Days 87 and 88 March 29, 2012

Day87

I wanted to write something about my Tuesday before I got as far as mentioning all things Don Draper and
Mad Men but it’s been one of those weeks and I’ve no clue what significance, if any, Tuesday presented me with.
Mad Men however was absolutely on form; Don the gorgeous bastard he always is and yet I’d do anything, anything to have him smile at me.

Day 88

The school spring concert was a triumph: the student and staff talent on display something to be proud off; and it was a complete pleasure to sing as a member of the Staff choir. The eclectic mix of pieces reached memories and feelings that music, played well seems to exist to do.

A life without music is one I wouldn’t want to live.

Day 34: let the music carry me home February 4, 2012

It was an unusual Friday night: I was joining friends from the Music department to see a concert by the Donaghadee Male Voice Choir, that included an ensemble called Fiddlers’ Galore and the Tara School of Irish Dancing.

Two of the men we work with are choir members and they are huge supporters of Drama and music; so we went to support them.

We went for dinner and struggled to find the church/ huge concert venue and then we sat at the back and giggled and misbehaved like children…

I love music, never would there be a day that I don’t listen to something. My tastes are eclectic and not particularly cool but it’s my life so it’s my soundtrack: ok? I don’t play an instrument, I can’t read a note and as my songstress of a soul sister Belle Fierce will testify, I can’t sing a note either, and yet, quite tragically I do.

Not everything I heard last night was something I would add to an iTunes playlist but there were moments that the music reached me, touched something in my inner self and I was somewhere else for a while. I was reminded of the feeling I’d had at the school Carol service at Christmas as a member of the staff choir (offering enthusiasm rather than musical prowess). We sang The Coventry Carol: and again during rehearsals I’d been the girl giggling into her music, promising to behave next time. On the night of the performance I realised just how wonderful it was to be part of something, to be one in a community of voices: the mediocrity of my musical ability no longer mattered, for a mere moment I got a little insight into the power of talent.

I wish there was a Rock Choir I could join, that UK mainland (or perhaps worldwide) phenomena of singing for music’s sake, singing for fun. Experts say that anyone can be taught to sing, I don’t quite believe that…but how I wish, wishing made it so.

Moments spent with a gentleman… September 3, 2011

I was recently at a wedding to end all weddings… Two of my best friends married each other and it had been quite a journey of faith, personal acceptance and societal struggle; that got each of these men in their gorgeousness, to the altar… But theirs isn’t the story I want to tell, despite it’s worth in telling, but quite simply it isn’t a story that belongs to me…

Instead I pick a great moment from their wedding: champagne had been drunk, eloquent and heartfelt toasts made and the band played… And what a band! I hate the term tribute act because it screams ‘Cheap!’ but this one was more than Buble-esque it was almost Buble. Saturday night with Sinatra: the nine piece jazz players, the formal dresses, the guys in tuxedo, the lead singer all utterly oozed elegance and charisma.

We were told there were two songs left to play and the slow melody of ‘Home’ began to play, cue my exit to the edge of the dance-floor. I love to dance, I especially love slow dancing and absolutely adore ‘Home’. My sigh into my g&t was audible, my pout totally petulant and just when all hope had gone from my evening I heard my name, ‘Carrie, Carrie! Come dance!’
The only single straight guy in the room having noticed the potential gin tantrum I might have had came to my rescue. It didn’t matter that we’d flirted badly on Facebook, that the only time I’d met him before I was dripping wet from the shower, without make-up and so hungover I wanted to die; and that we’d long ago accepted this wasn’t one of those: my friend ‘gets with’ your friend sort of match ups.

We danced, he held me tight, he made witty conversation, made the right compliments and I returned each of these favours. Then to add flattery to chivalry ‘Home’ ended, ‘Everything’ began and I as made to leave the floor he said, ‘Stay, dance this one too.’ It was a lovely moment, and while I’d have coped with sitting out’ the slow dances (no doubt by heading to the bar) it was this gorgeous moment that seemed to belong to a different, more sentimental time. I thanked him for the dance, kissed him on the cheek and he told me the pleasure had been his.

I applaud every step the women’s movement has made, I live in awe of the women who will never on a point of political principle play ‘damsel in distress’ to any man; and I’m fully aware that neither I nor the many wives who I love and respect need a man to feel complete, to hold our hands at social events and make any of our decisions financial or otherwise.

However, I do need a man to slow dance at with at weddings. Most days I need to feel like an independent woman, somedays I even manage it, but there are some moments: fleeting and far between, that I want to feel like a lady: and slow dancing in the arms of a gentleman, as ‘Michael Buble’ plays a favourite song is as good as such moments get.

The Resuscitaiton of the Boy Band: Take That- Back for Good. October 13, 2007

I sit, I type, I await the ridicule (Bring it on Vox O’Malley- bring it on! Lily/ Gold Dust- I remember your dancing delight at Westlife- so bang goes your credibility)… I will however strive to avoid the gushy, overly enthusiastic: often accompanied by shrieking hyperbolic drivel, that fellow concert goers have endured since my recent encounters, with four men from my distant past .

