I had a moment tonight.
It wasn't on the way to the gig, sitting at the traffic lights, eyes glancing over at the window of the gym, where various bodies in all stages of musculature stretched, crunched and pushed to their own inharmonious rhythm.
It wasn't at the Wetherspoons pub where three meals and three pints got me change from £21 (I wasn't being greedy; there were three of us).
It definitely wasn't during the support act, Backyard Babies, whose punkish rawk left me indifferent, despite the jeers from the quivering guitarist (when he wasn't wiping his nose with long swipes of his wrist).
It wasn't even during the rock posturing of Black Star Riders, playing a co-headline gig with GUN at the O2 ABC in Sauchiehall Street. They were good but I preferred them when they played a more balanced mix of Thin Lizzy and their own stuff.
It came during the opening bars of GUN's "Better Days". It felt in an instant that the years were peeled away, shedding the baggage I've collected both physically and mentally over the last thirty years. The music took me back to my early twenties, a time when I had no responsibilities, no ties but was generally shy and quiet. I loved rock music and local band GUN in particular. The live GUN experience was so freeing, unleashing my usually repressed emotions to jump and bounce, sing and shout, pump the air and go wild along with everyone around me. I took the tunes into my heart and they made it beat faster. They reminded me I was alive.
So thank you GUN for reawakening that feeling inside. It was great to be reminded of better days. There's no better high than feeling young again.
GUN Setlist
Let It Shine
Word Up! (Cameo cover)
Don't Say It's Over
Better Days
Hold Your Head Up
Money (Everybody Loves Her)
She Knows
Labour Of Life
Inside Out
Steal Your Fire
Shame on You
(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!) (Beastie Boys cover)
BSR Setlist
Heavy Fire
Bloodshot
The Killer Instinct
Dancing With the Wrong Girl
Soldierstown
When the Night Comes In
All Hell Breaks Loose
The Boys Are Back in Town (Thin Lizzy cover)
Cold War Love
Who Rides the Tiger
Testify or Say Goodbye
Kingdom of the Lost
Bound for Glory
Finest Hour
