From Faithless Passing The Baton _and so there was Faithless. As many of you may have guessed I run to pass a lot of my life lurking in CD shops. One day around near the number of the Millennium I launch the CD single of Insomnia by Faithless, full of different mixes, all good improving upon, extending and celebrating the original.
Having played it at home I headed directly for Soho`s Berwick Street, namely to SelectaDisc as featured on the top of Oasis` What`s The Story, Morning Glory. Sure enough, true to form, they had the beginning two Faithless albums for about a fiver each. Being SelectaDisc it wasn`t the normal versions but the double CD versions with an extra CD of remixes with each. Unlike the usual stuff in the dance genre the second CDs were utterly wonderful creations, different to the original album versions but you didn`t ever believe "how did they ruin that so, like totally, dude?"
Whenever there was a long car journey they would look in the glovebox, often played second to back. Their music switched between epics like Insomnia and God Is A DJ (he never looked like a dinner jacket in my church), dreamy instrumentals, Dido featurettes and people like Boy George displaying the tone of the composition with his amazingly passionate vocal.
The book on the street was if ever you went to a festival this was the ring to see. Off I toddled to Glastonbury 2005, no Faithless on the line-up, but they were there in spirit every day, often several times a day. From several locations Insomnia would shoot out. It might be The Pyramid, The Former or a random stage where the crew loved Faithless and they knew this would a) test their speakers b) draw a crowd. There would be a massive cheer that would frequently continue spontaneously even where the medicine that started it wasn`t audible. This was the dance song rock fans loved, they were at Glastonbury and Faithless` cathedral was that subject in Somerset. I would go up, often be in tears of joy, excitement, tiredness, the works.
Then I went to the V Festival in Chelmsford and that was their church as well, usually playing at least every other year. The complete band for the Essex lads and lassies (we`re talking real ones, not London`s Jessie J who her publicists tell us is one). The beers were got in, then kicked over by people going crazy underneath a corner by the original V Stage. We Came One, we saw, they conquered. 
Brixton Academy was their chapel. A small, intimate venue, Maxi Jazz`s manor. Could they charge it there? Too bloody right they could!
Harry Collier would exchange the dynamic singing the softer songs, sharing vocals with Maxi who is even older than me and allowing them to defeat any mid-set tedium. The festival classics were as inviolate as ever but you knew they had soul, romance, beautiful sounds and big fuck off bass at the number of a knob. They had everything.
As somebody old enough to be my mother I have been insanely excited this last week. Originally I engaged the Thursday only as I have granddaughter commitments on Fridays, she was at the previous Brixton gig with her mate, they loved it but this was over-18s only for the Friday. Then a substance from Faithless appeared on Twitter. This was their final tour, the dance would never end but the shows would. Straight onto Seetickets, got two more standing for the Friday. Told everybody at work, amazing apathy, OK you make a nice drive to a country carvery on Sunday in your Nissan Micra, Werthers in the glovebox, Vicky and I are off to see British culture at its highest level.
But what to break? This is never usually a job for me, trainers, trousers and a cool T shirt under that zipped top black jacket containing my precious camera. The scheme was dress straight Thursday, take all the pictures and videos I needed, stand at the game if necessary for some undistorted sound recordings and get it still for Friday was the farsighted one. It had been a tough week at work having been to see Big Audio Dynamite for a relaxing Sunday evening before.yeah. Only problem was the instant we walked into the stable the heap of the band, the wonderful full on sound, the obviously up for it crowd_within ten minutes we had shimmied beyond the disabled seating, the gents` loos and found ourself on the front barrier, my remaining hair strands moving from the nose the bass speakers were pumping out. This was OUR church and the hymns were fantastic, the organ sound beautiful, the priest dressed in white a tad fervent with his chief choirboy Harry. 
OK, so a quieter evening it wasn`t to be but I wouldn`t lose any sleep over it.
As you can gather I had this strong smell of faith about Faithless, their name, the songs God Is A DJ and Salva Mea, OK Vicky should go as a nun and I could cut a crash in a cardinal`s garb or perhaps even the big boss The Pope. But hang on. Sister Bliss on keyboards_mind working overtime_we can be The Sisters Of Bliss! And so it came to pass, in the earth they called Brixton, on a Friday in April, two nuns appeared perilously near to 9pm ready to submit to the altar. Thanks to a fancy dress shop in Berwick Street, Freeport M&S and a strange website with some exciting packages we looked the part. 
Everybody loves a nun, at least they do at concerts. I thought everybody else was binding up, it seemed not. Security was a breeze, normally men search men, women search women, the poor chap was too humiliated to get anywhere near discovering my Oyster and slate were down the presence of my knickers! We went in polish the right, everybody said hello or stared, we held our hands up in prayer before Sister Bliss_I think she must have been too busy playing some silly music to touch us!
So off land to the favoured left hand position and thither we remained, 3 bodies from the front progressively shuffling across towards the middle whenever some of the more exuberant crowd members gave up the dancing for the bar or quite possibly the loo. What an evening, as they played beyond midnight it only got better and better, the crowd crazier and crazier.
There was much passion either position of the barrier, the whole cathedral rocked but everybody knew this was the night Faithless would drive off into the sunset to play live no more, but they weren`t giving up with a whimper.
Around 1am the sentence came, no matter how often we divided the bed through the average of raised fingers, dodgy dance and the terminology of whoop woo, it all ended_for the sentence being. Faithless have brought so much joy to so many people. Loved by the rock crowd, sometimes shunned by the more elite drum hard heavy semi-detached house brigade, only the hardest of hearts could fail to be thrilled by that old school chunky organ that they used to up the odds and reduce the people to their heavy, heavy monster sound. You have been loved but the dance never ends_
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