Me – Darren Burn.
I wasn’t destined to be famous, and even in my wildest dreams I never thought that I would be standing in front of a crowd of thousands. We’ve performed at award shows, but this time everyone is there to see us. They are our fans. I have fans. It is still extremely hard for me to comprehend that. We’ve often been called the best pop group on the planet, and have won numerous awards for our dance routines, but nothing even comes close to staging your own arena tour.
Today we ran through the whole show as if there was a crowd. We didn’t stop, and rehearsed every cue and costume change to make sure that there was no room for mistakes. The only thing that went wrong was one of the explosions rung out off-cue – but that was easily corrected.
It turned out that Lee had also forgotten some of the choreography, so he had to have an emergency lesson. It was odd, as he had learnt it perfectly just a few weeks ago, but when it came to rehearsing it on stage, he couldn’t remember some of the moves.
Thursday 22nd November 2001
It has been a few days since I last wrote in this diary, but that’s because I have been too lazy to even contemplate putting pen to paper. I’ve been away from the other guys for the last few days, which is probably a good thing because we have to spend the next six months together. We had to perform on Top of the Pops today. It was our eighth performance, but I still get nervous each time, for no apparent reason. There is something about that show that I still can’t quite get over. It never crossed my mind as a child that I would be on the same stage one day.
If I have one fault as a performer, it is that I cannot bear to watch myself on video. Ashley and Aaron love it and they have to pick up on all our mistakes. The dance routines are complicated and although I cope fine with them, I always make a small error hoping that no one notices – but, then again, doesn’t everyone?
A lot of preparation has gone into the show. Our crew of seventy-five people isn’t even enough, and some people often find themselves doing more than one job. Our stage set is vast and we’ve got a live band of ten musicians. In each and every city that we go to, the crew has to put up and take down the set each night and go through all the various sound and lighting checks. I’m glad I just have to do the show and don’t have to stay behind afterwards!
Each night, before we go on stage, we conduct an interview with the local radio station and take an opportunity to meet competition winners and fans. Why they want to meet us, I have no idea, but it’s all part of the promotional work that comes with being a performer.
Tomorrow is the big day so we’re all getting an early night because it is going to be late before we get to bed tomorrow. Wish us luck!
Friday 23rd November 2001
Wow! That was the most amazing feeling I’ve ever experienced. We just performed to 20,000 people in our first live show. If that’s anything to go by, I might not be alive by this time next week! It was so tiring and though we had rehearsals, they don’t even come close to the real thing. When you have the energy of a crowd there, you are taken to a completely different level, and no matter what happens you know that you have no room for error. The feeling that I had tonight is indescribable and nothing compares to a live show.
The added bonus was that nothing went wrong either. Lee got the choreography spot on; I sang my heart out – even if my voice is a little croaky now – and the crowd loved us. We’re off to a club now to celebrate. I think we deserve it.
Sunday 25th November 2001
I can’t believe this! The reviews for Friday’s show are in the papers today and they are all really good. They said that the opening sequence (where we descend from the ceiling and fly above the audience) was a “piece of stage wizardry” and that the whole show was “perfectly put together and executed”. Only The Sunday Telegraph gave us a mediocre review, saying, “The boy-band isn’t a patch on the originals”. John, our manager, has told us that we have to pull together for Monday’s show - but I’ve been told it was just a spiteful reviewer.
After Friday’s opening show, I’m a bit more calm and collected knowing that we have made it through the first night. We’ve got to perform another seventy shows in sixteen countries and it isn’t going to be easy – but when I first got involved with the group, and signed my life away, I knew that it would be hard.
