On Thursday 12th March, Cat Empire played at Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was to be my last gig before live events were dropped from social calendars en masse. There’s nothing quite like the sound of an excited crowd, and waiting for the show to start, certain words and phrases rose to the surface like driftwood at the foot of a waterfall. Dictated only by my position in the crowd and the sounds my brain understood, these words are unedited and appear in the order in which I heard them.

i’ll have another
i actually said
what’s your middle name
because
not that
razors
worst timing
everyone was like
favourite, yeah?
i love it!
i went three months without
yeah yeah
he kept getting
smashed my head on
yeah and then the cage
fell on his back
ooooooh! (impressed)
he’s mad but he
two thousand and seventeen
wouldn’t be
and be like
don’t wanna do
the geezer
so well acted
well, tough
wasn’t sure
wait and he
too/two/to(?)

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