Music is all around us in our day to day lives. The songs we hear on TV and radio, the ever present background to our life. It can pump us up, chill us out, remind us of days gone by, make us think of loved ones, of enemies, of lovers and everything in between. That being said there is nothing like live music being played in front of you.
I remember my first proper 'gig' as it were, a death metal rock outfit called Tripswitch when I was going through my dark and moody phase at secondary school. I didn't really know any of there songs and to be honest I only went because Helen and Jonesy dragged me along, but it was enough to give me the bug about live music. The beat of the drummer mixing in with the large amount of alcopops that i'd consumed around Helen's house beforehand gave me an experience I wanted more of and it was just the next week I went along to the brilliantly named Fergal Moonlop Bang Bang Bang who how can I put it politely, weren't of the best standard.
Now over the years I've seen a variety of acts in a variety of genres. I've seen massive world wide famous bands such as The Red Hot Chilli Peppers right the way through to intimate gigs where there was less than 10 people in the audience. I've seen swing bands drawing on the old rat pack ethos, I've seen punk bands with high energy, classic rock bands, a rather random heavy metal Disney tribute act, girl pop groups, dance acts and everything in between.
It has however been a very long time since I went to a big stadium gig and when Emma told me she was going to see Sam Fender at the Olympic Stadium and would I like to come along. It was one of those spontaneous decisions that ended up being amazing. You know those ones that you didn't really plan for or expected but ended up having a day covered in glow! (For what glow is see previous post explaining!) I wasn't fully versed with him and in the week previously I spent every spare minute listening to his songs, getting myself acquainted with him, it was during this intense cramming session I realised just how good he is. He has that aura about him that draws you in and makes you listen intently. Each song has layers and some of his lyrics are simply genius. They say he's highly influenced by Springsteen and I can definitely see the similarities. How he loves to tell a story in his songs which are beautifully put together. The backing band he has aren't bad either, I have to say the sax player is a favourite of mine, adding that soulful undertone to his songs.
We decided to make a proper day out of it and ended up watching Mission Impossible Final Reckoning and some food we made our way over to the stadium. In the queue for a T-Shirt I began to fear a little bit for Sam's safety as a drunken middle aged woman loudly proclaimed loudly to everyone that she was going to jump the stage and insert his guitar in a body orifice of hers that might surprise you. It was first time at the stadium and as a Spurs fan I had to fight the urge not to burn the place down, after spending a long summer back 2012 watching the place be alive when London hosted the Olympics, where Mo Farah led us to glory. It's a pretty epic stadium and after finding a suitable spot we got ready for the show.
The warm up acts Cmat and Olivia Dean were both excellent, bringing the excitement up a notch or two. I wasn't familiar with them before this but since then I've listened to them quite a lot and would recommend you check them out.
After a rousing rendition of Hey Jude, which has special memories for me from The Park. You could feel the anticipation building, the crowd getting more ramped up with every passing minute. His entrance to the stage greeted with wild enthusiasm. I did have a quick look to see if any drunken females were trying to rush the stage but thankfully Sam was safe!
The set seemed to fly by, playing all his hits, Rein me in with Emma's favourite lyric "All my memories of you ring like tinnitus" . Spit of you which was the song that reminded me of how I used to feel my relationship with my own father was like. We never used to properly talk to each other and had a very much superficial relationship, something that thankfully has changed for the better. He had the crowd eating out of his hand, lapping up every moment.
An amazing cover version of London Calling because as he wanted to show the capital some love. A brass band came on for his encore and he ended with a rousing rendition if Hypersonic Missiles complete with fireworks and other pyro. The crowd loving every song, singing out loud to every song, it made me fall in love with live music all over again.
I said it that music can make you feel all sorts of emotions, well this performance had me all over the spectrum of them, excitement when we were getting ready for him to come on. Happiness when he started singing, envy, when it very very quickly dawned on me that he had so much more talent than me and my guitar lessons would never lead to me having even 1% of his talent. Joy when Emma starting bouncing away next to me seeing her being so excited. Melancholy when spit on me came on. Awe when the show hit its crescendo thinking about how amazing the whole thing was. I'm so glad that I gave into the spontaneous idea of going down for the gig and having another core memory created. It's been a long journey but this is an artist that has been added to my soundtrack for the new life I'm creating. Since the gig I've carried on listening to him quite a lot in fact Spotify recently told me I've listened to over 200 songs of his in the past fortnight!
The only negative thing from the whole day was the tube journey back to Farringdon which as there seemed to be at least 60,000 people from the roughly 80,000 people crowd trying to get onto The Elizabeth Line. Which as you can imagine wasn't much fun, in fact it was probably the worst train related experience I've had, and this coming from someone who once got abandoned at Wellingbrough station in the middle of December when it was snowing outside. That small negative aside it was amazing day and it hit home that this whole saying yes to things I wouldn't normally do, it's led me to having some great experiences and making some core memories which
I've already looked into my next big gig, I've got so many bands I'd love to see and two of them are playing together The Manic Street Preachers and Ash.....so watch this space!
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