Went to a great gig last night. The Orbital Band, or just “Orbital” to give them their full title. Fucking outstanding,  as ever. I was there with some dear friends and my best mates kids, 14 year olds, they loved it, encouragingly so. In fact after the gig when we were arguing the title of the song on the way back to the car my friends daughter put us straight. You’ll understand when you get to my age.

Its funny when you see a band you’ve been following since the late ’80’s (second summer of love) the emotions you experienced back then, back in the illegal raves in fields near Newmarket or down by the coast in Brighton, are brought back to you, rushing through your body and mind, making believe that actually I really was there, where i lost my mind, in a puddle in a field or in a farmer’s barn, or trying to negotiate with a farmer when he turns up in the morning with 300 Dairy cows to feed and he sees us all there “woo, woo, woo-ing” My friend Adam, he lives in Singapore and so there is no possible chance of tracing him, got into the tractor after the farmer got down from it to shout at us for breaking into his field, there was no chance of his stealing it, he could barely walk. We didn’t break in, we couldn’t get into Sterns, a big manor house club somewhere near Brighton, so we met up with some punters at an all night garage who told us to park in the awful looking pub car park and wait for the black Renault 5; follow that and you’ll find your utopia. We certainly did, in some valley bowl, surrounded by fields, in a barn, surrounded by haybales, where a ford transit van pulled up, opened its side doors to reveal some decks and some massive speakers, and then off we went, surrounded by crusties, hippies and travellers. Halcyon days.

That’s who the Orbital band are to me, they are care free days, never ending nights, the invincibility of my youth, which, on occasion, I still hanker for. But soon afterwards realise I have no desire to repeat at my age.

It was a late one, being a Sunday night too I was hoping to get my head down before 12:30. But after stopping for a wee on the way back, and trying to find an all night garage to buy milk non the way home, it was at least an hour after the target time. We visited an all night garage, the person serving behind a glass window with a woeful intercom looked as disinterested and pissed off as all the others I have encountered in years gone by. Aside from the bloke in Southport in 1993, he was always off his head on a Saturday night, he had tunes playing and used to give us free stuff, possibly unwittingly. We would confuse him, and he us. He didn’t last long!

So good night fellows and keep on raving, or at least listening to the stuff which helped shape who you are today.