No other title was deemed suitable to head this post! Those of you who read Kate's Blog will know that we both went to see a-ha in concert this week. I went to see them at the Manchester Evening News Arena on Tuesday and Kate in Nottingham on Friday thanks to my enabling!
To set the scene...a-ha came into my life back in 1984...I was 11. I wasn't interested in boys other than as mates and the only crush I'd had by that age was on Andrew Ridgley from Wham!. Well the poor Wham! boys posters soon got replaced by the many a-ha posters I accumulated over the next few years, and I fell in love BIG time with Morten Harket. I don't think I had ever seen anyone I thought THAT beautiful!
Not only that, but his voice did strange things to me...it made me feel things I didn't know I was capable of feeling...sorrow, mourning, pain, passion and beauty.
I became their biggest fan, I even visited the local cobblers to buy strips of leather to tie around my wrist! They stayed on my wrists until they rotted off. I also had the baseball boots and the big socks and then...they came to play live in my home town when I was 13. I was sooooooo excited, I saved up my pocket money, looked up the bus timetables and then was completely gutted when my mum said I was too young to go. You have no idea of how much I cried. I had to be content with the cassettes and the posters. I even had a pillow case with them on so could 'next to' my beloved Morten.
...Fast Forward to May 2005...I own all the albums they had released up to press (except the special edition European ones) From Hunting High and Low to Memorial Beach, the Greatest Hits collections and the lesser known Minor Earth, Major Sky and Lifelines albums. I was a regular visitor to the website!!! Then, I knew my lifelong ambition was going to be fulfilled when I saw on the site that they had announced the tour dates for the UK. The closest to me being Manchester and only 5 days after my 32nd birthday. So I got to the 'select payment' part of the online ticket ordering site and phoned DBF. I don't quite think he knew what to do with his screaming, hyper girlfriend at this stage other than to say 'Yes I will go with you' and that was it...that left finger clicked and my tickets arrived a few days later.
My pot came off my leg the day before the concert, and I had to walk a mile from the car park to the arena with my crutch...but I did not care one iota.
I only felt the pain in my foot during the warm up act and the minute I heard that voice, the pain subsided. They played 20 tracks in their two hour slot and I was amazed at how brilliant they were. They sang 'Living a Boys Adventure Tale' which is too beautiful to describe, it was a gem of a treat. All the old stuff, and some new stuff. I proudly sat there in my tour t-shirt bought minutes earlier by my ever suffering DBF and openly lusted over another man. So I have a lot of thank yous to say...
Thank You to you 'upstairs' for letting my pot come off the day before...
Thank You to DBF for driving me all the way there and back and not minding that I was openly drooling over another man...
and lastly Thank You Morten for being as delicious as I remembered you and for making my soul sing with that voice of yours...I am complete...