One Chance (27 page)

I had a couple of weeks' complete voice rest—which Julz described as bliss!—and she and I spent a few days at a health spa just outside the Somerset town of Shepton Mallet. I spent a good deal of time in the mentholated steam room and, along with medication, this seemed to help make progress. I had a massage, which helped me to relax, and Julz also had a few treatments while we were there. I checked in with the ENT specialist, who had a look down my throat using a small camera. He confirmed that progress was being made and that I would be able to travel abroad as planned.

The promotional work now took me all round the world: from the Far East back to Europe, and then on to North America. It was by far my longest trip abroad, and I was pleased that accompanying me were Julz and one of the marketing managers at Sony International UK, Paul Kindred. I liked Paul a lot; we became friends, and there was always a good bit of banter between us.

Our first stop was Hong Kong. To my amazement, a round-the-world ticket in first class turned out to be cheaper than a ticket in business class, so our flight out to Hong Kong was very luxurious indeed. It started with caviar and salmon served with champagne, and Julz and I slept well in spacious seats wide enough for the two of us to sit in one together.

We arrived well rested in Hong Kong, where I performed at a very busy press conference. My voice was still recovering and I was nowhere near my best, but there was no choice but to try as hard as possible while taking as much care as I could. As well as
a shortened performance, there were scores of interviews to do with TV crews from all across Asia, including journalists from Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and China. From Hong Kong we flew on to New Zealand. Never having been as far afield as this before, I thought Auckland was just a short trip from Hong Kong, perhaps five hours. After all, it didn't look all
that
far on a globe. I was wrong—it was another fourteen hours. Our destination, however, made up for the journey; we stayed at a beautiful boutique hotel called Mollie's, close to Auckland's harbour.

It took a while to adjust to the new time zone. Julz and I had been advised to stay up for as long as we possibly could, but when we sat down for dinner at eight, I felt a strange sensation, like my feet were suspended on thin air. It was jet lag. I just about finished my meal before heading straight to bed. As well as the jet lag, I got confused about what time it was back home. I called Yvie to chat about my voice and sent her into a panic. Her mum was in hospital and she'd feared the call was from there. I thought it was ten at night at home, but I'd got my sums wrong—it was one in the morning! I apologised and waited for a better time.

Bit by bit, my voice was regaining its strength, and after an all-too-short time in New Zealand we left for Sydney for my first visit to Australia. I enjoyed being down under. Life seemed to have a different pace, and everyone was very friendly and welcoming. Views over the harbour from our hotel, the Intercontinental, were stunning, particularly at night. The view from the roof garden was hard to beat.

I did a number of TV appearances in Sydney, where the sights were wonderful, the sun sparkling on the water and ships and
boats of all sizes passing across the harbour. One of my TV appearances included the city's iconic opera house. I was told on camera that I would be performing there as part of an Australian tour the following year. That took my breath away. To be honest, I hadn't thought that far ahead; I hadn't even resigned from my job at Carphone Warehouse. But to go on a world tour and perform at Sydney Opera House felt like yet another dream I didn't want to wake up from.

After Australia, we went back to Europe the long way round, going via Los Angeles to change planes. I was due in the United States shortly, but it was worth heading back to Europe first. In Germany, I performed on
Die Johannes B. Kerner Show
, one of the biggest shows on German TV. I then went on to Denmark, to appear on its main evening news programme. That trip to Copenhagen was incredible. The TV show had expected a couple of thousand people to turn up to watch me perform in the famous and picturesque City Hall Square. By the time I got on stage, there were
twenty thousand
people there to hear me sing! I sang “Nessun Dorma” and “Con Te Partiro,” and the audience response was amazing. In Sweden, my next stop, I avoided another expensive hotel laundry bill by washing a pair of trousers in the sink. Unfortunately, my passport was in the back pocket! I had to dry it on a towel rail, page by page. When I arrived in New York the following day the lady from US immigration gave me a sympathetic smile.

