Have you ever just danced? Danced until...

...you could feel the sweat running down your neck, your muscles burning from too much? Your jaw hurts from smiling and shouting, your head is banging from excess noise and heat and everyone around you is laughing because you appear to have no control over you limbs? Or, if you're just going it alone in your room, the headphones come off and there's a feeling of emptiness because there was no-one there to share that with you? No?

Why not?

I'm pretty much certain that there is nothing on earth which causes that much bliss. There are drugs, and drink, which are hilarious but short lived and, ultimately, a bit bad for your tummy. There's the bed-style fun, but that requires so much legwork beforehand... You can climb mountains, but you need to be in shape to avoid risks. You can run marathons, but the same things apply, generally. Painting? Requires the right frame of mind. Singing? Concentration. There are basically rules for them all - Steps to take before the good bit hits you and you grin like a moron.

How's this then? Turn on, turn up, dance. That, my loves, is the kind of way to spend an evening. Dancing doesn't have rules! Not unless you enforce them. I'm sitting here, panting for breath, because I have been throwing myself around my room, alone, with The Go! Team blasting away in my cans, and I cannot begin to describe how much better this is than going downstairs to play N64 or sitting and trying to force myself to read a book. Nope, this is instant buzz.

I hate when people make dancing a tool - Some sort of primal ritual used to lure the opposite sex into their grasp, only ever with one ultimate, self-centred goal. It's dancing, for crying out loud - "To move one's feet, body or both to the accompaniment of music". How the hell did this get undermined too? It's just expression, freedom to move the bodies we've got.

We need to do it while we can, folks! Were all going to get old, and we're going to complain that our frames aren't what they used to be and we will look back at how lucky we were, and when that happens, I want to be able to smile and know that I had a good time with it. I don't want my only experiences of dancing to be with 18 drinks in me on some gum-covered nightclub floor and a half naked girl weaving around in front of me - Where's the fun in that? I want to remember me and my mates just moving; no inhibitions.

When I think of dancing, I think of me and Henry Croft starting the night of a Sixth Form social as the only ones in front of the DJ, hopelessly shaking around to "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley and laughing our arses off because it was so damned ridiculous that we were the only ones willing to have any fun. I think of My 18th birthday in my back garden, raving to Pendulum with Chazzeh, just us, grinning and alive. I think of Me and Becky, watching the Go! Team live, making friends with complete strangers and losing ourselves in the strobelights and t-shirts, just dancing because it felt right.

Folks, dance with me. Stop working now, it's too late. Put on some headphones, play whatever you like, and have a go, because you don't need anything else to feel brilliant.


'tonm. xx



Book of the Moment: Many things.

Song of the Moment: "Keys to the City" by The Go! Team

There's potential! There really is...

...I've seen it!

So it's Sunday. I'm unbearably tired, I'm a little bit down and I have to get on a train.

Thing is, I'm going somewhere good... Southampton to see my sister, Becky, as it happens. This isn't just your regular hang-out though; we're only going to see The Go! Team play at the Student Union, aren't we?

IT WAS INSANE.

Support acts existed, but they passed with no notable features to them; I suppose the huge, layered screaming chaos of the Micra Girls has been logged away in the back of my head somewhere, but I think everybody in the room was there with the same direction in mind - To grin and dance.

So, at half-past something, the lights disappear and the band bounce out onto the stage, fully aware that they are about to blow our balls off, and tear open the set with "The Power Is On". After that, it's just a blur of noise, smiling and more dancing than I have seen happen in any one place in England in my entire life.

The key thing is this - Everyone's dancing because they want to dance. They're not all responding to alcohol or drugs and they're not trying to grind against a potential one night stand, they're just bloody goin' at it, takin' that sound and throwin' 'emselves all about the floor, loving every moment. There we're nutters on both sides of me, all of us screaming and singing and gettin' down.

THAT is what a gig should be. Not a fashion show, not a period of time in which to cry and feel bummed out, but a section of life that is tattooed into your memories forever as containing nothing but absolute joy and smiles.


Best gig I've ever been to, and I was watching Led Zeppelin about 2.5 months ago.

'tonm. xx



Book of the Moment: Eric Clapton: The Auto-biography, p149

Song of the Moment: "The Wrath of Marcie" by The Go! Team

I think the "Christmas Joy" has been slightly detracted from.

I'm not being a fatalist or 'old and mature' or anything - I think what's happened is I've arrived home this weekend and expected everyone to be madly excited about Christmas. I guess I imagined the house would be full of the rich smells of mulled wine and mince pies, or that there'd be boxes overflowing with tinsel on the floor of the lounge just begging to have their contents strewn all over the house.

But they're all still in school here. I mean, I am too, technically, but i'm home for the weekend (though that may become the rest of the week, depending on how much help I can offer my Mum) because of this concert.

I suppose maybe I'm still subconsciously recognising that; Maybe a little voice in the back of my head is rying to remind me that there's still one academic week left for me to confront, so I can't put all my heart and soul into being a merry old soul.

Alternatively, tiredness is taking hold of me - I did, after all, get up at 6:30 this morning in order to catch a train which would get me home for 10:45. It was still brilliant, mind - Everytime I catch a train I enjoy the journey. In fact, I quite enjoyed the entire experience of getting up before everything else. I think it should be a once-a-week thing. Though certainly not every Saturday. No, that would be preposterous.

Now, wine and an evening.
Let's try and infuse the household with some Christmas spirit, eh?



'tonm.
xxxx


Book of the Moment: "Q magazine: Issue 258" - Q

Song of the Moment: "Airport Taxi Reception" - Sondre Lerche