Light bulb moment from Jimmy Osmond of all people

I was listening to Midweek on Radio 4, and having heard some interesting chat from Sir Michael Parker and from a wonderful poet called Hannah Lowe, I was about to tune out when Jimmy Osmond was introduced. I don’t dislike him, or his brothers and I  wasn’t really interested , but my ears didn’t shut down and I actually heard the first few moments of his interview.

He was asked about still singing ‘Long-haired Lover From Liverpool’, a ghastly little ditty; apparently he had struck it from his set-list – or maybe not even had it on the list in the first place, when he realised while at the O2 Arena at Wembley,  that the crowd were baying for it.

He said “They were doing that stomping thing that you Brits do,” and it took me whizzing back to last week in Glasgow when the audience at the  Glasgow Royal Concert Hall were shouting and begging for an encore from the Mavericks and I started stamping as hard as I could with my heel, and so did others so there was this drumming of two thousand feet accompanying all the screaming, yelling, whistles and bellows.

Jimmy then went on to say something very interesting. He said that he realised then that the concerts weren’t about him, they were about the audience too (like writing not just being about what the writer wants to say) and I thought of all the thousands of times Raul Malo must have sung ‘Dance The Night Away’ or ‘Crying Shame’, and sung it as if it was fresh and new each time – for us, for the audience.

It led me on to think that although the Mavericks will have had a great night in Glasgow, for them it will be just one of the amazing gigs they played; for us it will be like a jewel shining brightly for years to come and we’ll remember it, almost every detail of it, and talk and gossip about it probably for as long as we’re Mavs’ fans.

I think I feel a poem coming on….!