Here's the pre-order of our long awaited second autobiography of Stephen! (amazon.uk) "Fry: A Memoir" Hardcover Publisher: Michael Joseph (16 Sep 2010) £14.00 Season 7 + Stephen's autobiography...Can't wait September comes! :)

Thanks; Zumi!

Hi all! I bought the VIP wristband for the Navy Pier show tonight, will be around Taste of Chicago all day tomorrow, and have the VIP ticket for the Vic. Say hi if you like, I love meeting people who have the same fandoms as me! I have black wavy-ish hair and today am wearing http://www.lmaffair.com/products/black-ornaments-housemd-thshirt and will probably have another "House" shirt tomorrow too :)) oh, i'm also a girl haha.

Thanks for all the good wishes, everyone, but a page of "feel better Poeia" is just as boring for other people to read as a page of "I'm worried about Hugh's smoking" is for me. So I'll assume the good will and we can return to a much more interesting topic than me -- Hugh Laurie.

Poeia, since I don't want to bore you, I won't send you any well wishes. Just know that you have them. About the mentoring thing. I agree with Boffle. They may have mentored each other. I also agree with her reasoning for Hugh being comfortable in Stephen's shadow.

Ok, so performance #1 at Navy Pier done, and I have something to report... I TOUCHED HUGH LAURIE'S JACKET!!!!!!! I'm still in shock from the whole thing. Basically, the stage was setup outside the restaurant Harry Caray's; small stage, probably the same size as the Emmy < Party, maybe slightly bigger. People who bought $35 reservations for Harry's were able to stand right in front, everyone else had to sort of line up around the perimeter of the gated-in stage. I originally reserved us a table, however, my stingy friends refused to pay, so I was stuck on the outer edges, which sucked, except for one part: The entire band was entering by the barricade I was standing at. This included dearest Hugh, who was escorted in by a mob of policemen. Still, when I saw him I made eye contact and just kind of stood in awe, my friend grabbed his hand, and him and the police officers had to sort of scooch by me to get through the opening, allowing a slight brush of the jacket to go against my arm. Ah... Other than that, I can't report much, three giant men, towering even over the height of Hugh, stood exactly in front of all 5' 2" of me, which pretty much ended my chances of viewing anything below the heads of the band, and due to Hugh sitting the majority of the time, none of him at all. I'm extremely happy I sprung for the Vic tix tomorrow, tonight was a nice pre-show, an appetizer if you will :P A tasty one at that, hehe!

I'm hoping there'll be lots more to come. YouTube video of BFTV at Harry Caray's You touched Hugh!! :O ("a slight brush of the jacket"?...I count it as touching, Housewhore4. :)) Enjoy your maindish tonight! Wish you'd be able to see him dance better this time. ;)

So awesome Housewhore4! Looks like he was having a great time. Did Hugh do any other solos besides Mary Ann? Thanks for that clip zumi!

I'm typing from the iPad, so I don't have the flicker link, but if you go to my Twitter page (which is easier for me to remember) twitter.com/b_Barnett, I have a link to some of the pictures I took. The evening was great. I had a media pass, so we got to talk to the guys before the shoe, but hl did 't do the interview thing. Jesse did, though. During the show, We got to stand just in front of the stage. I did not know that Hugh played mandolin! He just strummed, but still. Jesse's fiddle is five strings, btw. He was great on devil went down, and considering he's classically trained on violin, he's a good country fiddler. I taped hugh's intro (he introduced the band) and a couple of the songs. We were only allowed to film two for broadcast or posting, but I'm sure there are others already out there Ill try to post thm later. Met a lot of house fans, including someone from MTV news who was covering the show and standing next to me. I was really impressed by everyone. Scott grimes is a terrific piano player. Hugh and Jesse both sang. Ill remember more later. I'm uploading three videos (high def, I think). Here's a direct link to my pictures..http://www.flickr.com/photos/51478228@N03/sets/72157624359526232/

Well, I just arrived at my hotel in Chicago. Have hours to kill before the show tonight, so I will do a bit of exploring.

