Memories Make Music

How Deep Is Your Love?

Music has been a huge part of my life from a very early age. My earliest memories start during the year of 1996 aged nine.

The 90’s seemed dominated by Take That and you were either ‘Team Gary’ or ‘Team Robbie’. Of my cousins who cared, they were all ‘Team Robbie’ and their walls were adorned with Robbie posters. I don’t know what it was about Gary that the nine year old Sandra seemed to love. It seemed to become a pattern as I developed through the years. I always choose to ‘fangirl’ over the shy, unassuming, lead singer of bands.

On the 13th February 1996 Take That announced that they were disbanding. It seemed as if every girl in the world went into mourning! I remember sitting ever so close to the TV, (as if I might somehow be able to reach in), watching Gary make the announcement whilst uncontrollably sobbing. The music world was impacting me in ways I had never experienced before and my little nine year old heart had suffered it’s first heartbreak. Little did I know that this was to be the first of many musical related sufferings.

Love Me For A Reason

With Take That gone I needed to find a new musical muse. My mum was already a big fan of the band Boyzone and it was around the time that they released ‘Coming Home Now’ not long after the Take That split that I started to become heavily invested and particularly obsessed with Ronan Keating. I have many years worth of memories to write about and share with you in the future but it is suffice to say that the ‘obsession’ continues to this day and I am nearly thirty one! Of course, my heart was shattered when they too disbanded but then there was that beautiful reunion oh so short lived due to the tragic passing of Stephen Gately. Oh, what a ride it has been if you are indeed a Boyzone fan!

Girl Power

If Boyzone were the most popular band of the late 90’s then the Spice Girls were the female equivalents. Looking back to 1997, my family and I moved to the country where I became friends with a beautiful soul called Kirsty. Kirsty and I would spend hours ‘singing’ into hairbrushes, practicing all of the moves and ‘harrassing’ her mum to style us ready for our ‘performances’. Our stage consisted of the small window ledge in Kirsty’s front room and our audience was the grand total of one adult, two children and a dog – but we loved it! She is forever my ‘Baby Spice’.

Swear It Again

The definition of what it means to be a ‘fan’ has changed for me personally over the years. Looking back at my fifteen year old self I can see that ‘being a fan’ meant I had to support my chosen artist/band through thick and thin! When Boyzone took their ‘little’ eight year ‘break’ in 1999 it seemed only natural that I would turn to support Westlife and ‘Swear It Again’ to another Irish boyband. Coincidentally one that Ronan managed and promoted for a time. Cue another lengthy obsession followed by the ‘usual’ heartbreak when they disbanded. Now we are into 2012 and your looking at a twenty-four year old Sandra!

Love How It Hurts

With Westlife going their separate ways I had no band in my life. Flicking the TV one day I saw Scouting For Girls performing ‘I wish I was James Bond’. I remember texting my long suffering Westlife touring pal Rach to turn on the TV. By the end of the evening we had discovered the bands next promo appearance and we were both free! I obviously just ‘Love How It Hurts’, because this band have yet to break up!