Here's to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do...
Go to a Take That Gig
When I was growing up, I was massively, completely and utterly, in love with Jason Orange, member of the wildly successful 90s boyband Take That.
To be honest, my love wasn't solely focused on just Jason. No no no. There was Robbie, Mark, and Howard too. My 9 year old heart felt like it was constantly bursting full of things like sunbeams and unicorns and flowers in spring every time I looked at their beautiful faces or listened to their sweet sweet music. The more astute among you might have noticed that I'm yet to mention Gary. Poor Gary.
Ahem.. anyway. Little did I know that my little heart was about to get crushed, as in February 1995, after a whole load of shit went down with Robbie, Take That announced to legions of fans that they were splitting up. My sole memory of this day is crying hysterically in the car. A later memory involves my mum buying me the Take That Greatest Hits compilation and that becoming my MOST PRIZED possession.. along with an oversized Take That badge that I probably got free in some magazine. Whoop!
Fast forward to the present day, and Take That announce that they are reforming. FUCK YES, my nine year old self rejoices with the fire of a thousand suns. Bu more heartache was to come, as, despite trying over and over and over, I could never manage to buy tickets for any of their gigs.
BUT! Fate was on my side when one unsuspecting Thursday, a colleague comes in to work and casually announces that he has two spare Take That tix for their gig at Wembley Stadium tomorrow night, and would anyone like them. Erm, hells YEAH!!
My colleague and I left a bit early from work and, together with hordes of other women, made our way to Wembley Stadium. It was like a massive tidal wave of women of all ages, and it was epic!
The gig itself was immense. It was split into 3 distinct sections: the first was with Gary, Mark, Jason and Howard, doing their more recent hits as a 4-piece.Then there was a section dedicated solely to Robbie and his solo stuff, which to be honest, I thought went on for far too long (though he did do Angels which I have to say was awesome to belt out with 80,000 other people).
The final, and best, section, was all 5 guys reunited together again.
They did most of the classics - Relight my Fire, Never Forget, Sure, Everything Changes, Could it be Magic to name a few - and it was absolutely awesome to find that I still remembered all the words, even after all this time! One of my favourite things about going to gigs is that feeling of awesome togetherness when thousands and thousands of people are united in singing one song. It was an awesome awesome gig and I sang myself hoarse.
There can't be anything better than your childhood heroes reforming and coming back even better than before. All the guys have aged really well and I was actually really surprised at how good vocally they were. Another highlight was definitely the part where Howard and Jason performed a massive dance off! These guys are a lot older now, but holy hell, can they still move!
I had such an awesome time, and I think a lot of that was due to the fact that I had been waiting so so long to see them perform again. All my childhood emotions came rushing back. It was really great to revert back to that time in my life for a few hours. NEVER FORGET :D