Yesterday, I went to see Busted live.
I don't know how I started listening to Busted. I think I got lost on YouTube a whole decade ago, found the music video for What I Go to School For and liked it. For some reason, I stuck around even when I found out they had broken up years before, wanting them back even when I knew it was near impossible.
Yesterday wasn't even the first time I had seen Busted live. I've seen them at the NEC in Birmingham with Marie, in May of last year. We got better seats than we should have and I cried a whole lot during Year 3000 of all songs. This is, after all, a song about a time-traveling machine and a future where women have three breasts and Busted have outsold Michael Jackson. Why did it make me cry, go wonder.
I have also seen them at the Hippodrome of Kingston in December, right after I'd come back from Glasgow. It was a half hour set in a club and the two girls next to me got into a fight, one of them threw a drink at the other and clearly missed her target as I ended up covered in beer, but it was so, so worth it. Singing along to your favourite songs never gets old.
Yesterday was the most special of the three, though.
It was the most special because I got to spend it with my friends, old and new. We were all reunited, enjoying an easy beer and one of the first warm evenings of the year on the terrace of the Trabendo, reminiscing the good old days when we could go clubbing without our legs hurting for three days and when our favourite bands were still together. Memories of a girl throwing herself at the feet of Dave Strauchman of Every Avenue, of a half empty You Me At Six gig in that same venue or of our first Slam Dunks were thrown around the place, with laughter and smiles. There were people I hadn't seen in years and people I'd seen the week before ; people I'd known for seven, eight years and counting, and people I'd known for a week, tops. Plans for catching up drinks and a reunion of all the Frenchies at Slam Dunk were made.
A couple of years ago, for some warped, twisted reason I couldn't explain (but could probably file under crippling social anxiety, the height of my depression, a toxic environment or maybe all of the above), I convinced myself that everyone in my local scene hated me. Going to gigs had become really awkward as I felt everyone thought I was unsufferable and annoying, and when I decided to move to England, I couldn't wait to get out of here and leave all of my anxious gig days behind. When I came back to Paris, earlier this year, I felt awkward again. Of course I did. I felt like all eyes were on me, for some reason. And not in a good way.
It turns out all the gigs I went to since my come back have been a giant mates fest, and maybe, all those years ago, my brain should have shut the hell up.
Yesterday, as we were all dancing around to Year 3000, bouncing up and down like we were fifteen again, trying to open up a moshpit or crowdsurf, I realised that those people are family. They understand me like no one else ever will, and I love them more than the world.
Busted are one brilliant pop band, aren't they? A knack at creating catchy tracks, a talent at turning lines like "I messed my pants when we flew over France" (Air Hostess), "Can't tell my friends 'cause they will laugh, I love a member of the staff" (What I Go to School For) or "Triple breasted women swim around town totally naked" (Year 3000) into something iconic, and boyband good looks that have lasted through fifteen years, a break up, musicals and a post-hardcore band have earned them a spot at the top of the early 2000s pop pile in the UK. Breaking up right when they were, pretty much, the biggest band in their home soil ensured them some sort of legendary status, creating an unreal hype around their comeback. You should have seen people when they announced their return with the original line up. Even my superior at work, all suits and £100k a year goals, couldn't believe his ears.
Breaking up before most of us could see them live, especially us on the mainland, created a sense of excitement very few artists from the early 2000s can actually still provoke in their fans.
Breaking up before most of us could see them live, especially us on the mainland, created a sense of excitement very few artists from the early 2000s can actually still provoke in their fans.
No one is really there for the new songs. They may be really good, and, if we're fair, Night Driver is a very solid pop album, but all of us only really want to sing along to Who's David?, Crashed the Wedding or shed a tear or ten thousand to Sleeping With the Light On or Meet You There. The keyboards and the 80s inspired sounds may be excellent and dance moves material, but we're probably all going home cherishing the memory of Charlie Simpson unexpectedly screaming to 3am. Last night, our teenage years mattered more than anything else in the world.
Many a time, I have joked about a day like yesterday, and I have said more times than I care to count that I would plainly refuse to leave the building without meeting Charlie Simpson. Thanks to his work with Fightstar and his solo albums, he has become one of my favourite musicians in the world, and meeting him was a dream of mine.
And last night, it came true.
I might have uncontrollably sobbed looking at my picture with him, back at home, and the memory will probably get me choked up for a long time.
I also got to meet James Bourne, and if you add to that me meeting Matt Willis with Alice in the winter of 2012, after the premiere of Wicked, you can safely say that I have met the entirety of Busted, now.
If you'd told me.
If you'd told me.