Music, Love And Manchester...

I was fourteen years old when I went to my first, proper pop concert.  I had seen live music before that, but never a group I had truly hero-worshipped.  911 - a typical 90s boyband, for those of you too young to remember - were my world.  I can still vividly recall walking into Birmingham NEC, seeing thousands of excited fans, smelling snack foods and body spray, buying an overpriced tour programme, just to stare lovingly at Lee Brennan's face before the show started and he'd actually be there, on stage...  So much of that night is forever imprinted on my memory.  It not only strengthened my adoration of a band who put on one heck of a show, but it kickstarted my enormous love of live music, which endures to this day.

I went with my eleven year old sister.  She wasn't even much of a 911 fan, but she'd gone along, just the same.  Two young girls, on an exciting night out without their parents.  

Mum and Dad dropped us off at the venue and promised they'd be waiting for us at the end.  I can still remember the lights coming up, music still ringing in my ears, my face all hot and sweaty.  I was so excited to tell my parents all about it and to thank them for the tickets.

On Monday night, a similar scene would have unfolded for thousands of young pop music fans.  Saying goodbye to their parents, who'd be dutifully picking them up later.  Rushing to find their seats.  Screaming, singing and losing themselves completely in the unbridled joy that live music can bring.

It should have ended just like my first pop concert; with excited stories on the way home.  Kids unable to sleep, because the songs were still swirling through their heads.

By now, we all know that the unthinkable happened, instead.

More than twenty people - over half of them children - lost their lives when a cowardly terrorist detonated a bomb as the concert-goers were leaving the arena in Manchester, causing a blast that also left more than 50 people with serious injuries.

It's unbearable.

It's unbearable, because these were the most innocent people in society - children, teenagers, families sharing an exciting night out, together.  

It's unbearable, because music brings us so much joy, which is in stark contrast with the pain, suffering and anger so many families must be experiencing in the wake of such a tragedy.

It's unbearable, because yet again, the need to place blame has led to Islamophobia, fear-mongering and hate.

And you can't kill hate with more of it.

What this horrendous individual (I won't type his name here; he does not deserve that dignity) did on Monday was not a religious act.  What this sick, twisted little perpetrator did was an extreme act of terror.  And ISIS, who have taken responsibility for this cowardice, want us to be fearful and to spread hatred towards innocent Muslims as a result.  Why?  Because that is how they indoctrinate "soldiers" to their pathetic "cause."

"Look how hated you are by these infidels," they whisper into the ears of naive and often very young men and women.  "It's time to teach them a lesson."

Don't give them what they want.

Don't look at a minority of violent losers and allow them to represent the whole of Islam.  There are 1.6 billion Muslims on this planet and the vast majority of them are decent people.

Like the Muslim taxi drivers, who were offering free lifts home to stranded concert-goers on Monday night.

Like the Muslim doctors and nurses, working around the clock, trying to save the lives of innocent victims caught up in the blast.

Like the Muslim Mancunians, attending the vigil for the dead, missing and injured, yesterday.

Each of those people shares your anger.  Your hurt.  Your heartbreak.  But unlike you, they also too often face the brunt of it from others, purely because these sickening attacks are carried out in the name of "Islam."

The anger we all feel at what happened on Monday is justifiable.  The fear we might experience as the UK's terror threat level is increased to "critical" is understandable.  The demand that terror cells are weeded out and that those who threaten us are properly punished is understandable, too.  I want that.  Every Muslim I've spoken to online, since the tragedy in Manchester took place, wants it, too.

It's important to direct our feelings to the right places.  If every single one of the 1.6 billion Muslims on this planet was a violent murderous terrorist, I would almost certainly not be alive to write this blog, right now.  1.6 billion people is an extraordinary army.  But the fact is, only a very minimal percentage of those people have been indoctrinated into the kind of extremism that promotes terror.  Our justifiable anger - hate, even - must be directed to that minority.

But, as I said earlier, you don't kill hate with hate.

It's love that is proving that terrorism will never win.

It's the people opening their houses to let those who were stranded after the bombing, find a place to stay.

It's the people comforting one another in the streets.

It's the strangers, offering money for taxis, hotels or food.

It's the people taking bottles of water and food to hospitals, so that the parents whose children have been critically injured, don't have to leave their bedsides.

Yesterday, someone I follow on Twitter commented that we have to let life continue, because anything else is cowing to terrorism.  Almost immediately, he had racists telling him he was "an Islamist snowflake," or that he was "dismissing the memory of those killed."

