(Written in a bit of a haze and awe on January 1st after coming back from the New Year's 2011 with Darren Hayes)


New Years Eve 2011, Manchester, UK ! (no colour efects, just how my phone took the pic!)

I have fond memories of finding out Darren Hayes got married. I was in the office (of Association of LGBT and their friends MOZAIKA) in the middle of planning our second Riga Pride parade, somewhere in between having to run to court to defend our rights to freedom of assembly and getting support messages from all over the world. It is an amazing feeling. The buzz of doing something that can maybe change someone’s life. My desk covered in papers and the whole office being one big (but enthusiastic) mess! That is when the e-mail dropped into my mailbox. That e-mail telling Darren married his boyfriend in a civil partnership ceremony in UK. The timing was incredible (and that is why I still remember it). I shrieked in excitement like a schoolgirl screaming in the front row at a pop concert. If „The Tension and the Spark” indeed did spark plenty of messages (even a blind pigeon would pick up on those huge breadcrumbs...) it did not give out the message that we know now that says: „it gets better”. It clearly does. What also amazed me was the weight of that message, the difference it made to the world, the number of people it reached who suddenly realised it isn’t a big deal, he’s still alright. Millions of people read it and were touched by simplicity and humanity, and good old normality of two people getting married. The most effective way to change a person’s perception is someone they love. That thing for every homophobe to remember - you might be hating someone you love. It changes everything. It changes people more than anything else in the world. Two things inspired me that year not to give up when it seemed like a bloody good idea. That e-mail from Darren sharing his happiness with us and two men, a married couple I met in Sweden, who’ve been trying to adopt a child since it was legally allowed in Sweden but failed to be able to do that for almost 4 years. They cried their eyes out telling the story of everything they have been through trying to do something that is (relatively) easily available to any straight couple. These two events engraved in my mind in 2006. The first gave me a stamp of approval that it’s not in vain what we’re doing, some people fought this battle in other countries 50 years ago and got it done. The second told me law is not everything. The world needs to change (or to be changed) to match the laws once the laws are done. It is a process and we need to keep doing it, every day.

I've been steering away from traditional, easy listening pop music for the last few years. It's been a slow process but pop music doesn't touch me any more. I've moved on to more difficult on the ear, heavy on the heart stuff. Verse/chorus/bridge just doesn’t do it for me any more. Yet I reflect on the past on very special occasions - when George Michael goes on tour or Darren Hayes releases a new record. See, I've had this relationship with Darren's career that doesn't ever let go. I remember falling for his hip swing walk seeing Truly Madly Deeply video on TV (shallow I know... I just *knew* he'll grow into something amazing!) In nearly two decades in between now and then I've felt like I know what happens in his heart by peaking through that thin and delicate veil of depth and pain and joy and love that he seems to wear all the time in his music. "The Tension and the Spark" is still one of my favourite records in terms of soul screams. Ever. Tears running down his face all through 2004 when he performed it live. Damn, that man is real, living breathing human being who didn't think up those rhymes to sell records. He lived them all.
You see, that is so rare in the music business these days. There's so much demographics and careful calculations that go into making a pop song that it's crafted so bloody brilliantly specifically for the needs and sentiments of a certain group of people aged *insert any numbers here* that it makes me sick to turn on a top 40 radio. But then again the idea of writing original, personal songs is so old. Some people might not even remember that before X-Factor young artists were actually judged by their songwriting talents, originality, their ability to "make it". Old fashioned "making it" is so last century. Now we make pop stars in a factory. I am truly thankful there are people out there who still bother.

