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It's not often you get to travel back in time and assess a certain period of your life.  This year, with the announcement that Special Needs were reforming, myself and many other people got to do just that.  They were to play a show at Proud, Camden on the 15th of February.  Sadly, since that night happened, news surfaced that a young girl many of us knew died at the age of 21.  I saw her at the gig, but didn't get a chance to say hi.  I wish I had.  Rest In Peace, Louise.

It's strange to look back at that period of time.  I've spent a lot of time running around the city within many different scenes, with several bands, but this scene and these bands were different.  While I was once a teenage companion to rockstars, with car service and 5* hotels amongst the luxuries that brought, this was a world away from that.  Last minute gigs, nightbuses and house parties were the order of the day.  It was a democratic scene, you'd trip over someone at a party one day, and the next week NME would be hailing them as the future of indie.

As with all scenes, the bubble burst not long after the record companies got seriously involved.  Ridiculous demands being put on bands who had never built a significant fanbase outside of London.  Demands to sell 40,000 records at a time when physical sales were already dropping and no one had yet worked out how to capitalise on music being available online.  Demands to give sensible interviews, devoid of crack psychosis (there was only room for one crack addict in the press and Peter Doherty had that sewn up).  Demands for these kids to treat what they were doing as a business when they mostly just wanted to play music with their friends.  Bands were dropped, bands split up.  Members went back to the home counties, nursed the drug habits they'd picked up.  Some stuck around in the city, managing to carve out a life for themselves.  Many left the music business altogether, preferring to take their chances in the 'real world'.  The rest of us picked up the pieces of the music we'd loved, attempted to stay friends with the people we'd actually liked and carried on with life.

February 15th was a very strange night.  Of all the bands who had been involved in that scene, Special Needs were the ones most people thought should've Made It.  They weren't like so many bands around at that time, hashing together imitated Libertines riffs with a frontman putting on a phoney London accent.  Special Needs were 60s pop meshed with gang vocal choruses, guitars with a nostalgic feel and an Irish singer.  They were bright, vibrant colours who stood out against the crack smoke haze most of the other bands were spewing.  Their reunion made people happy in a way that I don't think any other bands from that time could've accomplished.

Special Needs - Sylvia (live at Proud)

It was like 2004 again, right down to having to yell at a Jarman brother to get out of my way.  The Cribs may well be selling out venues like Brixton Academy now, but to me they'll always be idiot boys with stupid haircuts managing to get in my way.  There were plenty of people I wasn't too keen on seeing, the feeling was probably mutual, and thankfully any awkward moments were avoided.  The people I wanted to see were around, though some I missed, and while the surreal feeling never really dissipated, it was really quite lovely to see that people I'd spent a lot of time with years before were doing well.

When Special Needs hit the stage I, and many other people, were hit with a reminder of a time when we were never at home because there was always a band like this playing some corner of London.  When you could go out by yourself to see a band, safe in the knowledge that you'd know half the crowd once you got there.  There were cliques, fights, grudges and problems, but it was still a community.  At that time, bands were still working out how to use the internet to market themselves and to build a fanbase.  It was still in it's infancy, being tweaked and played with.  You could log onto a message board, get cheaplist for a show that night, go and see a line up featuring bands playing songs they'd given away for free on YouSendIt.  That's what Arctic Monkeys did.  It was the internet that made that band big, not the music press.

Special Needs were the catalyst for a lot of people to come back together and relive that period of their lives, but their reformation shouldn't be looked upon as nostalgia.  They have new songs, they have damn good songs that deserve to be heard by a wider audience than before.

Special Needs - Nobody's Darling (live at Proud)

The old songs deserve to be heard as well, who wouldn't want to hear a large crowd of people singing along to Blue Skies, Sylvia and Convince Me?  If one thing can come out of this Tardis trip to 2004, let it be that Special Needs get their chance to shine.  Let them have a happy ending.  They're a band who were better than that scene.  They should have the chance to finally prove it.

As for me?  I look back at who I was in 2004/5 and am glad I'm not that person anymore.  I had a hell of a lot of fun with some fairweather friends and made some long term friends, but I'm not one to live in the past.  Life moves on.  Being able to look back and see how much I've grown and changes is something I'm thankful for.  Nothing but Blue Skies ahead...

Special Needs - Blue Skies (live at Proud)

xo