“Sir, you've washed this passport, haven't you?”

Everything about the American leg of my promotional tour seemed to be on a grand scale. I spent a lot of time in a studio doing interviews via satellite links. It felt a little strange to not
always see someone at the other end, and really brought home to me just how large the United States is.

At the airport, I was picked up in the biggest car I had ever seen: an Escalade. I made a point of sitting behind the passenger seat, knowing that this would mean I'd be able to open my own door. I found it strange to have doors opened for me; I was not completely ancient, and still capable of pulling a lever! Numerous drivers would try to beat me to the door, but I would always get out first.

There was no let-up in schedule, right from the start. After having dinner with the head of radio promotion at Columbia, I headed to a radio station very close to ground zero in downtown Manhattan. I gave an hourlong interview on a talk show after midnight, Eastern Time. It had already been a long day, and by the time the interview was over it was two in the morning and I had to be up again at five for an in-studio performance for the
Today
show.

Was it tiring? A little, but I felt there were other people doing
real
jobs who felt more tired. I was also very aware that I couldn't expect to get anything out of a singing career if I didn't first put the work in. The trip turned out to be the first of several to the US that autumn. The biggest event was yet to come—a performance on
Oprah
. Julz flew out with me, and we stayed on the shores of Lake Michigan to prepare for the show. Knowing just how big this opportunity was, I met up with Gary Wallis, who was there to help on the music side. Gary is a busy musical director and drummer, and over the years has worked with the likes of Pink Floyd, Jean Michel Jarre, and Tom Jones. Gary went through the arrangement with me. I had the first signs of a cold,
so I dosed myself up with honey and lemon. Fortunately, the symptoms didn't affect my performance.

I found Oprah Winfrey to be charming, with lots of charisma. It was daunting speaking to the queen of chat shows, but Oprah put me at ease, asking me about my life before and after
Britain's Got Talent
. I gave my performance of “Nessun Dorma” and she reacted well to it, with several gasps of
“Wow!”
that made me feel like blushing. I was led from the stage after giving a short interview in which I credited Julz with helping me get this far.

After the end of the TV recording, Oprah often does interviews with the guests and their families for broadcast on her website. To Julz's horror, Oprah made a beeline to interview her. Julz is quite nervous in interviews and often prefers to be in the background, so I asked if I could join her on stage to help her out. The interview ended up being the first of many Julz and I did together. We'd interact with each other in quite a funny way: Julz would make fun of me, and I would join in. A sense of humour is important in any relationship, and we demonstrated this when both Julz and I laughed at myself.

Following the
Oprah
show, Gary Wallis got us tickets to see Genesis in concert in Chicago. Gary had played as a percussionist with Mike Rutherford in Mike and the Mechanics, and so was able to get us backstage access. I had always loved both Genesis and Phil Collins, and it was a great show with the usual humour running through it.

After the show, we went backstage and, to my delight, Phil came across to talk to me and Gary. “You know,” Phil said, “I was really nervous tonight that Gary would find fault with my drumming and that you [indicating me] would find my singing
out of tune.” I laughed and asked him how he managed to sing and drum at the same time.

“I don't know,” Phil replied. “I just do it.”

It was a surreal experience to find myself standing in Genesis's dressing room having drinks and chatting with Phil, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Chester Thompson the drummer, and the regular lead guitarist Daryl Stuermer. Six months before, I had been selling phones in Port Talbot. Now, here I was having drinks with some of my musical heroes. Not for the first time (or last), I felt like pinching myself.

As well as the United States, I also travelled to Canada and Mexico to perform. In Toronto, I performed at First Canadian Place, and there were thousands of people there. The reaction was huge and at the signing afterwards, I met many hundreds of them. I felt privileged to meet so many people who were buying my CDs. I went back to a steak house I'd visited on holiday a few years earlier, and later learnt that someone tried to buy the seats Julz and I had sat on!

