I’m too scared to drink my water. What if I need the loo at the critical moment? What if I go but miss the grand entrance that I’ve waited years for? I’m conscious that I’m being enveloped in a sickly fug of burger and fries that seems to be the pervading aroma of the O2 Arena. A group of very loud women settle in the row behind me like brooding hens. I fear my ears are in danger of being smothered by huge breasts; mammary noise-cancelling headphones. I love these women. I’ve already felt an initial shot of euphoria, a musical pre-med, watching Jake Shears: a sequinned ball of fizzing disco energy who appears to be immune to the passage of time despite years of hard partying. Now, the lights dim and I stop breathing.
During the day, I’ve been restless. Unable to to settle down to writing a piece I’ve been procrastinating over and scrolling social media but not really paying attention. I circle around like a dog does before they settle in their bed. ‘What the hell is wrong with you? You’re like an excitable teen,’ sneers my inner dialogue. It’s then I realise that teen me is, indeed, bubbling up - that today is going to be about years, events, emotions all coalescing together like a weird trip without the drugs.
We all have ‘our band,’ the one that provided the soundtrack to our lives ( that is, if you were lucky enough to have had a band that accompanied you through years rather than days). Mine was Duran Duran. Sitting in the back of my parents’ beige (it would now be called ‘latte’) Ford Maxi, eating warm flattened ham and tomato sandwiches, I was in thrall to the best present ever: the Sony Walkman. On repeat, Is There Something I Should Know? That strident, insistent intro. A passionate aggression. Catnip to an eleven year old. Everyone in class pulling out the line, ‘You’re about as easy as a nuclear war,’ as an insult (which was a preoccupation in the eighties as it is today). The suits, the pouting, the multicoloured fringes, the glamour. One of my favourite French words is ‘bouleversement’ denoting upheaval and turmoil. I was well and truly ‘bouleversed.’ In a good way.
The first album I ever owned was Rio. Doodles on paper at home or at school inevitably morphed into the face on the cover. Single eyes with a perfectly arched eyebrow could be found everywhere. Long summer holidays were spent in the ‘front room’ of my grandfather’s house in the West Midlands plotting a glamorous future with my best friend at the time. It was inevitable that she would marry John Taylor and I would marry Simon Le Bon, especially if we pored over the lyrics, which we did. We contorted our brains to understand The Reflex or The Union of the Snake, for surely there lay the key to future success. Not for us the pedestrian ‘I miss you baby’ of other songs. No, we were on a deeper (if confusing) lyrical plain.
My first heavyweight glossy magazine was Elle. I was the proud owner of the first issue which featured Yasmin (soon to be Le Bon) on the cover. The smell of the print, the silkiness of the pages and the satisfying weight and creak of the spine welcomed me into a lifelong passion for magazines. In that front room, I’d flit between Vogue and Elle and would read every word. Magic magazine osmosis meant that I could soon easily recognise my Bottega Veneta from my Fendi even though I was clad in M&S, electric blue mascara and very chunky plastic jewellery.
Whilst coming to terms with the heartbreak of losing the option of marrying Simon Le Bon now Yasmin was on the scene, I laboured under the misapprehension that if I bought the make-up she was wearing on the cover of Elle, I would somehow transform into her. Ok, we both had brown eyes and olive skin but there was the obvious yawning chasm in the looks department. Cue a pilgrimage to Rackhams (the Selfridges of Birmingham before there was a Selfridges) to blow my pocket money on a Dior lipstick, having only been used the oil slick that was Boots cherry lipgloss. I wish I could remember the name, but the case was off-white, with a weighty luxury. Deepest darkest red. The result, once applied, was a young Cruella de Vil or Robert Smith from the Cure. However, pulling out that white bullet from my faux leather white handbag on the West Midland bus routes transported me through a portal of possibility. I won’t dwell on the eyeshadow element of the wannabe Yasmin makeover, but suffice it to say that the overall effect of a Rimmel palette of emerald green and gold was, shall we say, vivid.
However, despite all this, I had never managed to see them live: too young, too inconvenient, too poor, career, kids. Until now. They’ve punctuated my life. Strolling through a market in Cairo in my twenties, Save A Prayer started playing over the stultifying air. I thought I’d been catapulted into the video (although that was filmed in Sri Lanka). And now here they are, a few hundred metres away. And here I am, holding my breath and travelling at warp speed through some sort of memory vortex. I’m all the ages and stages I’ve been in one moment.
I’m braced for a different sound, a strained or faltering voice, but what booms out at me is the same sound of the albums. If you blindfolded me, I would be on that Sony Walkman again. This though, perfectly juxtaposed with a reassuringly real bunch of guys who have moved through time with us all. Simon still favours the nautical tops but now there is a Dad-paunch. He can’t quite cover the stage like a deranged animal as he used to and he has to check the next song on the set list. He still has the slightly arrogant, campy head toss that littered so many Top of the Pops performances. You can imagine him turning up to some godawful PTA event clad in leather trousers among the boring shirts and chinos talking about his days strapped to a windmill. Nick Rhodes’s make-up is now more muted and John Taylor has eschewed the eye-covering fringe, maybe on the advice of his optician. More mild boys than wild boys, yet punctuated by Simon taking a large swig of water and spraying it into the crowd. So rock. My husband grimaces with disgust whilst I sigh, sorry to have been too far away from the drenching.
Girls on Film is cheekily cut through with Calvin Harris’s ‘Acceptable in the 80s.’ I recall the uncut video featuring ice cubes, nipples and hairdryers, yet I seem to remain unscathed.
Having felt quite disconnected and untethered of late, I needed this. The unity of a crowd buoyed along by music. People letting go. Strangers connected. Here we are, all belting out the most unusual and intriguing lyrics imbued with our own interpretations. I’m here for the discussion if anyone’s interested! There’s a sense of completeness, a closing of the circle. It was meant to be now, not then.
A Cinderella moment as they leave the stage and the realisation that the carriage will turn into a Tube. A nod of gratitude to the ones who have been a constant over the years, who opened up a world of escapism and dreams and who had me singing ‘gorging your sanhedralite’ around the place. No, I don’t know either.