Broken heart creates great art. It always has and it always will. Happy art will never match up. I am sure he hurt and bled while writing "The Tension and the Spark". This is the only way how I am able to hurt and bleed listening to it. Maybe that's cruel. But otherwise why even bother making music? (Maybe it needs to be noted that amongst my favourite love songs collection there's Nick Cave’s "Murder Ballads"? Which I consider happy...) And no, I don't just like ANY sad song. I need to know where it comes from - methaphorically of course. I don't want it explained, I just want to know it's real. I want to know it for it to hurt me, too. Then I can feel the music and words crawling under my skin and going through my bones. I don't want to know who cheated whom and then listen to "I kissed a girl and I liked it" song as a result. What I want is to hear a line like "would you let go first?" ("Roses") and feel the weight of it crash down like an airplane. The enormous sadness of that album ("Secret Codes and Battleships") lifts me up. That airplane crash sure bruised us badly but no one was killed. We can now be called "survivors" of a crash. Which is an excellent thing to be considering the alternative. It’s actually very inspiring.

I remember driving in heavy rain listening to "The Tension and the Spark" on full volume in my car. Ultimate test to any music. There was no hope. It pressed you down to the ground and didn't let you get up again. Didn't let you as much as raise your head. I loved listening to it driving past a house of someone I used to know. On repeat. Both album and driving past. It kicks you where it hurts most. It's brilliant that way. It's not a depressant. It's just pure raw truth. That usually hurts. Doctors say pain is a good thing - it tells you that you're alive. It also tells you something's wrong. Without it we'd be screwed. We'd never really know right from wrong. We'd never know when to walk away. We'd never have a choice.

I've been lucky to be on stage with Darren. Twice. First time in Nottingham, which was his choice. I was slightly inebriated and small airplane size wine bottles dropped from my lap on the ground as I stood up from my seat when he asked me up on stage. "You look interesting!" He spotted me 7 rows back, sort of in a corner, boozing through Dark&Light tour, emotionally charged, visually amazing and in a way heartbreaking tour that took me to quite a few UK cities in 2004. 3 years later we were on the same stage again which was neither of our choice because Pride London had invited me to speak at the Pride rally at the Trafalgar Square and put me and Darren, that year's headliner, back to back on the main stage (not to say I didn't jump up and down from joy when I learned that! ;-)) By that time we had exchanged a few online messages and seen each other twice. When we met backstage there was a flicker of recognition in the corner of his eye as he broke into a huge grin and gave me a hug and a kiss. Darren was on right after me. As a very awkward and nervous public speaker I concentrated on Trafalgar Square fountain and forgot to see if he watched me speak from backstage. We passed each other in a moment, me coming off stage and him getting on stage. I have received a few rather humble and sweet messages from him praising human rights activists. Wishing us luck with our pride parade, asking me to be careful. Explaining (thus encouraging) how important it is that we change the world. And we did. And we still do.

2004. Nottingham.

Pride London main stage, Trafalgar sq.

After the first New Year's Eve gig (in 2007) I was blown away by the intimacy of that event and how up close and personal it was. He was happy, his eyes were smiling, it was that kind of a room where you could actually see the eyes and feel the smiles and hear the voice before it hits the microphone. I sent Darren a long heartfelt message about how that felt. I despise big concert halls that take personality out of everything. This was a concert room where I wanted to stay for the rest of my life. I received back from him one sentence. Just one sentence. But damn did it say more than a Tolstoy novel about his amazing qualities as a superb and genuine human being. He is trying really hard to keep real. Back in 2007 he could WALK around the room after the gig and not get mobbed (too much). He could talk to people. And he's still trying to, bless him for putting himself up for an attack of well wishing but very dramatic and huge crowd of fans. I watched with pain and kind of a silent admiration how the crowd launged at him this year in Manchester. I wished that it strokes his ego in the right way and at the same time felt guilty of contributing to the hysteria by being there.


New Year's eve 2007. London.

I am happy he's making it big, again. I am happy he's on the charts and sells out his tours. It's the best thing that could have happened to him (career wise) and there's no one else who deserves such success more. But it aches in one corner of my heart that he won't play those rooms where you can see the eyes any more. He'll be too big to do any of those things. Cause people would simply knock him off his feet. Literally. So glad I've been there for this incredible journey though. It sounds like the end but it's actually the beginning.