Take That were due to kick off their new Circus tour at St Mary's Stadium in Southampton on Friday, and for some fans on the south coast, the night carried the pull of more than a first-date ticket release. Melanie Parker flew back from New York for a family wedding and stayed on to see the show, while Zoey Hall and Matthew White had to leave opening night to others because of a hen do already in the diary.

Parker, who first saw the band at Bay House School in Gosport in 1992 when she was 12 years old, said that night changed everything. She paid £7 for the school gym gig and has followed Take That for more than 30 years since. She also saw the original Circus tour at Wembley Stadium, and said of that first encounter: "That night cemented my obsession."

"I sort of heard of them and liked their songs, but yeah, that night did it," Parker said. She added that being back for the Southampton opener made the moment feel personal: "It's very special."

The scene around Friday's launch underlined how deeply the band still lands with the people who grew up with them. Parker's route was the longest of the night: she moved to New York in 2024, then came home for a family wedding and stretched the trip so she could catch the start of the tour on the south coast. Her history with the band reaches back to a school gym in Gosport, but the pull of the new run was strong enough to bring her across the Atlantic.

Hall and White, both from Gosport, had a more local reason for missing the opening night, though their connection to Take That is no less rooted in the band’s live shows. White proposed to Hall at a Gary Barlow concert at the BIC in Bournemouth in 2018, after hiding a ring in his sock for most of the evening before asking her to marry him. Hall called it "my dream proposal" and added: "But I didn't think he was ever going to do it like that."

For them, the Southampton date was not the end of the story. They plan to catch the tour later in the summer, once the hen do is out of the way, and that delay only sharpened the sense that this launch was something worth arranging life around. Take That's Circus tour has already drawn fans who remember the band at school halls and stadiums alike, and the opening in Southampton showed the old pattern still holds: the songs may be familiar, but the occasion still feels new when the lights go up.

Parker put it plainly when asked why she keeps coming back. "There's a lot going on. There's always something to see - it really is not to be missed," she said. On Friday, that turned out to be the answer for a fan who first paid £7 to see three young men at Bay House School and, more than 30 years later, was still willing to cross an ocean to hear them open another tour.