One Chance (29 page)

“Sorry,” said Julz, “but it's your fault for being a comedian. It was the way you said it!”

Despite his annoyance, James was a funny guy and difficult not to warm to. I don't suppose either of us could have imagined that when we met again, it would be on the set of a Hollywood film, with James playing the part of me!

With the UK part of the tour complete and my confidence up, I set off for the next set of concerts in North America.

My first date was an event at the Planet Hollywood Theater in Las Vegas, before beginning the tour proper in Seminole, Florida. Julz and I spent a few days in Vegas, taking in a few shows and playing a few small wager card games. We also took the opportunity to go and see the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon, flying over it in a helicopter and landing on the lower parts for a champagne picnic. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Part of the US and Canadian tours would be undertaken by air, and part by tour bus. This would be my first experience of travelling and sleeping on tour buses. I enjoyed the experience and the camaraderie with the other passengers. I enjoyed all the travelling, and it was great to have Julz by my side. However, she found it tiring, as she struggled to sleep on the buses and didn't enjoy living out of a suitcase.

After performances in Seminole and Tampa, the tour made its way up the east coast of the United States, with shows in Washington, DC, New York, Ledyard, Connecticut, and Boston. At Washington, DC, I was struck by the varying ages of the audience: at the stage door, I met both an eight-year-old fan and lady who was close to her century! Performing in New York City was a huge honour, but nerve-wracking as they have a reputation for being tough. But they seemed to receive me well, which was a relief. In Atlantic City, I announced my resignation from Carphone Warehouse. Up to this point I was still technically employed by them, and I'd felt that life was just too unreal for my good luck not to be a dream.

After the Boston show, I felt a cold coming on. I tried to dose myself with vitamin C and echinacea, but they weren't having any effect. The tour continued on into Canada, and my first performance in Hamilton seemed unaffected by my symptoms. But by the time I got off the tour bus in Montreal, I was bunged up, coughing, and had a temperature. I could feel the cold starting to affect my voice and booked into the spa of one of Montreal's top hotels to use their steam room. This helped clear some of it, but even so, I was feeling very rough.

I was due to play at the prestigious Place des Arts in
Montreal. Postponing the concert was considered, but knowing the rivalry between Quebec and Ontario, I knew that if I cancelled the Montreal show, then I would be under pressure to do the same in Toronto and Ottawa. I made the decision to go ahead, but shortened my performance slightly. I didn't want to sing anything that might do harm to my voice, so I made the reluctant decision to cut down the
Student Prince
medley and left out “Nessun Dorma.”

I was gutted because both Place des Arts in Montreal and Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto were stunning venues to perform, and I knew that I wasn't at my best in either. Roy Thomson Hall, the home of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, was a particularly great place to visit. I saw the ENT specialist for Canada Opera, who was very complimentary about my voice and said I had taken the correct course of action in cutting the set-list back.

That wasn't to be the only Canadian drama. As we arrived in Edmonton, I got pain in my left hip that was diagnosed as a trapped nerve. It was very painful and caused a heavy limp. I must have looked a right state, limping and coughing as I headed onto the Winspear Centre's stage! By the time we arrived in Vancouver in a blizzard, my body was finally starting to recover. I got my strength back and the dropped songs returned to the set-list. After further dates in Victoria Island and Calgary, we headed back into the United States. I particularly enjoyed singing at the Warners Theater in Los Angeles, which was a wonderful venue.

As the tour headed south, to Phoenix and on into Mexico, it was the equipment's turn to have difficulties. The heat meant we had technical problems as the antiquated sound desk struggled to cope. Mark Littlewood, who dealt with the front-of-house
sound, found himself surrounded by several hundred very passionate Mexicans wanting his guts for garters. Mark came to me at the end of the show, telling me that many artists would have thrown the microphone down and walked away in such conditions. I told him I would never do that as it would be insulting his hard work, the promoter, and, most importantly, the audience who had paid money to see the show.

The next section of the tour was New Zealand, Australia, and Asia. After the intensity of the British and North American legs, I was pleased to find a bit more space between shows and to have a little bit of time to explore the areas we were visiting. We had a few days before our first show in Christchurch, so Julz and I and Jake, my tour manager, made our way to the beautiful city of Queenstown on South Island. This was bliss. Beautiful scenery, wonderful lake, great food, and lovely people—what's not to like? I thought to myself.

My guest artist on this part of the tour was a young, pretty Kiwi singer called Elizabeth Marvelly. Elizabeth is from Rotorua, and rightly proud of her Maori heritage. It's obvious in her performance of the Maori song “Tarakihi,” which stirs people wherever in the world she performs it. Elizabeth and her parents were kind enough to show us round the area, famous for its volcanic activity. The activity is evidenced by the strong, unforgettable smell of sulphur.

After the New Zealand shows, including a performance in Auckland that I thought my best performance on tour to date, we flew on to Australia. Starting in Adelaide, I sang in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne before heading on to Perth. When we
got to Sydney, I took the opportunity to climb the famous Harbour Bridge. For safety, I used climbing clips to reach the amazing view at the top. It felt incredibly surreal that while I stood there with the opera house below me, the orchestra was down there rehearsing
my
show! Both Sydney Opera House and Hamer Hall in Melbourne were great venues to play. Both had stunning acoustics and, if anything, I thought Hamer Hall's acoustics were even better than those in Sydney.

Asia was another adventure, and the press conferences there were as crazy as my previous time in Hong Kong. In Seoul, there were so many camera flashes that I could feel the heat from them! The concerts in Seoul and Tokyo were similar in some ways but very different in others: the Korean audiences were less reserved than the Japanese, though the Japanese audiences always gave me a fantastic response at the end of every piece. Outside the cities, Julz and I particularly enjoyed our time in Busan in South Korea; it was sunny, warm, and very pretty, with a rugged coastline.

