Sweet Emotion

The other day at work I was talking to my friend Dale about gigs we’ve been to. As you can imagine conversations about gigs and music are my favourite types of conversation. Dale is a huge fan of the electronic bass and drums trance clubbing woo woo music. Whilst it’s not a genre I have any particular time for I do find it interesting listening to Dale talk so passionately about it. On this particular occasion we were talking about times we had got emotional at a show. He was telling me about the time he and out friends Charlie and Jordan went to something called South West Four Festival and he saw his favourite act Above and Beyond and in his words “blubbed through most of it.” I thought that it was great that somebody can be moved by music in such a way and it got me thinking about times I’ve got emotional at a gig. Here are two of the times it’s happened.

The first occasion I thought of was at a Joey Cape gig in April last year. He was playing at the Islington Academy with Jon Snodgrass and Brian Wahlstrom as part of the group Scorpios. The late great Tony Sly of No Use For A Name was also a part of Scorpios before his sad and sudden death. Tony Sly is widely regarded of one of the very best songwriters of his generations and was loved by everyone. As a tribute to Tony Scorpios played the No Use For A Name song International You Day and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room. The lyrics in the chorus were so poignant. They go “but without you, my life is incomplete, my days are absolutely grey, and so I try, let your heart know for sure, that I have so much more to tell you every single day.” When Joey sang those lines the emotions that filled the room were deeply moving and something that I will never ever forget.

The second occasion is more of a personal story. A few years ago I was introduced to my best friend Scouse. We bonded pretty much instantaneously talking about music and we discovered we both adored the band Finch and in particular their debut album What It Is To Burn. At the time they had split up and neither of us ever had the chance to see them live. We basically agreed that would be something we do together if it ever became possible. The song we especially wanted to see live for the epic song Ender, a song that was always a road trip song for us and had to be played at full volume, pretty much as a rule. Slowly rumours began to pop up about Finch reuniting and eventually a show at the Brixton Academy was announced for March of 2013. As soon as tickets went on sale we snapped them up and became seriously excited. Finch completely nailed it that night and when Ender came on I was in a trance, I felt myself welling up instantly really struggling to hold back tears. This was a moment I never really thought I’d get to experience, and to experience it with someone I consider a brother was just something else. If I only remember one thing from that night, and it was a pretty eventful night that included getting covered in beer within seconds of the opening song, Scouse upsetting some girls on the tube and hanging out with another friends Nan it will definitely be that feeling of euphoria I felt during the song.

That’s something I really love about music, who would of thought stringing a few guitar riffs, drum beats and words can touch someone in such a way. Amazing.