A1 were actually a very decent boyband and contained genuine talent among their number. They also mangaged to score a couple of number one singles, but never sold enough albums and failed to break out of the young kids market. When Westife toured, the mums came and watched too, when A1 played, the mums stayed in the bar.

Perhaps because of the young average age of the fans, A1 generated more genuine hysteria than I've ever seen, particularly at a gig in Preston when I genuinely thought we were in danger of being stampeded by a crowd of screaming, knicker-wetting 10 year olds. I vividly remember reading some of the tragic letters of young fans who believed that the lyrics to "Like A Rose" had brought meaning to their otherwise empty lives. (Surely they could see how weakly the "Rose" metaphor was lyrically realised!).

This was a theatre tour - so the audience-sizes were around the 2 or 3 thousand mark - an altogether more suitable environment to make music than an arena. There was supposedly going to be an arena tour a few months later, but it never happened - when it comes down to it, you have to make money out of touring, and A1 didn't quite have the following to do that. However they were great fun to tour with, and brought to the gigs and rehearsals an infectious and genuine love of music and a lovably down to earth attitude.







Technical Information
These pictures were taken with my first "serious" camera - a Canon EOS500N, using the supplied lenses. I scanned the original prints on an Epson 4990 scanner, and edited in Photoshop Elements.

Disclaimer
If anyone featured in these photos would like me to remove them then email me and I will of course do so.