Music, I'm going to have a ramble. I've been confusing my staff (all in the 16-19 age group) by playing lots of Led Zeppelin and trying to explain to them why Led Zep were the biggest band on the planet. Cue blank looks all round. Led Zep couldn't synchronise their moves, often they couldn't synchronise their legs, they didn't use backing tapes, dozens of dancers, video imaging, multi level stages with moving sections or vast chorus lines. What they did was play real music, with real instruments, live, night after night and night, really, really well. I'm confused by a Radio One advert that shows about ten different people djing, putting records on a turntable, and then adds the tagline 'Summer of Live Music'. Does it then follow that if I play my cassette recorder out in the garden I'm a musician ? Playing bloody records is not 'live' music' you muppets. I like classical music. There, I've come out of the closet. I like Prokofiev's Dance Of The Knights, Mussorgsky's Great Gate Of Kiev and Khachaturian's Sabre Dance. But I couldn't ever go to a classical concert. Have you seen one ? They all sit in deeply silent rows, doing buggger all, and then applaud politely after a well performed piece. Arse to that. When the Halle Orchestra is hammering through Ride Of The Valkyries wouldn't you have to be off your feet doing helicopter impressions and shouting "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" ? When 'Mars' is booming out from the stage don't you just want to swing your arms around and perhaps pretend to shoot the people in the posh seats ? You see, rock fans all want to be rock gods, they would really rather like to be up on stage, axe in hand, throwing some shapes and fretwanking to distraction, but......classical music fans just don't want to get involved, when was the last time you saw someone stagediving to Pomp And Circumstance No.1 ? I can't listen to Purcell's Chaconne without wanting to dress like a goth and throw my hands in the air (very distracting to Mr and Mrs Upper Middle Class in seats 156 a and b no doubt), when the orchestra stike up Coates' By The Sleepy Lagoon, well I'm sorry, but it's time to reach for the bag of rotten fruit. I had a life changing moment when I saw Megadeth for the first time. It was at the Queens Hall in Leeds, an ex-tramshed with all the acoustic properties of, well, a tramshed to be honest. It was part of a three all-day festival called Christmas On Earth, which featured as the other two headliners schoolboy fiddler Gary Glitter, and I think the Sisters Of Mercy, but you can correct me on that if you can. I stood all day amidst the happy moshers, a myriad speed and thrash bands came and went, the only ones to stand out were the Cro-Mags (bloody hell!!! What was they about ?) and Overkill (I think, my memory grows hazy with time). At last though, Dave Mustaine and his boys took to the stage, I was stood about halfway back through the crowd, which exploded as the brutal riffage of 'Wake Up Dead' hammered out from the speaker stacks. Thw whole crowd moved, and not just a little bit. It bounced, it swayed left and right. For those folk familiar with the mechanics of the crowd, I spent a lot of time hopping in one direction or another, desperately trying to keep my balance. And the people!! They came flying from the stage, from the speakers, from the railings, from each others heads. A fight broke out ! No, not a fight, well, not quite, a sort of semi-controlled riot, you got pushed and shoved a lot, but didn't really get punched, but the closer you got to the front, the more people landed on your head. The sound came and went as well (just like an outdoor festival then), unable to hear himself in the monitors, Mustaine fired his soundman live on stage............."and you can pay your own fucking airfare." In the depth's of his own drug induced psychosis he dedicated 'In My Darkest Hour' to the very recently deceased Cliff Burton, but we all knew it was really about an ex-girlfriend. Both the Daves kept vanishing off stage (to top up on coke, speed and smack I presume), the set was fast and loose, and bloody amazing. Never again would I be content to sit at the back, it's down at the front or stay home and watch it on tv, participate, appreciate, involve yourself.