I always found myself rather lucky when it came to lack of regrets; I’d never slept with anyone too ugly or rubbish and I always had fun with everything I did. I would always happily state that I never had a regret in life, or would imply that my current terrible hair colour would be it. Which is fine, because it’s the colour of bloody hair. Obviously I’ve woken up on Sunday mornings, feeling complete horror when remembering the antics which occurred the night before; who doesn’t? But it’s never been, in hindsight, that much of a big deal.
During college years, I fell very close to my friend, Becky. She opened my eyes to a lot of things; fashion, music and general values. I guess I'd always had the same voice as her, she just helped me make mine louder without realising it. After college, we went our separate ways; me up North, and she trundled along to the capital. One holiday came along, where we both found ourselves at the same place at the same time, and on a drunk summery day, cherry Lambrini in tow, she asked me why on earth we decided to watch The Klaxons over the Smashing Pumpkins when we went to the Reading Festival in 2007. We drunkenly laughed at our stupidity of missing out on rock legends, which we had always admired, for a band we had only had a summer fling with.
So, that was it, after that, I would tell everyone that my biggest regret in life, was watching The Klaxons play over The Smashing Pumpkins.
The whole time at the festival had been somewhat awkward; all college friends had been put back together after a summer apart due to some great idea we had about 8 months prior when we all still talked. We weren’t the gang we once were. We had grown apart but were forced to share a tent. I had been arguing with my boyfriend on the phone the whole time because we were just shit with each other, so the experience wasn’t looking too great.
The final night came, and along with it, vomit. We sat down at the back of the dance tent, wondering why on earth no one else had chose this delightful area. I put my hair behind my ear and then I smelt the reason why…but we continue to wait for the Klaxons. We somehow got hold of glow sticks, just in time for the best bassline I’d ever heard, it was the best bassline we’d all ever heard. We stood from our sticky seats, and for the first time, we laughed off the half consumed carrot on my fucking sleeve and we bloody danced. All was forgotten, or remembered if you like, and we were friends again. The mutual acknowledgement of the quality music brought us back to where we started out. We didn’t know what we were dancing to, but it was too good not to.
Five years later, I’m in Bristol with my (next) boyfriend, we’re killing time waiting to watch a band later that evening. So we pop into HMV, naturally, it’s one of my favourite places to spend time and money. After H+M. So there we are, and I stumble across a blu ray disc titled “Shut Up And Play The Hits”, I pick it up and read the blurb; how on earth did I miss out on LCD Soundsystem’s final ever show? I absolutely adored them! Their album Sound of Silver is one of those cds which I can put in my player and listen to for days. I had even leant it to three colleagues of mine, trying to spread the word about them (two of them were boys I fancied, trying to impress them with my fantastic musical knowledge). So I bought it and we took it home.
So, days later, I find myself with, finally, some spare time, and this fabulous blu ray disc. I put it on and find myself drawing the curtains, turning the volume up and dancing around my living room. It was as if I was there. I sit down and watch the rest of the dvd, in utter awe of the fabulous band and the even more fabulous songs. They were so perfectly constructed. So right up my street.
So, using my forever faithful hindsight, I take back my biggest regret as not seeing little Billy Corgan rock out, because it was one of the best decisions I had ever made. If it wasn’t for that, I would have never discovered the fantastic LCD Soundsystem. And I never would have passed on their work to the beautiful boys.
So, this brings me back to where I started from, not having a biggest regret in life. Which isn’t a bad place to be in at all. Well, apart from the shit colour of my hair…but you know what, I’ll settle for that.