This months @yourtop3 contest topic is
Favourite Lead Singers
This has been so difficult, as I have 4 people and I just didn’t know what to do! The funniest thing about this topic is that my taste in music over the years has been quite diverse (it may not seem it in my post though).
So @cheese4ead and I have been together for 27 years now, and the thing that stands out about this topic is that whenever he used to mention a band, I would usually be able to say “yes, I’ve seen them live!” Michael Jackson and Madonna being some of the big names down to Five Star, The Shamen and Go West! Like I said, my mix of tastes as a teenager meant that in the space of one week, I travelled to Newport in Wales to see Public Enemy on one weekend and Bros the next!
Therefore, I am only going to choose lead singers that I have personally seen live. But I have to go down to 3 from 4 and although these were my favourite band through my teenage years and I probably listen to them more than anyone else to this day, I am leaving out Duran Duran and therefore Simon Le Bon, from my top 3.
John Taylor was always my favourite member of the band anyway, so this is why! I also feel that the other 3 that I have chosen represent more of a journey over time and a mix of genre, as well as the fact that I believe that they have stronger voices and/or showmanship.
Morten Harket
Take on Me as a teenager, just blew me away. That video and the 3 fresh faced young guys from Norway appeared on the scene. I remember being glued to Saturday Superstore and Top of the Pops, videoing any clip of them on my Betamax video recorder! I was lucky enough to see them twice, the first when I was a screaming teenager at the Bristol Colston Hall. A very small and intimate venue.
The second time was nearly 18 years ago in London (I was newly pregnant with @MonoRosado at the time). Morten Harket’s voice is beautiful. He is not the showman, in fact, quite shy about the fame and screaming girls that were thrust at him!
My absolute favourite track is here, showing that after all these years, his voice is still beautiful. This track was part of the Deadpool 2 soundtrack, so a very recent performance.
Michael Hutchence
So, going back to what I was saying about @cheese4ead earlier! I told him the lead singers I was considering for this piece. He started researching videos. I mentioned that the concert that I went to see was called Summer XS and I was trying to remember who the rest of the line up was. (It was July 1991 and it was Roachford, Jesus Jones, Hothouse Flowers, Jelly Fish, Deborah Harry ((Blondie)) and INXS). @cheese4ead was busy playing his all time favourite live version of The Stairs and he suddenly looked up and said “1991 - Wembley Stadium?” I’m like “yes, that is it.” He then realises that his all time favourite track of theirs is recorded at the concert that I was actually at! Again, he is not amused! But Michael Hutchence was a great showman and they had an excellent catalogue of catchy songs in a very short space of time. Obviously what happened to him is notorious and he was taken far too soon. Maybe that was why he was such an amazing frontman. A great concert to be at (sorry @cheese4ead).
Chris Martin
I chose this one last because I actually shared this one with @cheese4ead and @monorosado, but it was also one of my most favourite days ever! I know that Chris Martin is a bit of a marmite character - you either love him or hate him, but I love Coldplay. My all time favourite song is Clocks and they do an amazing live show. So, here is my little story.
We were living in Bahrain at the time and we were going to be flying back to Bristol for Christmas. We had already booked flights and as my birthday is on New Year’s Day, we were going to have a few cheeky days in Dubai over the New Year of 2011/2012, on our way home. However, Coldplay announced that they were going to do a one off New Year’s Eve concert at the Abu Dhabi Corniche, so I just had to get tickets. We were going to be in the country, why not? We got the tickets and all 3 of us were going with our friends and their daughter of the same age (about 8 years old). So, we had a great hotel on the outskirts of the city, we travelled in by taxi, the taxi driver having no clue that such a huge event was taking place that night!
The concert was awesome, we are pretty sure that the band flew in by helicopter and landed just before it started and flew out again afterwards. The concert was awesome, but there isn’t any decent footage as 2011 was the Blackberry era!!!!! The countdown for New Year, the fireworks over the marina, it was such a special event.
What happened afterwards makes it all the more memorable. Taxi drivers in the arab states do not like to be caught in traffic, so they all avoided the area. We had no way of getting back to the hotel, with two 8 year old girls at 1am. We went to a local hotel to see if taxis were arriving, there was nothing. We just wandered down the road, chatting to other concert goers, just not knowing how we were going to get back. Suddenly, this little “magical mystery tour bus” arrived over the horizon! I can only imagine that it was a poorly paid expat with a bus, being entrepreneurial! We took a punt and got on this bus and paid him some dirhams. There were quite a few other expats from many other countries on it. He took us to an out of town shopping mall and low and behold, taxis everywhere!!!!!
We got back to our hotel at about 2.30am and as I said, it was my birthday, so we consumed many bottles of Moet, the girls fell asleep and we stayed up chatting and laughing until 5am. So much fun, and one of my most incredible memories and at the centre of it all was Chris Martin! A great musician, songwriter, singer and showman. I chose this live version of Fix You, to give you an idea of their concerts.
So yes, my choices are based on memories - but isn’t that what music is all about?
Thanks for reading.
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