How to explain?  Where to start?  What a band means to you, and why?  How far back it goes, back to the younger you, back to good times and good music, but you can’t explain, you can’t word it, you can’t express it enough.  Back to slaving over mix tapes, pausing and playing, getting it right, ticking the songs off in biro, writing them carefully on the inner card.  The Stone Roses, Love Spreads, Ten Storey Love Song….writing the lyrics out in love letters, knowing you feel the same as they do, circling words in a heart, going to bed with the music and the words thumping through your brain, waking up with a smile that ached all night…

Waiting… waiting to finally see them, when time has spun us forward, and lined our faces, we still feel the same underneath, still dance around the kitchen and turn the cd up loud…Still remember what it felt like back then, what brought us together, what is always there. Why does it mean so much? Awed by the power of music, the immense effect it has on moods and emotions, on entire fucking days, good or bad!! How those spiralling guitars can set your heart on fire, light up your eyes, make everything alright again, better than alright! Because it feels so good…

Friday night, crushed among a crowd of thirty-something Indie kids, grown up but never forgetting…surrounded by the sweet smell of weed, no twats, just immense spreading love and smiles that hurt your face…we were in the middle of joy, in its purest form, in the centre of belonging, arms in the air, voices sung raw, hearts exploding! Never wanting it to end. Wishing you could crawl bedraggled and grinning up onto the stage with them, to soak it all up for longer, to let it infiltrate your skin, seep inside and take you over, to shove your head up against the drums and feel the floor shaking under your body.

But it always has to end….We stumble, sweaty and weak, laughing and crying, following the herd back down the Holloway road, arms still aloft, the cry of This is the one, this is the one, this is the one, we waited for….echoing down the road….We can’t stop smiling, we can’t stop talking…We have the memories forever, the best night, the best gig, the best feeling…That’s what music does for you.