I describe my musical tastes as ecletic (Pop Princess just doesn’t work past the age of 25). I love to do the concert thing: the soul-altering U2 at Slane Castle, OXEGEN ’05, Robbie at Croke, The Killers, Snow Patrol and even as far as Hyde Park, to the once-in-this-lifetime LIVE 8. I also feel, since we’re in the general business of soul unburdening that I should confess that I’ve been to see Westlife close to ten times, I also saw Boyzone and try to catch Ronan Keating each time he comes to Belfast. Judge if you must…

but know this…if you haven’t been to Take That concert, your judgement(of this particular pop product) is absolutely without substance- its NEVER just about the music. Their shows are truly a theatrical spectacle that could out Broadway Broadway. This ‘Beautiful World’ tour somehow managed to surpass all that had gone before (and not just because ‘At the age of 39 Howard can still do a ‘back-flip,’ Jason can still break dance and Mark Owen still break a thousand hearts; in fact all the ‘boys’ look better than they ever did: oozing sex-appeal at the same power of their dazzling lights) this one boasted a string quartet, a grand piano, a historical tour of mankind, African influences and the best pop music you’ve heard in a deacde. And to those music purists who believe that ‘the music should speak for itself, the light show, the gravity defying dancers, the mesmirising special FX are window dressing’; quite simply don’t know what they’re missing.

These boys (as they each are approaching 40- boys seems euphemistic: but in my mind boys they remain) are incredibly and charismatic, they somehow manage in an arena full to the rafters, to make you feel like the only girl in the room. The thousands disappear. Its just me and the boys. I’ve become the inspiration and the single recipient of one of their million love songs.

There is something almost spiritual about the live music ‘arena’ experience. . There is something about the collectively shared anticipation; the buying of the programme, the polite clapping at the often less than wonderful support act. Then its here. The moment. The lights go out, a feeling of sheer thrill spreads across stadium and through ever fibre of your being- the overwhelming stage lights blind you, the music begins changing the very rhythm of your heart. And in this instance: somewhere in your mind, tucked behind the forgotten school girl crushes, the bad 90s fashion choices, your first ever open-mouthed kiss; is every lyric to every song and the WHOLE crowd are singing along.

Take That were and are about more than making great pop music: they were a vital voice of my generation. I first encountered Mark, Robbie (gone but not forgotten; but never to return: we all realise – and probably did back in’93- that the ‘star of those shows’: that gorgeous boy from Stoke, had an ego so damaged by instantaneous, that NO band was the place for it to heal- I love him still), Gary, Jason and Howard when I first encountered boys in general: these five Mancunian lads were part of my (and my generation’s) sexual awakening. But unlike their ‘real-life’ school boy counterparts: none of the fabulous five were ever going to hold me to public ridicule, break my heart or give my parent’s ‘potential teenage pregnancy’ nightmares.

They are an indeliable part of my early teenage years: part of thpse first faltering steps towards independence. I was just discovering that weekends weren’t just about no-school and Saturday morning cartoons; but instead about shopping trips for the top you would wear with your must have 501′s, in preparation for even the smallest possibilities of a slow- dance (something of a discovery itself) at the local “Under 18′s” disco that night. The boy of your dreams was just one song away; you would be married with three children by the time you were 25 and have made your first million by the age of 30.

Hold on just a rose-tinted minute: why oh why would anyone want to recapture their early teens? Puberty is so terribly unkind to us all: you’re either a lingerie wearing trail blazer or THE LAST GIRL ON THE PLANET to need to wear a bra. You’re a total prisoner to the molotov cocktail of hormones carousing around your rapidly changing body and no-one seems to understand just what you’re going through.

And how can anyone be nostalgic for the early nineties? Operation Desert Storm was just beginning, LA was in flames of racial hatred after the Rodney King verdict and the humanitarian horrors of the Rwandan genocide was about to be ignored by the world.

My nostalgia however, is for a personally much simpler time: when all five of us sat around the family dinner table on a daily basis; my older sister yet to start the family tradition of ‘taking off’ to University, my Daddy still with us. I didn’t worry in the least about what to make for dinner, how to pay my car insurance, or my mortgage; and contraception was merely a source of giggling. The ‘only ‘ terrorism we faced was our horrifying homegrown variety, Manhattan still buzzed beneath the Twin Towers, London commuters only Tube fear was ‘were they running on time?’, the Iron Curtain had crumbled and Nelson Mandela had been granted ‘Freedom at Last’. We by no means lived in a perfect world but somehow, to me at least, it seemed a less frightening place to be.

The Backstreet Boys (did they ever go away?), the Spice Girls, 911(who?) and East 17 are jumping upon the’Let’s get the band back together again’ band wagon. My unqualified prediction? It won’t work: they don’t have the ingredients that make Take That, Take That. They are missing: the talent; the charisma and the new-found mutually respecting musical harmony of the boys who so graced the Odyssey stage in Belfast for the last five nights. Take That are unashamedly both proud and deprecating about their teenage-angst driven past: their audience has matured as they did: we collectively bring our life experience to the music: they in the creating of it and we in the appreciation. And in doing so reach they a whole new generation who are just discovering a beautiful world.