No.

By living, we cherish the memories of those lost.  

By playing the music they loved, by reminiscing over concerts we attended when we were young, we are celebrating the joy they felt, before their lives were so cruelly snuffed out.

By wrapping our arms around each other and supporting one another, we are showing that love is stronger than hate and always will be.  By refusing to smear innocent people, simply because they belong to a religion that has been taken and twisted to fit an extremist agenda, we show that we are better than the terrorists could ever hope to be.  And we show them that their ideals have no place in our world.  We condemn them not only with our words, but more importantly, with our actions and reactions.

Love will always outshine hate.  And it's fair to say that love and music have always been closely intertwined, in my life.  They always will be.  

And it's with love for those lost in my heart, that I will play my music a little louder, today.  Because terror can never take love away.

Manic Street Preachers at the Genting Arena, Birmingham (14/5/2016)

Me in my Manics fan "uniform." ;-)

If there's one thing that should be relatively common knowledge to anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis, it's my deep and unending love for the Manic Street Preachers.  From the age of 16, they've been a constant in my life and I can't imagine my world without them.

So, on Saturday (14th May), I got all dolled up in my glitter, eyeliner, feather boa, tiara, homemade top and fairy wings and headed from my uncle's flat in Birmingham to the Genting Arena, along with my lovely gig buddy Kirstie, to see the band for the millionth fourteenth time.

Normal clothing is not required on gig days...

The band are currently touring in celebration of their classic 1996 album, Everything Must Go, which is now a whopping twenty years old (and I feel ancient).  The plan was to play the entire album in full, from start to finish, before pausing for a brief break prior to treating the audience to a short second set, packed with hits and the odd rarity.  As plans go, it was a pretty brilliant one, to be honest.

Everything Must Go is as close to perfection as any album I've had the pleasure of listening to.  It soars majestically along, with sweeping orchestral melodies and touching moments of poignancy in amongst the almost stubborn positivity of the album as a whole.  To hear every track played, one after the other, was an absolute treat for the ears.  The band were on top form, sounding like the tight unit we know them to be, and they looked the part, too - Nicky Wire showed off not one, not two, but three different jackets over the course of the show.  

The strangeness of hearing Design For Life second in the set (rather than being saved for the show-stopping finale) was overcome by the crowd's enthusiastic singalong and the promise of yet more goodies to follow.  Everything Must Go has always been an album that flows beautifully well and this translated into a live performance that never felt like it had gone off the boil, or left you wishing they'd play something else.  Songs such as Enola Alone and Further Away rocked the arena and left you wondering how on Earth the band even managed to choose singles from an album packed with so many gems.  James Dean Bradfield's gorgeous acoustic rendition of Small Black Flowers That Grow In The Sky was enough to bring a tear to your eye.  And when the bombastic guitar solo at the end of No Surface All Feeling kicked in and streamers shot into the sky and fell above the heads of the band's faithful fans, it was a moment of sheer euphoria.

Before the second set kicked in fully, James treated the audience to a short game of "Manic Street Preachers bingo," encouraging fans to shout out song suggestions for him to play on his acoustic guitar.  It's a testament to the level of devotion the fans have to this band, that many of the requests were for obscure b-sides and album tracks - this is a fandom that passionately devours anything the band produces.  In the end, James went for late 90s single, Tsunami.

There were a few unexpected little gems in the second "greatest hits" set; a cover of Fiction Factory's Feels Like Heaven and Natwest-Barclays-Midlands-Lloyds from the Manics' debut album, Generation Terrorists, were highlights.  In fact, the only thing I would suggest to further improve Manics' shows, would be to include more of these rarities.  After all, we're talking about a band who've recorded over ten albums, meaning they have literally hundreds of songs to choose from (especially when you include B-sides) when picking a set list.  As much as it's good that the band are aware that they have casual listeners in the audience who will be expecting the well-known singles, rather than obscure tracks they've never heard, it does sometimes feel like the Manics veer too closely on the side of caution.  Purely from a personal point of view, I wouldn't mind songs such as It's Not War (Just The End of Love) and Your Love Alone Is Not Enough being dropped to make way for some lesser played album tracks from the band's back catalogue.  There's still Design For Life, You Stole The Sun From My Heart and other such crowd-pleasing staples to placate the casual listeners with, after all.  Whilst songs like It's Not War... might have been commercial successes, the fans have heard them plenty of times, now.  I think it's time to mix the set list up a bit and throw in a few more surprises.

