They say you should never meet your heroes, but the Mrs and I threw caution to the wind a couple of weeks ago and did precisely that. The little lady is a Cast superfan, you know the indie rock band from the 1990s, and we jumped on the chance to attend Cast’s new album launch at Crash Records in Leeds.
Music has never been all that important to me. Growing up, classmates argued over whether Oasis or Blur was the better band, while I sat back wondering what all the fuss was about. Nobody mentioned Cast back then, mainly because Oasis and Blur were so popular. I bought Radiohead‘s OK Computer when it came out in 1997 because it was different from what everyone else thought was cool, and I liked the video to “Paranoid Android.”
I find it slightly strange that I can take or leave music. My mum was always singing when I was a kid, and I remember her recording the chart show on Sundays, trying in vain to start the recording immediately after the DJ shut their cakehole and pausing it before they resumed their incessant nonsense; we’ve all been there!
It’s also weird that music isn’t important to me, yet I have songs that instantly remind me of my mum, dad, my kids, and the Mrs. The kids take the piss out of me at every Leeds United home game because I get goosebumps – known scientifically as frisson – whenever “Yasmin for Strings” plays before “Marching on Together.” The same happens with certain trance or hard house tracks, my favourite music genre.
Who Are Cast?
I didn’t know who Cast was until I met the Mrs. We’d often play songs after a night out, and she chose “Alright.” I remembered it from hearing it on the radio; I also remembered “Sandstorm,” “Finetime,” and “Walkaway.” Turns out the lead singer of Cast was previously in The La’s, best known for “There She Goes.”
We bought tickets to see Cast a couple of years ago when they played at the O2 Academy in Leeds. We saw them again in Scarborough, of all places, and are booked in to see them again on March 9. The Mrs got super-excited the first time we saw them play because she never had the opportunity to do so when they were first doing the rounds. She said that “her 15-year-old self would go mad” if they played “Alright,” and she was true to her word when they belted it out as their final song.
Cast released their seventh studio album, Love Is the Call, on February 16 and have travelled around the UK promoting it. Crash Record in Leeds city centre was one of the venues where they were doing an album signing. We had to get tickets, obviously.
Cast Were Only 10-15 Feet Away!
The Mrs was excited as a dog with a belly full of piss on the day we were going to buy the new album and get it signed. She was even more so when we realised how tiny Crash Record is; we were 10-15 feet away from her heroes! They treated us to four or five songs from their new album before finishing with a rendition of “Alright,” the Mrs favourite Cast song and the one that holds the most importance for her. I thought she was going to explode!
We had to queue to get the new album signed and the Mrs was beside herself. She’d brought the CD insert from the “All Change” album she’d had for donkey’s years, plus the vinyl copy we bought from the shop while waiting. Eventually, she reached the front of the queue, grabbed the signatures, and had a chat with them for a couple of minutes. They mentioned a comment one of her friends had left on their Facebook page, and she was over the moon; I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so happy before.
They say not to meet your heroes, but if Cast holds such status with you, you definitely should.
On a slight tangent, I’ve still not played any poker!