This week I popped my Harry Styles cherry. It wasn’t a cherry I foresaw popping this summer, but thanks to the pop prince doing a 12 night run of 80 thousand people – the magic of cheap resale tickets suddenly arrived in my life. So, me and a friend whisked our young daughters to their first live show in a stadium, seeing their faces as they realised what thousands of music fans looks like, sounds like, and feels like, was a sight to behold.
Your first live gig is a seminal moment in any music fan’s life. It’s the final piece in a music puzzle: sitting in your room listening to an album is one thing, standing as one of thousands who understand the power and reach of live music is a whole different kettle of fish. It reaches beyond so much of what divides us: it unifies us. But I fear the joy and euphoria that Iive music can instil in all of us is becoming a plaything of the moneyed.
Michael Jackson was my first live concert: Dangerous Tour, 1992. I was 12 and my godfather took me and his daughter. I remember walking into Wembley Stadium, my breath taken away by the sheer size of it, excitement so thick in the air everyone seemed to move in slow motion. I’ll never forget singing my little heart out to just about every song. Right there and then, in that very exact moment I fell in love with live performance.