But that is a trivial moan about a gig that was full of energy, excitement and musical punch.  The Manics are still relevant, still brash and ever-so-slightly OTT, still musically fantastic and, as far as I'm concerned, still the best band on the bloody planet.  They get five out of five stars from me and they always will.  Shh, I'm allowed to be biased, it's my blog.  ;-)

If you get a chance to see them, go.

And if you've not had the chance to see the band live, don't fret; I made you a little vlog, so you can experience them for yourself:

Click, click, click, click, click.  Click yourself over (to YouTube).

I'll end this blog with a few more pictures from the gig.  Enjoy!

Boyzone Live at Newton Abbot Racecourse (a review)

Cassette.  Because I'm retro.

Let me set the scene for you.  There's a girl aged thirteen years old.  She's being badly bullied at school.  She's shy.  She's not particularly happy.  But she has a few things in her life that make her smile.  One of those things - the biggest thing - is music.  Every night, before falling asleep, she pops one of her favourite cassettes into her Sony Walkman and listens to boybands, singing songs of love and happiness.  It's not much, but it makes her feel better.

I don't have to do the dramatic "that girl was me" reveal, because well, it should be massively obvious that it was.  And the two cassettes that I listened to far and above all others, were Take That's Nobody Else or Greatest Hits and Boyzone's debut album, Said And Done (pictured above: my very well-loved copy).

Said And Done is a fantastic pop album, perfectly filled with a mix of up-tempo numbers that make you want to dance and swooning ballads that teenagers fell for in their millions.  Of course, all of those young listeners had a favourite member of the band.  Mine was - and despite his death in 2009, remains - Stephen Gately.

Sleep soundly, Steo. xxx

On more nights than I care to count, I lay awake, with my headphones on, listening to Stephen's sweet vocals in my ears.

For many reasons, I never got around to seeing Boyzone live.  By the time they split, I was a Manics fan and going through a rather pathetic "I only listen to rock now" phase.  When Boyzone got back together and went on tour in 2008, I didn't go.  I don't even really know why, because I loved their comeback single and I loved the idea of seeing the band.  But I never went.  

In October 2009, Stephen died suddenly as a result of a pulmonary oedema, brought on by a heart attack caused by an undetected, congential heart defect.  He was just 33 years old.  I vividly remember hearing the news and being moved to tears that night as I lay in bed, listening to those same songs from my youth and bitterly regretting that I'd never seen the band live.  My best friend recalls travelling to London with me and sitting on the tube, opposite a man reading a newspaper report about Stephen's death, listening to me say over and over how sad I felt and how utterly tragic it was.

Fast forward more than five and a half years and you'll find that same girl who once lay in bed listening to Boyzone's debut album, delightedly heading to Newton Abbot Racecourse to see the now four-piece Boyzone appear live in concert.  Better late than never...

I was a bit excited.

Before the boys appeared on stage, we were treated to an opening spot by Alesha Dixon (perhaps better known for her TV judging roles, these days).  She got the crowd jumping and cheering and I freely admit that I was really impressed with her set.  So often, you spend the time that a support act is on stage, wishing they'd hurry up and finish so you can skip to the main event.  Not so, here.  As excited as I was to see Boyzone, Alesha was a fun opener and I didn't feel that quiet urge to fast forward to the bit I was really there to see.

Whilst waiting for Boyzone, my friend Tracey and I tried to decide on which song the band would open with.  We settled on the classic When The Going Gets Tough (The Tough Get Going), but we were wrong - the boys came on stage shortly after 8:30pm and immediately launched into a much more recent hit - Love Is A Hurricane.  The up-tempo mood continued with Love You Anyway, which remains a firm favourite of mine.

Despite missing Stephen, the boys were a solid vocal unit and had a fantastic stage presence.  The lads talked about how close they've become in the wake of Stephen's death and it certainly showed in their interactions last night.  The banter, the encouraging smiles and the tight harmonies were testament to their genuine friendship and their professionalism.

Stephen may have been absent in person, but he was absolutely there in spirit.  The band included him in several different, beautiful ways.  The first came in the form of a heartbreaking version of Bread's Everything I Own, which didn't even need a dedication for the fans around us to realise who the band were singing it for.  Later, during Words, Stephen's image was flashed up on a giant screen, with the song's opening lyrics, "Smile an everlasting smile..." written beneath his beaming face.  It was almost enough to cause the tears to fall.  But those were saved for later.

