Post Gig Comedown

Probably something that should only affect people who actually did the performing. But look at that blurry horror of a picture of Jonathan Higgs, lead singer of Everything Everything. I took that. I took that while standing next to the stage - so close, in fact, that it barked my shins. That's how low down the stage was. I could have stepped onto it without even bothering my lazy and recalcitrant hamstrings. My headmaster at primary school kept more distance when he was pretending to sing the ditties out of Come And Praise. Here, I could have reached out with no straining or visible effort whatsoever and improvised an extended solo on the bassist's damn instrument. And on his bass. Fnarrr.

I was very, very close. So maybe the post gig comedown leaked forth from the enthusiastic and seemingly happy-as-larry band and lapped upon the feet of us chosen few who muscled our way to the front of this tres intime gig. All I know is this: after I had waved goodbye to my wonderful new companion, who had, with the professional hawk's eye of an inveterate gig-goer and merchandise-lover, claimed the last remaining pristine advertising poster off the walls of the club and thus secures all my slow, knowing nods of admiration I have in my nodding locker, I had a number of thoughts which all rear-ended each other like they were a procession of cliched, never-arriving buses controlled by leering men in the '90s who'd never seen a Wonderbra poster or, presumably, boobs before.

These thoughts:

1. That was actually the best gig I've ever seen. A beautiful conflagration of time, opportunity, happenstance, whatever, but that is currently my favourite band, they are about to become megastars, and I have seen them perform all their amazing songs standing three feet away from me.
2. It is now over.
3. I have just seen a proper Mercury-nominated band blow the roof off a classic venue at incredibly close range!
4. It is now over.
5. Thing is: I'm not very good at being in the moment. While I'm in the moment, I am often worrying that I'm not enjoying the moment to the fullest of its potential. I am also quite focussed on the encroaching end of the moment, thus missing quite a large proportion of the moment. This is excellent in some realms of life, like getting inoculations or eating a sandwich in a Caffe Nero, but pretty damn inconvenient in other areas, like having sex with things and watching astoundingly good gigs.
6. Which are now over.
7. Why am I on my third lap of Trafalgar Square?
8. ...
9. OH NO! Did I actually use the advantage of standing right at the front, right at the side where the band would enter and exit the stage, to do a light tippy-tappy motion on Jonathan Higg's arm as he walked past, as if a) he was a desk and I was a bored secretary from the '50s, or b) he was an unexploded World War 2 bomb I was pretty sure was filled with water, but just drunk enough to try and make go boom-boom? Yes. Yes, I did. At least I didn't stroke his arm (inappropriate) or hug his arm (groupie-lite) or wrench his arm off and beat someone to death with it (too purty for gaol).
10. I don't want to listen to them any more.

That was the most worrying one: that I'd somehow broken the unbreakable covalent bond between my hypothalamus and those damn songs. That I'd not actually be able to hear to them again, because the painful yearning for a memory that wasn't fully committed, the emptiness somewhere above the gut which should be exploding with frothing pleasure like an extra strong mint in a Coke bottle when the cymbals crash and the synth swells, would be oh oh oh too much to bear, with the swooning, and the crying, and the FLAVEN...blaven...

Anyway, I was, as always, guilty of overthinking the fuck out of it, and although that evening did not feature any more Everything Everything, I did rediscover my EE mojo a few days later, skipping through the rain like some kind of unbearable bell-end. You could have filmed me and stuck me on a match.com advert, if they ever wanted for some reason to run their own company into fiery ruination.

But still. Bit blue after something which should have cheered me up for weeks. Meh. Still waiting for something to happen...anything. Anything?

NOT THAT!

Maybe that.