In the spirit of moving on, I looked up and streamed the album that gave us Everybody: Songs from the Big Chair. Over the next few days of my respiratory virus and associated insomnia, I became intimately familiar with it.
Once we got to the arena, we wove our way through the silver-haired crowd towards the upper level seats in inside the Xcel Energy Center. Pat laughed and in a hushed voice said: “I just can’t get over all the old people here.”
SJ Rowland Sandwich factory, Auckland, 1995 We had headaches from the overhead lighting, sore backs from leaning over the tables, and we were bored, bad tempered and depressed. There was one compensation, though: we could listen to the radio.
Maria Majsa University of London Union, Malet Street, WC1, 1986 He smiled, stared at his shoes and said Hello. He looked so pale and young. I said Hi in a voice I didn’t recognise.
Roger Wells, songwriter Pigdon St, Carlton, April 1979 I woke my girlfriend Carol and played the song to her. "It's a hit," she said and went back to sleep.
Fiona Price Family room, New Year's Day, January 1987 As midnight struck, I stepped onto the patio and breathed in 1987. The tiles were still warm beneath my fourteen-year-old feet, but the New Year's air had the simmering cool of night after a hot summer's day.
Phil Dimitriadis Northern suburbs, Melbourne, July 1985 My first real kiss was a cheap tequila breath away.