to go to the concert. This time I went to the concert and not the Pride march (which was a few weeks earlier).

As we arrived Tony Christie took to the stage to perform his hit Amarillo. The crowd was dancing but it was not busy. We also saw Peter Andre, Lemar (a highlight - he sang live with just a guitar, and performed his hits Dance, If there is Any Justice and a cover of The Darkness' I Believe in a Thing Called Love.) Beverly Knight sang live also including her knew song Keep This Fire Burning. Apart from preaching about how London is not afraid, she was very good. Bananarama did not sing live but were very well received with their Stock, Aitken & Waterman produced hits Venus and I Heard a Rumour, plus a new offering. We also was Sybil come on too sing live before going on a wander and admiring the foam machine, the jacuzzi and some of the music tents before discovering The Secret Forest of David Hasselhoff, where one could leave their declarations of affection for the great man. There was also a nice chill out area.

We went backstage which was pointless, there was no one there celeb-wise just a bar and DJ and you couldn't hear the main stage, so we went back.

Graham Norton did a bit of comparing but he was a bit pissed so disappeared again, just told us how Babyshambles have failed to show up. There were also some cabaret acts like the Porcelain Twins, drag queens Dolly Diamond & Rose Garden and Dave Lynn and some fit gymnasts on a trapeze. The bizarrest cabaret act was Luci-fire who went on for far too long being suspended from hooks in her flesh (yes, really). Fortunately I kept my nachos down. She came on at the rain before the end and as she took so long quite a lot of the potential finale audience left, meaning we got even closer to the front.

We also saw Sunset Strippers (mime central), Margarete Pracactan (should she be under cabaret?) who was crap and a talented rapper/beatboxer called Kila Kela.

Final acts included the Human League who played two songs (Electric Dreams and Don't You Want Me). This was a tragedy that they left after two numbers as they really got the crowd going more enthusiastically then anyone since Bananarama. Then we saw Girls Aloud who did about six numbers. This was followed by the dull Luci-Fire and some rain before the finale with Frankie Goes to Hollywood and new frontman Ryan Molloy. They did Two Tribes first, which sounded a bit ropey but they got that sorted for the Welcome to the Pleasuredome complete with grinders. For the ballad of The Power of Love they had a man doing a gymnastic type act from two long sheets of white fabric hanging from the ceiling (similar to something they do on the BBC pre-programme clips). The final song was Relax and they wheedled out as many fetish performers as they could, including women in spurting dildos, before we all trundled back on the tube.

There were supposed to be 30,000 people there but, it seemed to me, there was nothing like that. Tickets (for non-guest list) were expensive but I wouldn't pay to go again, although all in all it was a good day out. Rides at the fair were expensive, food and drink was OK, acts were mainly good, yet I couldn't find a pink cowboy hat anywhere.