...fuck! i only have ten fingernails to bite. the complete breakdown of my nevous system is manifested by the knawing of my dirty white nails. if it carries on like this i'm gonna have to grab my friend's hands and start work on his. then the grrl in front of me. the noisy guys behind. fuckit, i'm gonna have to work my way around the whole of the crowd. i look up and the man stands shaking. his fingers tremble as he plays the wrong chord then quickly corrects himself. like a deer reacting to a threatening noise. it's like watching a 12 year old performing to the school on a monday morning assembly. his quivering lips highlight the look  of someone about to burst into tears and run off stage. to run home and lock himself in his bedroom, take his father's hammer and nails from the garage and bar his door with wood. never to come out again. not answering to anyone. living off his records and the crumbs in the carpet. it's as if moments before, he'd finally plucked up the courage to speak to the grrl he's had a crush on for years only to find out she wants nothing to do with him...and now he's supposed to go up on stage and sing? by himself? to a hungry and expectant sell-out crowd??!!

...but he didn't run. at least, not straight away...

...i have a friend who works in a studio. the place is based in the middle of a hospital for disturbed people. at night, when coming out from it's sweaty practice rooms, you can sometimes hear howling. you can check, but chances are, it's not even a full moon. the scream sends shudders down my spine, it's so primal. each time i load my equipment into the car i thank the stars that, as fucked up as my mind may get, it's still able to operate the majority of it's functions at any given time. my friend runs a music therapy session every thursday for the same howling patients and he says it's one of the most rewarding things he gets to do. women and men who normally cannot even finish a sentence can happily sit at a drum kit and beat out the rhythms that play through their head. they can pick up harmonica's and blow their heart out. clear the cobwebs from the corners of their souls. the music isn't anything you could class as a pop song. it's not top 40 material. it's too honest for that. it's the sound of someone's truth and of a mind that normally lies in tatters. it's the true "for real". there's no posturing involved. the sounds sweep away the pain that tortures them everyday. a few honest moments of bliss and escape. i sometimes, in my more melodramtic moments, state that music has saved my life on more than one occassion. for these people it's done even more - it's helped them exorcise their soul...

...johnston's legend precedes him. maybe that's one of the things that makes him such a nervous performer. i hope with all my heart that the people standing in the room haven't come to see some sort of freakshow. more curious than affectionate...

...daniel's song are cathartic and beautiful. they're as much of a release for him to sing as they are beautiful and poignant for us to hear. when he cries, "would you follow me anywhere, are you entertained by deep despair" my heart gets pulled sideways, torn between the two answers. i wanna scream out, "yes! i will follow you anywhere - you can be my pied piper. i would gladly jump into the river for you"...but then, "no! this is more than just entertainment".  i wanna hear more from this man. i wanna talk to him. try and understand him. my nerves are so frayed by the time he moves from guitar to the piano to sing these words in "love enchanted" that i'm actually sweating through hope for him. i want him to succeed. to play a great set and to walk from the stage with his head held high. to feel proud of what he's accomplished. to realise his music touches the heart like no one i have ever heard. he gives so much hope. it's like an injection of pure and serene warmth into the veins. if he has overcome years of debilitating depression then maybe, just maybe, i can sort out my problems too. maybe i can come through the other side still with the abilty to create something worthwhile like him...

...some tactless fucker from somewhere behind keeps calling out for "hate song" like daniel's a kind of jukebox. true - you can do this with most bands; you pay your money, you have a certain right to hear what you came to hear. in this, and a few other cases, i feel like my ticket money is almost making a donation to a guy so he can afford to carry on writing his songs. like some sort of patron to good, virtuous music...

...after finishing his 30 minute set, he thanks the audience with an awkward and embaressed sincerity. you can tell that even after playing hundreds, maybe thousands of shows, he still isn't quite sure what to say to us or how to handle the beast that an audience can be. he scurries off-stage and, after five minutes of wishing him back for an encore the lights come up. we all file out to the bar, amazed by such an intensely moving performance. he will soon be appearing outside signing his artwork. my friend and i grab another beer and wait with trepedation. i cannot afford to buy any of his art so settle for two of his cassettes. i clutch them in my clammy hand waiting for him to appear so i can mumble a thank you. thank him for being so strong. thank him for being himself. we wait. and wait. and i start to think maybe the set took too much out of him. maybe he's sat  somewhere behind these walls crying, exhausted and drained...

...then, it happens. we turn around and realise we've been facing the wrong direction. i feel so stupid. he has been sat behind us all this time. a few people are talking with him and he looks like a little child, all eager to please. with sweaty palms i queue up behind the guy who has his attention. then daniel signals his assistant. he needs to go. the assistant apologises to me and i reply saying it's fine. i stand feet away from him and watch as he clumsily gets out of his chair. he is led, in his raggedy clothes, away backstage as i stand rivoted to the spot. if he were anyone else, i would be confident enough to walk up to him and just say a few words, but i don't want to disturb or intrude upon him. i don't want his last memory of the signing to be some fool trying to get out a few words of thanks. a socially-retarded inarticulate fumbling over some awkward praise. i look to the table where he was sat. on it lie the two pens he was using. i rush over and grab one of them. i clutch daniel's black "sharpie" and push my way into the crowd, heart beating fast, before anyone can stop me. i know it may sound like something a fourteen year old girl might do if she saw her favourite popstar but fuck it, i don't care. i can now scrawl out words of love and hate using the same ink as daniel, hoping that some of his secret might rub off onto me...

...earlier on, as he stands at his piano, flicking his way through the pages of lyrics in his ring binder, searching for his closing number, i'm reminded of something he said a little earlier. he told us about a dream he had. it involved a man who got sentenced to death for trying to commit suicide. as he finished it, for small moment, i saw a flash of mischevious joy in his eyes. he knows he's just told a very funny little joke. i recognise the look because it's the same one i feel i get sometimes when i think i've done something that might make a grrl i like laugh. i hope in his head he was patting himself on the back for saying that. everyone likes to think people will like them. everyone has those sorts of fantasies. he then finds the song he was looking for.

...when i was young, i used to imagine what it would be like to play a great anthem infront of an adoring crowd. what it would feel like to bring everyone together in a moment of shared joy. a song that once the last notes had stopped ringing people would turn to each other with a look of happiness knowing that they'd all just been part of something special. as daniel starts to play "casper the friendly ghost" i imagine that's what he must feel like. it's as close to an anthem that he will likely ever get. it's his "teen spirit". his "debaser". hell, it's his "can't get you out of my head". as he plays, i dance and hope that behind his closed eyes he's playing the clattering and out-of-tune solo to a sold-out madison square gardens. that he's living out a fantasy of acceptance. that the crowd are all cheering him on and this, in turn, gives him enough strength to go write some more songs because while he does that, i will follow him anywhere...