“If you get on with me and my sense of humour, you’ll get on with them fine” Fred explained to me as we headed to the MEN Arena to watch Rammstein. I’d not known Fred for long and we’d met via an internet football forum of all places. We both loved metal and he was now introducing me to some of his mates. We got there early so we would get a good spot.

Then stuff happened.

My memory is a little hazy, but the thing I remember from my introduction to Blink and Simon is them charging at Fred, screaming “FFFFRRREEEEDDDDD” at the top of their voices whilst sort of rugby tackling him from a side. Meanwhile, I stood there wondering what the hell was going on. Little did I know that my life would never quite be the same again.

That was over five years ago now, and I still don’t know what’s going on.

From that day forwards, let’s just say things have “developed”. That meeting spawned a meeting of minds that is still going strong today. We are Crystal Lake, and we love music. Our secret Facebook group contains a healthy mix of music and spam. From humble beginnings, this group has now expanded into a gig going, good time machine. In this fairly short time frame, we’ve seen bands including Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, Rammstein as well as countless others.

Us in real life.

It’s not just about the amazing shows though. It’s the character of this group I love. It lives in its own world, with a unique brand of weirdness that goes on. The countless song references stuffed into our conversations, shouting random things at people in the street, losing our shit at gigs, I could go on. Just the small fact we travel from all over the country to meet up for drinks and check out as many bands we can despite having varying commitments is something to be proud of. Like a great album, this group is greater than the sum of its parts and everybody contributes.

I can’t help thinking that us all meeting up is more than a coincidence for me. Young lad finds himself becoming obsessed with music and wants to go to gigs and festivals but feels like he can’t cause he left school with very few friends. From nowhere a wild Fred appears and the rest is history. I’ve been on some great adventures with this lot and they’ve grown to become some of my very best friends.

So thank you my brothers, here’s to many more years of music related shenanigans! Cheers!