Dowsing for Sound: "Unpredictable" four years on. Some hazy memories and cliched reflections.

January 29^th, 2011. Great St Mary’s Church. I think I remember it being freezing cold. I certainly remember being a bag of nerves and going to the loo three times in the half hour before we were due on stage. I remember the deeply unpleasant experience of tasting a Vocalzone for the first time. I remember huddling in the vestry and vanilla schnapps and whiskey being passed out in tiny plastic shot glasses. I vaguely remember a mad scramble to get Andrea a tin whistle in the right key.

I remember the start being delayed because there were so many more people than we expected, filling the ground floor of the church and extending up into the balcony, and my mounting excitement as I waited. I remember the opening chords of “White Sky” giving way to the joyful, exuberant “hello, hello” in “Alive” before I could so much as blink. I remember sitting in the pews, shivering but excited as an intrepid rower talked about her solo Atlantic crossing. I remember singing “The Book of Love” and it being the last time I truly believed in it. I remember the dropped guitar at the beginning of “Hoppipolla” and the feeling of losing myself and soaring on the melody as that wonderful piano and string line swelled out. I remember the mounting excitement throughout “One Day Like This” and the incredible sense of togetherness as we cheered each band member at the tops of our lungs. I remember the sense of how bloody fast it had all gone. I remember the applause and the chants of “more” and the absolute disbelief that these were for us. I remember my euphoric, dizzy happiness all through “Radioactive” even though we had no idea what we were doing, and to this day I need only hear a few bars of it to be brought straight back to that moment. I remember bouncing off the stage, jumping up and down all the way to the back of the church squeaking “We did it! We did it!”

Four years and a number of gigs later, the memories have faded into something of a haze. But that feeling of euphoria, the tremendous buzz and rush of having actually performed on stage, for the first time, that doesn’t fade. Closing my eyes for just a moment, I can feel it as vividly as ever.

I think I can only express the significance of that moment in clichés. It was the moment a new world opened for me. It was the last moment of perfect happiness before my world slowly fell apart over the course of the ensuing eight months (and has been put back together since, with the help, love and friendship of the Dowsers, among others). It was the moment I realised I could be myself and belong to something greater without sacrificing either. It was the moment I understood the value of doing something for the joy of it without having to be perfect or be the best. It was the moment that the Dowsing magic to which so many in the Dowsing Sound Collective casually refer, took hold of my soul and has not yet let go.

The Dowsing Sound Collective may have gone on to bigger and better things, but to use another cliché, you never forget your first time. And despite all the tremendous and wonderful experiences that Dowsing has given me since, that moment when less than forty of us, on three months of rehearsals, took on Great St Mary’s and did so with joy and flair and fun, is one never to be forgotten.