Taffeta Euphoria

It’s the year 2000 and I have not long been ten. Around me in a horseshoe are cushions, lifted from all corners of the house. The best one is the taffeta, the snare. It makes a satisfying ‘dat’ when I hit it with my sticks. For toms I have curated harder toys and books, overlaid with tea towels for a better kind of ‘bom’. Knowing I’d get told to turn it down, I savour the brilliant opening bars of the chorus of Heart Shaped Box. I thrash along wildly. If I go loud enough I can say ‘I didn’t hear you’ when my Mum inevitably appears, and she might just believe me. I played like this for years, perfecting the layout of my ‘kit’ by studying my favourite drummers on TV.

At fourteen I saved the wages from my paper-round and upgraded to slick, black table top pads. My mates and I decided it was time to gig and chose Oh Yeah by The Subways to perform to the school. Tom on guitar, Matt on vocals, and Jim on bass. We crossed the stage like gods. I was on the kit, a real one this time, which it quickly transpired felt nothing like the rubber practice pads I was used to. I can still remember the name of our band. It was the stuff of teenage brains, a string of words inspired by an ever-present impulse to offend.

Fast-forward to my twenties, a new band and an audience of eight-hundred people moving to our music in the sun. In the run up to the gig we had rehearsed like crazy and it showed. At the front was Ahmar, singing and bouncing around with waist-length dreads that at high points he’d let loose and send flying across the stage. To his left, Mensah, a London rapper, all street slang and swag. To his right, Missy, petite but powerful with a thick Edinburgh accent, taking care of the high notes. Behind this dynamic trio was me and the rest of the rhythm section.

For all our differences in looks and performance style, this was a band with serious rapport. The climax of the gig came after several minutes of high intensity hip-hop rock. Missy and the two guys busted out a dance sequence, expertly choreographed to hype the fans. Suddenly the routine would stop, synced perfectly with the most epic crash of the cymbals I could muster. A brief moment of silence followed and then Missy would begin to rap. No one in the audience ever saw it coming, and there was something about this tiny blonde Scot’s rhymes that sent the crowd absolutely loopy every time.

From the stage I could see them all. Some were fans we recognised, others were new. Everyone was present in the moment, united in the music and aliveness of it all. There’s a symbiotic relationship between band and audience, both feed off each other to create an energy unique to each gig. You become part of something bigger than yourself. Euphoria. Any festival goer will know the feeling. I remember getting close to it in my garage at fourteen. We were the epicentre of Ilminster, my buddies & I. The sensation at the festival was the same, only amplified. Nothing else existed but our bodies in the sound and our hearts inside the beat.