After a few up-tempo tracks, including the fabulous When The Going Gets Tough, the band left the stage and the screen once again filled with images of their lost friend.  After a few VT clips of each remaining band member discussing their thoughts on Stephen's passing, the opening chords of Gave It All Away, the final Boyzone single to feature Stephen's vocals (which was released posthumously), began to fill the air.  Before long, we heard Stephen's voice, singing those most poignant of opening lines: "I will learn to live before I die..."

The band arrived back on stage to sing along with their friend, whilst the tear-jerking music video that accompanies the single played on the big screen.  Just the sound of those sweet vocals would have been enough; the images of Stephen tipped me over the edge and the tears fell to the point that I briefly worried that they might never stop.

After Stephen's final refrain rang out amongst the crowd, the band spent time toasting his memory (albeit with no drinks!) and talking about their lost brother.  To round off the tribute, the band sang the beautiful Every Day I Love You, once again using Stephen's recorded vocals with their own live ones.  The result was stunning and there were many moist-eyes amongst the 7,000-strong audience.  Mine included!

Gave It All Away.

Every Day I Love You.

Once the tribute was complete and the tears had dried, the band continued with a cracking pop show, fusing much-loved Boyzone tracks with fresh-sounding versions of classic Motown tunes.  The live band were absolutely on point and the boys sounded brilliant, with their harmonies standing up to scrutiny, despite having lost the member most known for them!

The concert seemed to be over far too soon, as the band exited the stage with the audience frantically cheering for more.  Those fans were rewarded with an encore that saw the band wow the crowd with an empassioned rendition of their 1996 song, A Different Beat, followed by their first big hit in the UK, Love Me For A Reason.  The group ended the pop spectacular with a rousing version of Ronan Keating's solo smash, Life Is A Roller Coaster, which left fans bouncing up and down and singing their hearts out.

Life really has been a roller coaster for these four pop veterans, especially in the last six years.  But with a powerful, polished performace, Boyzone have shown that whatever life throws at them, they're able to come back fighting.  One star may be sadly lost, but this band still have their sparkle.

McBusted Tour 2015 - a Most Excellent Adventure!

Standard gig outfit...

I may be a grown woman of 32, but there are some things in life that give me so much joy, I go right back to feeling like a kid again.  Music is one of those things.  For me, a song can change your mood, evoke memories, or simply make you want to get up and dance and that's a powerful thing.  And live music - actually getting to see the band you love playing the songs you love, right there in front of you - is even better.

Most people who know me are aware that my musical tastes can be pretty diverse.  I can go from listening to the Manic Street Preachers to the Spice Girls in the blink of an eye.  I can be humming along to a Carpenters song one minute, then playing a musical theatre show soundtrack the next.  I don't really engage in musical snobbery if I can help it - if I like something, then I like it.

Last year, my best friend Lydia and I went to Western-Super-Mare, to see a show headlined by McBusted - the supergroup formed when McFly teamed up with two out of three members of Busted.

It was on a beach and we got sunburnt, but it was EPIC.

To say that we were blown away would be an understatement.  We went there principally to watch 5ive and The Backstreet Boys.  We left with a full-blown, incurable McBusted obsession.  We nervously awaited news as to whether the band would stay together and record an album once their sell-out tour and Summer appearances were over.  Thankfully, we weren't disappointed; their self-titled debut was released in December last year and it was a magnificent pop-rock beast of an album.  Lydia and I were excited by the idea of an album, not only because it meant new McBusted music to listen to, but because we fervently hoped that an album would mean another tour.  

But how, we wondered, could they possibly top the 2014 shows?  Their first tour featured fireworks, a flying DeLorean, three huge, inflatable boobs and a crazy amount of fun.  It couldn't be bettered, surely?!

Well, this is McBusted.  And if there's one thing we've come to learn about the band we love so much, it's that they don't do things by halves.  Their brand new 2015 Most Excellent Adventure Tour (MEAT for short) won't disappoint any of their fans.  It certainly didn't disappoint us!  

What's fantastic about McBusted is the sheer level of thought that goes into everything they do.  Their live shows are no exception.  Their set for the MEAT tour was an enormous, old-school video arcade game.  Huge buttons and joysticks adorned the stage, in front of a massive screen, showing computer graphics.  And the best bit?  It wasn't just for show - the whole set was actually a playable arcade game, for which the band had to jump onto the buttons and push the enormous joysticks in order to compete against each other.  It was really impressive and added just another dimension of fun to the proceedings.

