favourite band

Just so you know, the dates on my posts are all wrong. I wish I could remember exactly when I post what but, safe to say, the date and time on any individual post will not be correct. If only I could be bothered to sort that out...

******

Just got back from the Idlewild gig in Reading. Wish I could wait until tomorrow before I post but I'm buzzing too much, something's gotta be said right now.

It was amazing seeing them live, like meeting a penpal. I've loved that band for so long, every single song they played tonight had some kind of memory, some kind of feeling attached to it, it was kind of like a trip down memory lane. On the other hand, it's a whole new experience actually hearing your favourite songs sung straight from their makers. For the first time I actually wondered about what the songs were really about, what they meant to the band. Watching the divine Roddy Woomble sing out these lyrics that I've applied countless times to myself, I thought about how they'd meant something completely different to him when he wrote them, they were about people and places I'd never met or been to.

I kind of like that. It's cool that something specific to one person can be personal to so many others. They write these songs, put them out there and only they really know what they mean but at the same time they have no idea of the hundreds of different emotions that different people are gonna attach to them.

Roddy Woomble doesn't know that I've been listening to Love Steals Us From Loneliness almost non-stop for weeks, he wasn't there the night I walked through Yateley in the dark and pouring rain and sang it out loud with my headphones. I have no idea what that song's really about but I know what it's about for me. I just like that.

*****

I wish I could've met the band. Partly because I'm starstruck and in love with Roddy (I saw his undies when he went to pick up his beer - he smokes and drinks beer on stage, I know it's awful but damn it's cool) but also because I'd love to just say cheers. Just thanks for writing these songs and putting them out for people to hear because your music means so damn much to me. All these songs, all these memories - cheers for letting me have that. You have no idea, you've made me sing, you've made me cry... Just, thanks for that.

*****

Did I mention that Roddy Woomble is a studmuffin? He waved at me, or rather waved in my direction. Well, he waved near me. We were right at the front anyway, I was within 6 or 7 feet of him at one point. Can I die happy? I can now.

*****

One more thing, one fantastic bloggable moment - it's the end of the evening, they've just done their encore (Roddy made us promise to act surprised when they came back on) and it looks like they're wrapping things up for the night. They've just played Film For The Future, which was a tune, and an acoustic version of Happy to Be Here Tonight, one of my favourite songs. Thing is, they haven't played the one song that Liz was dying to hear, You Held the World in Your Arms.

We're about to get disappointed, when the guitarists nip back and grab some different guitars, electric ones this time, and Roddy announces one more song. They launch straight into that song (never has an opening chord sounded sweeter) and me and Liz go crazy, jumping up and down and punching the air like maniacs. Doesn't matter that everyone around us is to cool to dance, or that the annoying girl on my left has got her fingers in her ears again because she's a philistine who doesn't deserve to LICK RODDY'S BOOTS because that right there is one of the most perfect moments ever.

Oh, and I got to keep the setlist.

I'm so easily pleased.