I wanted to experience some of the life of the cities I was visiting, and difficult as this could be because of my hectic schedule, I tried to make an effort to see more than just airports, studios, and hotels. During my visit to Mexico City, Julz and I found time to visit an agave farm, where we tasted the base ingredient in tequila. We walked round some of the Aztec temples and experienced some of the culture of the area. I found the Mexican people to be both friendly and very passionate. Nearly five thousand of them turned up to watch me perform on the outskirts of Mexico City, and most of them seemed to be in the queue for the post-performance signing.

“Come on, Paul,” the record company guy said, “we've got to leave or you're going to miss your flight back to the UK.” I looked at the queue still snaking out in front of me. “I can't,” I replied. “I want to see everyone who's turned up.”

I was aware that the fans most likely to be disappointed if I left would be the ones who had waited the longest. I tried to imagine how disappointed I would be in their position and, despite protests, stayed and carried on signing. My luck was in: having got through the queue, we were fortunate with the traffic and made it to the airport in good time for my flight.

It had been an exhausting few months, but I wouldn't have changed them for the world. I'd been to so many amazing places and met so many wonderful people, none of which I would ever forget. I'd been touched by the response of audiences everywhere, but now my attention turned back to Britain and a special concert I needed to prepare for. Part of the prize of winning
Britain's Got Talent
was a coveted place at that year's Royal Variety Performance. As star-studded as the lineup was, there was someone in the audience even more famous. I was going to be singing in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

On the Road

“P
LEASE WELCOME
the judging panel from
Britain's Got Talent
. . .”

It was December 2007, and I stood backstage at Liverpool's Empire Theatre, waiting to start one of the biggest performances of my life. On the other side of the curtain, I could hear the applause from the audience as Piers Morgan, Amanda Holden, and Simon Cowell walked on stage to introduce me.

“The ultimate prize for the winner of
Britain's Got Talent
,” Piers began, “is a performance on this very special show. A performance before royalty on the most prestigious variety show on television . . .”

The Royal Variety Performance is one of the highlights of the year in British entertainment. The very best in comedy, music, magic, dancing, and more are invited to perform in front of royalty to raise money for Entertainment Artistes' Benevolent Fund. The first performance took place in 1912, becoming an annual event from 1921 onwards. Participants over the years have
ranged from the Beatles to Rudolf Nureyev, Sir John Gielgud to Placido Domingo.

“. . . after a horrendous first day's auditions,” Simon continued, “where the one highlight was a dancing pig, I thought we would all get beheaded. Then a very nervous-looking mobile phone salesman shuffled onto the stage and I sighed and thought, Here we go again.”

It wasn't a moment to be reminded of my nerves. On the 2007 show, I was appearing alongside the likes of Enrique Iglesias, Bon Jovi, Kanye West, Joan Rivers, and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. To be part of such a remarkable lineup was quite a daunting prospect.

“I must admit,” Piers was speaking again, “that I perhaps unfairly thought that when they were dishing out talent, he was probably at the back of the queue. And when he announced he was going to sing opera, we all cringed inside, wondering what timeless classic he was about to mangle beyond all recognition.” . . .

“Mangle beyond all recognition” was exactly what I didn't want to do in front of such an audience. Just to add to the tension, two days before the show I'd had my teeth done. It took a long time and turned out to be very painful. I still didn't take very well to local anaesthetic in and round my mouth, and after more than ten injections I could still feel everything. After a couple of hours of agony, everything was complete, but it felt like I was holding soft marbles in my mouth.

I'd spent the previous forty-eight hours getting used to my new teeth: to begin with, I couldn't eat anything and had to drink through a straw. Fortunately, by the time I travelled up to
Liverpool the swelling had begun to settle down, and I started to get used to the new bridge. Even so, my new teeth didn't stop me from feeling nervous. I'd spent some time working with Yvie in the conductor's room and had completely forgotten there was a cameraman following me round the venue. I missed a note during the session and lost my composure a little—something that made me cringe when I saw it on screen for the first time in a documentary!