was so good, and every evening before we went to the bar or our rooms we’d go out and get takeout and bring it back, so we had a few good Chinese meals and lots of Nandos. Sometimes if we had a few hours off we would pop out and go shopping or get something to eat before the show. It was nice to be able to see different places. We saw a lot of different Nandos.
Of all the places we went to, Dublin was probably my favorite venue, and not just because I’m from near there. The crowd were just incredible. It was so loud, and when we came out of the arena I felt like I’d been on a plane for seven hours—my ears were popping. We did five shows in Dublin and each one was as loud as the next. My family came to see us there, they got really good seats and afterwards they came back to our hotel to chill out.
From Dublin we drove up to Belfast, where we had a really nice hotel and again the crowds were brilliant. To be fair, the crowds were brilliant everywhere we went. I couldn’t believe how much support we had. Some of the banners were hilarious and we got to meet a lot of the fans. Quite a few of them checked into the same hotels as us, or they’d wait outside to talk to us, and although the security was tight we spent as much time as we could with them.
We were kept pretty busy. We got the odd bit of time off to shop or whatever, but we were doing quite a lot of press interviews or filming for TV shows or having meetings. It’s unbelievable how hectic our lives have got in a short time. I knew it would be busy, but I’m not sure I ever imagined it would get this busy this quickly. We don’t complain, though. We always just remind ourselves how lucky we are to be in this position. It’s what we’ve always dreamed of doing, so it’s worth every early morning or late night. We were literally having the time of our lives.
I went down to the bar most nights when we were on tour, but we weren’t having wild parties; we were mainly just hanging out and talking. When you come off stage you’re still buzzing, and I find it hard to go straight to bed, so that was my way of winding down after a show. Some of the other guys liked going to their rooms and watching TV, but they did also come down to the bar sometimes, and then we’d chat about the show and have a crack.
We spent a lot of time with all the other acts on the tour. There was a lot of pressure when we were on The X Factor , but on the tour everyone was so laid-back. It was a different kind of pressure, so we all chilled a lot more.
We had a good laugh on the tour bus as well. We had a few sing-alongs and messed around a lot. Most of the time on the tour bus we were basically either sleeping or singing.
Wagner was one of the absolute stars of the tour. He was constantly cracking jokes, even if he did sometimes tell the same jokes seven times a day. Paige was fairly quiet on the show, but on the tour he really opened up and was like a different person. He’s really funny. I think everyone had the time of their lives.
We had a few parties in the run-up to the end of the tour, and the wrap party itself was good fun. A few people from our management and record label camedown, as well as our friends and family, so there was a good group of us. I stayed at the party until four in the morning, and I had to leave the hotel at five to get to the airport to fly home, so I didn’t get any sleep at all. You can imagine how tired I was the next day.
It wasn’t a crazy party. All we were doing was sitting around talking and saying how much we were going to miss each other. And we still do miss each other. We’ve stayed in touch with loads of people from the tour on BBM and Twitter, because we were a really tight group and we’ll never have that particular experience again.
Afterwards I went on holiday to Spain with my dad and my best friend Sean. We know a few people out there and we met up with them, so it was a good laugh. Sean
Devin Carter
Nick Oldham
Kristin Vayden
Frank Tuttle
Janet Dailey
Vivian Arend
Robert Swartwood
Margaret Daley
Ed Gorman
Kim Newman