1986: Talk Talk at Hammersmith Odeon.

Talk Talk first came across as a New Romantic band, in the Duran Duran/Human League sector, and I liked them. The second album was far more sophisticated and graced the hedonistic holiday in Crete 84. And then in Spring 1986 came "The Colour of Spring", which was something else entirely, every track a rich work of art which stands the test of time today.
It was melancholy music, but life was anything but melancholy. Annie liked them too, so when we saw that they would play Hammersmith Odeon, we snapped up tickets.
It was possibly the best concert of my life. It starts low key, but they are playing perfectly. We are spellbound. They are playing out of their skins, all of them, including Mark Feltham who plays epic harmonica on "Living in Another World". Listen to us, the audience, after that one, the acclaim goes on and on. Talk Talk, Annie, and I, in perfect harmony. It felt like a very special night in my life. We booked a holiday in Lesbos after that.

Then it all exploded, Lesbos never happened, and I went somewhere else. But there's a postscript to that night, and this concert.

Deep in the future, in my new life, in our newly rented house in Smichov,  in a new millenium, I was browsing Amazon, and stopped dead in my tracks. A live CD of Talk Talk Hammersmith Odeon , May 1986. How could this be? How could I never had heard of this? But it had, inexplicably, only been released a year earlier. And there it was, a CD of one of the most iconic concerts of my life, a marker of a high point in my life, before a fall and a pivot to a new and wider world.