I'm with you Zumi, a jacket touch should be counted in the record book :P iamdaffodils if I wasn't too much on cloud 9 and can recall, Hugh only soloed on Mary Ann, yes. It was a 45 minute set, giving everyone a chance to do one of their songs (with the exception of Bob Guiney, he did 3 I believe, but he's the "main singer"). I'm hoping tonight will be a full throttle, all-in show.

Thanks for the links, zumi and sasmom. I'm sure Hugh strummed the electric mandolin beautifully. I can imagine it being the sort of instrument to appeal to Bertie Wooster! If Jeeves found the banjolele (or trombone in the TV version) so hard to tolerate, I wonder what he might have made of Bertie's efforts on the e.m. :D

Housewhore, will you be at The Vic tonight? If so, maybe we can meet up there?

Aww, filmlover I was there tonight, I'm sorry I didn't get the memo earlier, I definitely would have met up! So I literally just got home from the show, the guys arrived late due to the, as Bob G hyperbolized, 47 shows they did in the span of 3 hours :P Which also made it interesting as they didn't do a sound check! haha! That would pay off big later, I'll explain. The show was great, amazing energy, and hey, I actually saw their faces! Whoo! No more Hugh run ins, but I took plenty of pictures of his gorgeous bod as well as as many videos as I could sneak in without the usher yelling at me for holding up a camera. The show was supposed to start at 8:30, they didn't end up going on until around 10:00 and it lasted til about midnight. Hugh soloed on Mary Ann and Will It Go 'Round in Circles, and notably accompanied Bob Guiney in a very bluesy, heart felt song, I'm stumped on the name, but Bob pretty much said it was a mourning song for his divorce, did anyone know about that, or am I just slow? It was pretty depressing, but beautiful. Then, the best part, I'm so pissed I decided NOT to record this. The guys went off stage after they did The Letter, attempting to hide the obviousness of their inevitable return for an encore. They come back, and of course, it's time for the infamous Shake Yo Tailfeather, Hugh and Grunny planned bantering included. As we've all seen the DVD recording and several youtube videos, we know how it goes: Greg attempts to be like the guy from Blues Brothers questioning Ray Charles about his Rhodes piano, and Hugh is Ray Charles, "I think there is something wrong with that there pianee" yada yada. Well, after doing it probably over 150 times, Hugh responds as usual, "No, Gregory, I think you are mistaken, there is nothing wrong with this here PIANEE!" Starts to play... dead notes. The piano levels were actually off! The timing was fucking hilarious! Everyone was on the floor! Then Hugh tries again, still off. He flees towards Sarma's piano on the other side of the stage to which the stage hand goes "It's working now!", comes back for a third try. They do the whole shtick over again, and it's STILL messed up! So Hugh screws it and goes to the other piano and pounds it out. It was so classic, just because it's been done SOO many times as planned. It was like a cheesy sketch comedy, haha! I REALLY hope someone recorded it, I saw a ton of cameras on down on the general admission area, so hopefully someone captured the moment. To make up for it, I recorded Hugh dancing to the Grunny rap at the end, I'll post that tomorrow :) Then as my friend and I walked back from Dunkin' Donuts (neither of us ate before hand, big mistake), we saw their double decker bus drive by, and it stopped right at where we were standing at a red light, and Greg looked at me and I, the dumbass that I am went, "HEY GUYS!!!" just like that, no "Great show!" or "I had an amazing time!" Just the sound of some girl walking down the street when she spots some hot guys she wants to call them out. I did it yesterday too, completely involuntarily said "Hey Jesse!" in the same way as he walked by me. At any rate, it was a great night and an awesome weekend, can't wait to share all the goodies with you guys, but I better get to bed, I have work in 6 hours, yikes.