Neil meets JLS

What a weekend! If you’re a JLS fan you are going to be jealous…

Saturday afternoon I was lucky enough to join the boys backstage at the world famous Hammersmith Apollo for a special Nokia fans event. I arrived at 12.30pm to the sounds of 3 ½ thousand screaming. It was insane! Most had been there all morning as they wanted to see the boys arrive in their blacked out 4x4. It was also Aston’s birthday so they wanted him to hear a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’.

I was ushered into a V.V.I.P room where Marvin, Aston, Ortise and JB joined me after they sound checked. I got to interview the lads and they told me that they have an hour of ‘lockdown’ before going on stage, just so they can all get into the right headspace. They don’t let anyone else in and they practise dance routines, work out on the weights and play Alicia Keys and Jay-Z albums at full blast. Funnily enough they don’t play their own songs? They couldn’t tell me why they didn’t, they just didn’t... As you can see from my picture knitwear seems to be the way to go nowadays. Aston’s birthday jumper was looking great! Also I’ve just realised that I have very long arms!

The boys invited me to bring them on stage too. How cool! I’ve only ever been in the crowd or watched the famous Apollo stage from telly, I couldn’t believe I was going to actually be on it.

The time came and after taking some extra deep breaths I braved the screaming fans and walked out to my mark. The flashing cameras and screaming was sooo intense, I can’t imagine trying to perform for an hour in front of that. It must be so off putting! After me shouting the words they were all waiting for, ‘here’s J-L-S’ (in true X Factor fashion), the boys rose from behind the stage and started their show! It was fantastic.

I want to thank the boys for letting me gatecrash their party and they did promise me that next time they are passing Heart they would pop in…fingers crossed!