Our year of concerts

This year truly was a year of concerts. Many of our favourite groups and singers were touring this year, and we were lucky enough to secure tickets to some great shows.

It all kicked off with Jason Donovan at Worthing Assembly Hall just down the road. This was such a fun concert, we were only a few rows back so we had a great view, and I had a fantastic time singing along and waving my arms. It was such a good atmosphere!

We followed that with a trip to see his contemporary Kylie Minogue at the O2 in London. Quite a contrast! The audience for Kylie was fantastic, really well-mannered and there was lots of effort put in to outfits. Kylie has a great back catalogue from over the years so there were plenty of songs to sing and dance along to, with some fantastic backup singers and dancers.

Then it was back to the O2 for my favourite group of all - Pulp and the You Deserve More tour. I've seen them several times over the years and they always put on a great show. We had really good seats and I loved the structure of the show - two neat halves with an interval in the middle. Pulp showcased songs from their brilliant new album More, and I'm sure that Jarvis Cocker looked directly at me and asked me to meet him by the fountain down the road.

Over the summer we found ourselves at Wembley several times. Getting tickets for most of our concerts was not in any way easy, and tickets for Oasis were the most difficult. We spent a whole morning queueing and the whole experience was stressful, but worth it. We were seated right up at the back and the audience was a little rowdy but it was an amazing night. An intimate venue can be nice to feel a connection with the group, but nothing beats being part of an enormous crowd all singing along together to a classic song like Wonderwall. 

You may be unfamiliar with Blackpink as a group but I'm sure that you will have heard of the very popular song Apt. performed by Rosé, one of their members. My daughter is a huge fan of Blackpink, and so when the tickets went on sale we rushed to buy decent tickets for her, me and my husband. Then they announced another date for the following evening, and just before the concerts we discovered that we could buy tickets for all four of us for the same price as just one of our original tickets! So we went along for a second night running, this time with my son in tow.

I made a big effort before these concerts. I downloaded the setlist and made sure that I knew at least the chorus to all the songs. One of their songs, Shutdown, was my second most played song of the year on Spotify because I had it on repeat while learning the rap. We made bracelets and took along Blackpink light sticks. 

The first night we had great seats down the front to one side and had a fantastic view. The second night we were in the cheaper seats at the top, but we had a great view of the stadium as a whole and could really appreciate the way that it lit up with all the pink light sticks. I had a great time dancing and singing along, and I hope that my daughter enjoyed the concerts too much to be embarrassed!

Our final trip to Wembley this year saw Chris Martin thanking us all for coming out on a Wednesday night to see Coldplay - as if we'd had any choice on the day in another mad rush for tickets! When we booked the tickets early in the year this was intended to be our first concert with both teenagers, as having seen them live a few times we knew that it would be a fun, colourful show. We weren't wrong, they loved the light up wristbands and confetti, bouncy balls and special glasses.

Our amazing year of concerts came to an end right where it began, at Worthing Assembly Hall, with The Lightning Seeds. We were standing for this one, but because it's a small venue we were still close to the front. Maybe a bit of a comedown from the last time I saw them back at Glastonbury as a teenager, but I do love their music. It's so boppy, and some of their lyrics really resonate with me. And so nice to be safely back home just twenty minutes after the concert finished!

Finally there's the one that got away. We would have loved to have seen Radiohead this autumn as we've never seen them live, but despite our best efforts we weren't able to secure tickets. 

Never mind, even though next year doesn't look to be quite as busy we did manage to get tickets to see Take That (or I think three of them at least) in Southampton next spring! I missed out on their last tour because I'd just had a baby, so I'm really looking forward to this one.

Did you get to any concerts this year?