NB – This is the tour that had the 2008 finalists on it.

For my main posts on X-Factor 2009, please click HERE.

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I was very fortunate enough to be handed a pair of tickets to the X-Factor live tour at the O2 arena on Thursday 5th March 2009.

Unashamedly, I will admit to being VERY excited about this, I love X-Factor and the calibre of artists this year was SO high that I knew that we were in for a treat with the live tour.

I must say, the production values on the tour were rather minimal, which I do think cheapened it slightly. That said, with so many people promoting albums and singles, I am guessing that even the X-Factor finalists weren’t too bothered – they seemed to want to just get the whole X-Factor deal over and done with so that they could be released from their contracts and persue their music careers – which is fair enough I guess, and is realistically what we all want!

There were quite a few surprises on the night, and some artists such as Diana (who, on the TV shows, I didn’t much warm to) came out and were absolutely fierce! Diana’s versions of  ‘Call Me’ and ‘Patience’ were absoutely amazing and I thought that her performance absolutely filled the O2 Arena. She was one of my highlights if I’m truly honest! Other highlights were JLS, Ruth, Eoghan and Rachel. Some artists who I’d raved about whilst sat on the sofa just didn’t sound as original and as ‘good’ as I’d thought that they were, which was a big shame.

From audience reaction, JLS definitely should have won, they got the loudest screams of the night, and with Alexandra going on after them, the show felt almost anti-climatic towards the end. It was great to see that JLS had such support behind them… boyband hysteria that has not been seen in years, remarkable and I think that they’re going to do amazingly well without the shackles of the X-Factor following them around.I may have permitted myself a little ‘wooooo’ too heh!

The below clip that I recorded gives you an idea of how 20,000 people screaming for JLS sounds… honestly, they pretty much raised the roof! I’ve watched plenty of shows at the O2 arena and had never heard screaming like this…!

I was very pleased that JLS did ‘Umbrella’ as it was my favourite performance of the TV series – I managed to catch Aston doing the flip:

Alexandra did, however, stomp the arena with her version of ‘Please Don’t Stop The Music’ – I was chair dancing a-plenty hehe!

Shane Ward currently plays to half sized arenas at the moment… so only time will tell how well this year’s crop manage. I felt that some of the more popular acts wouldn’t be able to carry another full sized arena, whilst others (who I’d previously written off almost) would clearly be able to sustain shows and performances of that magnitude.

Here’s some photos that I managed to take, unfortunately they don’t look as sharp on the computer as they do on my camera (so I’ve reduced the size of the images on  here before I’ve re-posted):

In lieu of their being no Mr Drage for me to see in the flesh –  gah! – I thought that I’d post these hawt pictures that I just came across instead heh!