Of course, it's no good having all the fancy set and nothing to back it up with.  Music is obviously an incredibly subjective thing, but for my money, McBusted are responsible for some of the best pop-rock songs in recent years.  On the MEAT tour, classic McFly and Busted songs, such as Year 3000, Obviously, Air Hostess and Shine A Light were mixed in with the brand new, original McBusted songs from their debut album.  Tracks like Air Guitar and Get Over It already sound massive on record, but they were bloody enormous when played live!  The crowd joined in, shouting the lyrics back at the band and leaping around with delighted enthusiasm.  The band are a tight unit when playing live and their energy and showmanship ensured that everyone was kept entertained.  And if anyone doubted the musical ability of the band members themselves, they need only have heard James Bourne's gorgeous vocals on Beautiful Girls Are The Loneliest, to have been reassured that this is a band with real talent.  When James' voice blended with that of McFly frontman, Danny Jones, the result was truly stunning.

McBusted are a band that know their fans and are more than happy to come up with ideas that will satisfy them on every level.  And so it was that prior to performing Busted's Crashed The Wedding, the band held their own wedding of sorts, with Harry playing a priest (albeit a topless one) to the "bride" (Dougie) and "groom" (Matt), whilst Danny, Tom and James donned bridesmaids' dresses.  Suffice to say, the scene was greeted with sheer joy from the fans.  It's silly little moments like this that set McBusted apart - they don't take themselves too seriously.  They just want to make their live shows as much fun as possible, for themselves as well as the paying audience.  And it works, because when you can tell that a band are having the time of their lives on stage, you can't help but feel that sense of fun and enjoyment seeping into the crowd, too.  The band are open enough with their fans that it doesn't feel as though they're having a great time without the audience being involved; in fact, the crowd are an integral part of a McBusted show and the gigs are all the more enjoyable as a result.

I always want to lose myself in a live show, fully embracing the experience as much as possible, but I couldn't resist taking a few photos.  I'll post a few here, before telling you about the exciting thing that happened before the gig (yes, I'm telling events in reverse order, but there's a reason - I'm saving the best for last!)...

I'm pretty thrilled with some of the pictures I took!

And speaking of photographs...

Before the gig itself, Lydia and I were lucky enough to attend a meet & greet with the band themselves.  It was one of those moments where you almost have an out-of-body experience; afterwards, it felt like I'd watched it happen, rather than actually lived it, but lived it I did!

We were all led upstairs to a conference room, dotted with circular tables and sofas, on which sat groups of very nervous and excited fans.  Lydia and I were two of the last people to be taken into the room, so we stood, rather than sat.  After ten minutes or so, a member of staff came into the room and ushered a group of 17 people into the corridor to form a line.  Lydia and I were near the front of the line and that was when the nerves really kicked in.  Suddenly, I was minutes away from meeting one of my absolute favourite bands (not to mention my number one celebrity crush, the lovely James Bourne!).  

Our line was eventually taken into yet another conference room, but this one had a large screened area set up, which we all knew was where the band would be standing to meet fans and have photos taken.  Because we were the first group to go in, the band hadn't actually arrived yet, so every time the double doors at the end of the room opened, everyone appeared to suffer a collective heart attack as we all turned in unison to see if it was McBusted.  Finally, after what felt like dozens of false starts, the doors opened and in came Tom, Harry, Dougie, James and Matt.  A huge cheer erupted from the waiting fans, followed swiftly by cries of "where's Danny?!"  as we realised there was a band member missing.  A minute or two later, the door opened again and Danny sauntered in, with a cheeky wave to the crowd.

Lydia and I were the third or fourth pair of fans to be taken to meet the band and I almost briefly forgot how to walk as I made my way over to talk to Harry and Matt, first.  Everyone was lovely - our cheerleader outfits got a lot of attention (all of it positive!) and we had hugs from each band member, which was really nice.  Considering that the band have been doing these meet & greets every night, meeting hundreds of fans over the course of this tour, they didn't seem fed up or jaded; we were greeted with smiles and warmth and it really made the whole experience incredibly special.  It's not every day you can say you've met and had a cheeky cuddle with not one, but two people from your top ten celebrity crush list (don't judge me for actually listing them...).  

All in all, it was an incredible evening and one I doubt I'll ever forget.  The band, the music, the show... I don't think anything could have been done better.  But I'm sure if there's another album and another tour, they'll find a way to prove me wrong!  

From one very happy fan: thanks boys. 

If anyone has a spare half an hour, in which to watch two girls whooping a lot, here's the vlog that Lydia and I made.  Go on, check it out... ;-)