Was there anything special about my room that day?  I can’t remember.  The small, sky blue box that’s been both my freedom and my prison hardly ever changed.  But, as I lay there on my bed, watching the nets dance gently in the summer breeze I changed.  The hero’s of the day were looking down on me from my walls and I, for the first time thanks to the music coming out of my speakers, was looking back at them as an equal…..

…..Finding like minded people is easy, they’re already your friends, you just need to ask the right questions.  There is no selection process, the ones who are one hundred per cent committed stay, the ones who aren’t, don’t and in time a final line up is declared.  Nights are spent sat under street lights dreaming the same dream, talking about the impossible as though it had just turned up on your doorstep.  The best band in the world – unable to play a single note of music…..

…..Days turn to weeks, turn to months.  Songs you once loved are being murdered before your very ears.  A glorious racket, but unfortunately it’s someone else’ racket…..

…..A break is needed.  We run to the hills and soon drums are shaking the foundations, guitars are wailing from every room and lyric sheets stained with the butter dripped from toast are strewn about the floor.  Still a racket, but now it’s all ours…..

…..Styles come and go, fashions to look back on in shame through old photographs.  You’ve all got to find your own and hope it serves you well.  Will ours serve us?  Have we even got one?  There’s only on way to find out: taking it to the stage…..

…..Huddled behind the curtain waiting for the call, last minute nervous glances darting back and forth between us all, the shared feelings of excitement and fear not enough to slow down time, boiling over!  So this is where you join us: on the edge of greatness?  On the edge of disaster?  Who knows?.....

…..If you’re going, go now.

3 August 2006