Growing up, guitars and good friends.

When I was in my teens, the big musical thing was Britpop. Now, that isn’t my fault, so don’t be too hard on me. The thing about music is it isn’t necessarily what’s best in a technical sense that becomes your favourite. Sure, everyone can appreciate decent lyrics and great playing. But your favourite music often becomes your favourite because of how you felt, or what you were doing, or even how old you were when you heard it. So when I first really got into music, following a brief flirtation with the mighty Jovi, it was to the strains of the Britpop movement. Blur’s Parklife was the first record I truly fell in love with (and to this day I remain so), but Oasis slowly eclipsed Blur as my favourite. As with so many of today’s leading guitar acts, Definitely Maybe inspired me to buy a guitar. I lacked both the talent and the will for it to go any further than a hobby, but being able to play first Oasis, and later Stereophonics, Blur and Weller was among the greatest joys of my teenage life.

One of my childhood friends, Ian, loved Oasis as much as I did, and there is no doubt that we bonded tremendously over this mutual love. Entire weekends would disappear learning Slide Away or Champagne Supernova; Ian singing, me playing guitar. Our friends were probably bored half to death listening to us, but we didn’t care. Then we got older, and things change as they always do. Girlfriends, jobs, moving all conspired to move my guitars to a cupboard under the stairs. Late last year Ian died of a rare form of Leukaemia, and now I find myself remembering all those weekends spent playing guitar. Turns out I can’t listen to Live Forever all the way through without crying anymore.

We never did get a band together. But in the end that isn’t what matters. What matters is the comfort of the memories I have of those years. There has been much talk of Ian looking down on us and the things we’re doing with approval and love. If you’ve read enough of these you’ll know that in my heart that’s a belief I can’t share, but at times like these I feel and understand the need people have for it, and I cannot give enough kudos to the vicar who spoke at Ian’s funeral, who happily admitted that he had been tasked with giving the ceremony just enough religion ‘to get him in’, and the good grace with which he managed this.

Thoughts now turn to those guitars, gathering dust under the stairs. I think maybe I’ll bring them out again into the light of day and give Don’t Look Back in Anger a whirl. It feels like a modest tribute, but somehow the most heartfelt.