When I was about 16, me and some of the girls from school were OBSESSED with Paolo Nutini. I can't remember how he came into our lives, but I just remember that for a long time, he was all that mattered.
From having his poster on our walls to rating every other guy we saw on the 'Paolo' scale, we were obsessed. We saw him live a few times and watched so many youtube videos we almost started to understand his ridiculously thick Scottish accent.
I listened to him almost non-stop for 2 years and then regularly as time went on, especially throughout some of my cancer time.
Hopefully this will give some context to the ridiculous excitement of last Wednesday when I, Phoebe Elizabeth Drinkwater not only got to meet, but to CUDDLE Paolo Nutini. What. A. Babe.
Me and Daz (a fellow Paolo enthusiast) were lucky enough to get tickets to the Paolo Nutini night of the week of Teenage Cancer Trust Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall with a meet and greet, dinner and a hotel included!
We arrived at the hall about 4pm and met Paolo almost straight away. He was absolutely lovely, pretty chatty and made an effort to shake hands/cheek kiss everyone who was there to see him. We had some photo's taken (he even posed for the obligatory 'selfie') and just got to wallow in his beauty face to face!
Later on in the evening, before his set began, I was told that all of the Cancer Patients who were there (myself included) would be going on stage just before him to show the audience the people they were supporting and for us to have a bit of a moment.
Before we went on, we were standing in the corridor, having chats with my new bessie Roger (Daltry) when Paolo started walking up and down warming up on his guitar. We were right opposite his dressing room too, so we got to listen in to all his intense vocal warm ups! We then got led onto stage, led on by Rog and got to stand there while 5,000 people cheered and clapped and were just generally lovely! (Again, I took an obligatory selfie).
After all THAT excitement it was time to watch the Beautiful Paolo and WOW did he deliver! He was just incredible, with a fab mixture of old/new songs in a variety of mixed up styles. He finished my doing a solo acoustic version of Last Request which was simply stunning.
To top off the night, we were hearded back stage to leave and some how ended up being separated from the rest of the crew. We did however bump in the Rog and Paolo who were having a chat and joined in their pretty intense conversation about why this was such an amazing night and how Paolo was so thrilled to be involved. I said thank you to Paolo for being amazing and he gave me a big cuddle!!! I'm pretty sure my 16 year old self just dropped dead on the spot!!
Paolo was so very lovely and it was such an amazing, musical night to be a part of with Roger Daltry, Wilko Johnson and Lianne La Havas also doing a set.
Teenage Cancer Trust's Concert series is always amazing, but they definitely out did them selves this year. I don't think I can ever say thank you enough!!!