It was time for the final European leg, taking in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Holland. I was joined by Natasha Marsh for this part of the tour, and it was great to catch up with her again. The audiences across Europe were welcoming and enthusiastic, and the programme was back to a hectic five shows a week after the more restful pace in New Zealand, Australia, and Asia.

Whilst I was in Sweden, I got news that something extraordinary was happening in Germany. My initial audition on
Britain's Got Talent
was being used in an advert for Deutsche Telekom, and there had been a very strong reaction to it. The
result was that
One Chance
was at number one in the German album charts, where it remained for seven weeks. My recording of “Nessun Dorma” reached number two in the singles charts in Germany on downloads alone.

I found myself going to Germany more and more. I was asked to perform at the opening of the German football league season, the Bundesliga at Bayern Munich's Allianz Arena. I went on an arena tour in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, performing to audiences of over ten thousand people a night. It was more than I could ever have hoped for in any dream.

The craziest event I did was at the Dome in Mannheim. It was very much a youth event. I made my way onto the stage and was met with a wall of sound from teenage girls. When I told Julz, she didn't stop laughing for about fifteen minutes.

“You a pop star? Don't make me laugh!”

I found it bizarre, too. The noise was so loud that I couldn't hear myself or the backing track. I had to rely completely on memory and a little bit of luck to be in time and in tune. I was blown away by the fact that an operatic aria written nearly a hundred years before was causing such a reaction with a teenage audience. It proved to me what I had always known: that music can cross the boundaries of geography, age, class, and creed.

All in all, 2008 had been another incredible year. The travelling meant I hadn't seen much of my family and friends, but I stayed in touch as best as I could.

Julz and I had adapted to the pressures of both travelling round the world and spending time apart. Julz had also been a
great interview partner who would lighten the mood with a deft comment about how daft her husband was.

I had feared doing fifty-five shows and truly believed I would crash and burn. I don't think I was the only one who thought that. But I learned an important lesson. Yes, there were obstacles. Yes, there were difficulties. But the only real obstacle in the end was in my own mind, and for the first time in my life I had overcome it. I performed more than a hundred live concerts that year—nearly double what I thought I could ever achieve.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

On Reflection

W
HEN IT WAS
suggested that we do the photo shoot for my second studio album,
Passione
, in Venice, I readily agreed. Who wouldn't pass up the chance to spend time in one of the world's most beautiful cities? But come the day of the shoot I was regretting my enthusiasm; it was first thing on a crisp January morning, and although the city looked stunning, it was absolutely freezing. I was dressed in my tuxedo, when I could have done with my hat, scarf, and several more hours in bed.

I had started recording
Passione
in late 2008. Much of it was recorded in Stockholm, but also some in Prague. I wanted the record to have a more classical feel this time round, while remaining true to the audience that had bought my first album. Expectations were high, even though it is well known that for any artist it's rare for their second album to do better than the first.

I began by giving Simon Cowell and his team a playlist of
possible tracks, and then we worked together on selecting the material. Having sold more than three million albums of my debut, I now had more artistic control than when I'd recorded
One Chance
. However, I knew from experience that it was important to pick your battles carefully. Despite having spent eighteen months in the industry, I was still the one with the least experience. I knew it was important to listen to those with the expertise, while doing my best to create a record I was happy with.

During the selection process, we recorded demos of songs I loved and also some of the ones the A&R team thought would be good. That helped us make good progress. It's interesting how trying out a track in the studio can help decide whether a song is right or not. Sometimes the results can surprise you. I had found that with my version of the R.E.M. song “Everybody Hurts” on
One Chance
, and I would find it again here with an Italian version of the Procol Harum classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”

On the other side of the coin, I tried one of my favourite Richard Marx songs, “Right Here Waiting,” and it just didn't work. I was gutted because it is a great song, and one I felt would be good to have on the record. We ended up with a great playlist, including “La Prima Volta,” the Italian version of Ewan McColl's “The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face,” and “Un Giorno per Noi,” a Nino Rota classic derived from his soundtrack to Franco Zeffirelli's
Romeo and Juliet
.

My only concern was that Simon wanted to have the full album in Italian. I was worried that this might make the album less approachable than the first. My management and I pushed
to have at least a few songs in English, but Simon wasn't to be moved on it. Simon has always had the ability to read what the public wants to hear, so despite our misgivings we trusted his judgement. It was a subject that came up in interviews very frequently when on promotion. When asked why the whole album was recorded in Italian, I simply replied that it was a beautiful and very musical language to sing in.

The album being Italian, it made perfect sense for the photo shoot to take place in Venice. As I took my place in makeup, I decided to have a little fun. My manager, Vibica Auld, was with me on this trip, and swearing the makeup girls to secrecy, I gave her a quick ring.

“Hi, Vib,” I said in my best just-got-out-of-bed voice, “I'm really sorry. I've overslept and only just woken up.”

“Oh, Paul”—I could hear the worry in her voice—“the photo shoot's about to start. You should be down there and in makeup by now. I'll give them a ring and . . . ”

She paused, as she could hear me laughing on the other end.

“You're winding me up, aren't you?” she replied.

“Been here all along,” I confessed. “Don't forget your coat when you come down. It's absolutely perishing.”

The release of the second album was different from the first. With
One Chance
there had been no real expectation of what might happen; now the anticipation was huge. This meant there was more pressure for the album to be successful, and a lot of promotional work had been lined up to achieve this.