Following a very spontaneous decision a few weeks ago me and four friends were off to Manchester to see Bastille! I haven’t been to a gig for a while, and the last two I went to we were seated, so I was psyched to be going standing once again.

I do really enjoy music concerts but I tend to only go when I really really like the band, as they are pretty expensive days out with the tickets and travel, plus parking if you drive there. I’m also not a huge fan of being crushed again hundreds of sweaty strangers. Don’t get me wrong I’m fine with standing and I do enjoy the buzz and atmosphere, but it’s something that I only do every so often. I’m an average sized girl and while I’m pretty good at shoulder barging people out the way, at the end of the day if I end up with a 6ft bloke stood in front of me and a bloke slamming into the side of me I’m pretty screwed.

That’s one of the things I LOVED about Bastille, because of the type of music they do the crowd were great. We were jumping up, dancing and bopping along but there were no mosh pits or crazy, full-on raves. The whole experience from the start was quite sedate and maybe it was just this gig or times are changing, as no one ran for the front and once we were in we were asked to sit down for half an hour, so the whole thing was very relaxed. Nothing like my experience of seeing Green Day when I was 16 when we were crushed against a barrier for a good hour before the gig even started. We ended up being lifted out and found our way to a more comfortable spot slightly further back.

I’ve seen videos of Bastille live before so was expecting good stuff but my god can Dan sing well! He was amazing live. The whole band were. I think they actually sounded better live than recorded, and that’s pretty rare. He also played to the whole arena. Bearing in mind we were in Manchester Arena which is MASSIVE. I know from experience when you’re seated directly opposite the stage the singers just look like tiny dots. He came through the crowd a few times to then perform on a platform towards the back of the standing section and he also disappeared off stage and appeared right at the top of one of the sides to sing for the crowd up there.

Of the Night was definitely one of my favourite parts. Some people slate them for this song but for me a remake of a 90s class is my absolute dream. Everyone was asked to get down on the floor then jump up and dance. LOVE IT!

It was also actually quite nice to not know all of their songs as I got to discover them and experience them live. Going to this gig has actually made me a bigger Bastille fan than I was before and I’m enjoying their music even more since going.

It was the most fun and such a great experience. The crowd, the band, the friends I was with just made it what it was.