"We're not going to carry on because Busted needs to be remembered the way Busted was."14th January 2005
With those words my 10 year old self was devastated. My favourite band ever. Who I had seen live less than a year before with this cool little band called McFly supporting them, was splitting up. And all because of that idiot with the eyebrows Charlie Simpson. My little sister cried that night, whilst I remained quieter in my grief for the band and took myself off to bed early to have some hugs with my loyal teddy bear Radcliffe.
At that 2004 show the most outrageous thing that happened was Matt Willis losing his trousers during a particularly enthusiastic 'Busted Jump'. At the time nine year old me squealed and blushed as he hastily yanked his jeans back up, keen not to expose himself in front of a room of young girls and their Mums. (In a side note, my Mother loved the wardrobe malfunction, and whooped enthusiastically.)
Fast forward ten years and me and the same girl that had been sobbing over the end of our favourite band returned to Nottingham's Capital FM arena, tickets in hand, to see McBusted. A supergroup formed of Matt Willis and James Bourne of Busted and that cool little band McFly, who after supporting Busted went on to have a pretty successful decade long career themselves.
The arena was full of the same little girls that loved Busted and McFly a decade ago, but they had swapped their flashing bunny ears for overpriced bottles of cider. And there wasn't a 'I <3 MCBUSTED' banner in sight. My sister, dressed in a pretty floral tea dress, reminisced about her Busted t-shirt she had bought from Tammy, wishing she could have found it to wear for the occasion.
Unimpressed by the nasally American support band "The 3 Dudes", who sang about house parties and girls that ignored them. Yeah we lapped that kind of thing up back in '04, but now we are grown up young ladies. The crowd in Nottingham managed to maintain an atmosphere of maturity until the lights went down and the screens to the side of the stage fired up.
And the next hour and a half were spent feeling like a naughty little kid.
A video played a clip featuring the members of the new supergroup, each one met with an uproar of screaming and clapping as they came into shot, and then out of nowhere came a flying, time travelling machine and out of that jumped Bourne and Willis. Full of the same energy they had ten years ago they crashed into Air Hostess, joined by their four band mates.
Suddenly "I wet my pants as we flew over France" had a whole different meaning- preteen me had assumed he couldn't make it to the toilet because the seatbelts lights were on- and as McFly's Dougie poked his left index finger into a circle created by his right thumb and index finger, the crowd fell about into a huge girly giggle.
The naughtiness continued: band members were throwing each other the finger, the band's frenzied cries of 'WHO WANTS TO SEE OUR BALLS?!' whipped the crowd into squeals before four giant sports balls were released into the crowd for a rendition Busted's 2004 'What I Go To School For', and the screens showed videos of hand drawn penises playing guitar.
It was all very silly and immature, from band and fans alike. A scream flew around the crowd when, from a giant UFO suspended in the middle of the arena, the band asked the crowd to jump up and down, before shouting BOOOBIEEEEEES at the top of their voices.
As a video of McFly's Tom Fletcher's wedding speech video gave a brief reminder that the two bands weren't plucky young boys with guitars anymore but men with wives and children Matt Willis bounded on stage in a wedding dress to ensure that reminder was fleeting, and these boys still had a bit of fun in them yet.
And fun is what everyone in that arena was having. Gone were the tears of 2004, it was 2014 now and the fans were screaming along to the songs to our younger years, wooping over our first celebrity crushes. The band were lapping up the attention, revelling in the opportunity to run about stage again, messing around with their best friends and band mates in front of thousands of hysterical females.
As the supergroup came to the end of their set, shooting t shirts into the waiting crowd and thanking their fans for such incredible support there was just one more act of naughtiness for McBusted to pull out of their bag of tricks.
The first few bars of debut 2002 single Year 3000 were greeted by the biggest scream of the night, the crowd jumping and cheering the six boys on stage. My sister turned to be and grinned, before turning back to her childhood sweethearts.
Then three, giant, inflatable boobs shot streamers out of their nipples into the arena.
With those words my 10 year old self was devastated. My favourite band ever. Who I had seen live less than a year before with this cool little band called McFly supporting them, was splitting up. And all because of that idiot with the eyebrows Charlie Simpson. My little sister cried that night, whilst I remained quieter in my grief for the band and took myself off to bed early to have some hugs with my loyal teddy bear Radcliffe.
At that 2004 show the most outrageous thing that happened was Matt Willis losing his trousers during a particularly enthusiastic 'Busted Jump'. At the time nine year old me squealed and blushed as he hastily yanked his jeans back up, keen not to expose himself in front of a room of young girls and their Mums. (In a side note, my Mother loved the wardrobe malfunction, and whooped enthusiastically.)
Fast forward ten years and me and the same girl that had been sobbing over the end of our favourite band returned to Nottingham's Capital FM arena, tickets in hand, to see McBusted. A supergroup formed of Matt Willis and James Bourne of Busted and that cool little band McFly, who after supporting Busted went on to have a pretty successful decade long career themselves.
The arena was full of the same little girls that loved Busted and McFly a decade ago, but they had swapped their flashing bunny ears for overpriced bottles of cider. And there wasn't a 'I <3 MCBUSTED' banner in sight. My sister, dressed in a pretty floral tea dress, reminisced about her Busted t-shirt she had bought from Tammy, wishing she could have found it to wear for the occasion.
Unimpressed by the nasally American support band "The 3 Dudes", who sang about house parties and girls that ignored them. Yeah we lapped that kind of thing up back in '04, but now we are grown up young ladies. The crowd in Nottingham managed to maintain an atmosphere of maturity until the lights went down and the screens to the side of the stage fired up.
And the next hour and a half were spent feeling like a naughty little kid.
A video played a clip featuring the members of the new supergroup, each one met with an uproar of screaming and clapping as they came into shot, and then out of nowhere came a flying, time travelling machine and out of that jumped Bourne and Willis. Full of the same energy they had ten years ago they crashed into Air Hostess, joined by their four band mates.
Suddenly "I wet my pants as we flew over France" had a whole different meaning- preteen me had assumed he couldn't make it to the toilet because the seatbelts lights were on- and as McFly's Dougie poked his left index finger into a circle created by his right thumb and index finger, the crowd fell about into a huge girly giggle.
The naughtiness continued: band members were throwing each other the finger, the band's frenzied cries of 'WHO WANTS TO SEE OUR BALLS?!' whipped the crowd into squeals before four giant sports balls were released into the crowd for a rendition Busted's 2004 'What I Go To School For', and the screens showed videos of hand drawn penises playing guitar.
It was all very silly and immature, from band and fans alike. A scream flew around the crowd when, from a giant UFO suspended in the middle of the arena, the band asked the crowd to jump up and down, before shouting BOOOBIEEEEEES at the top of their voices.
As a video of McFly's Tom Fletcher's wedding speech video gave a brief reminder that the two bands weren't plucky young boys with guitars anymore but men with wives and children Matt Willis bounded on stage in a wedding dress to ensure that reminder was fleeting, and these boys still had a bit of fun in them yet.
And fun is what everyone in that arena was having. Gone were the tears of 2004, it was 2014 now and the fans were screaming along to the songs to our younger years, wooping over our first celebrity crushes. The band were lapping up the attention, revelling in the opportunity to run about stage again, messing around with their best friends and band mates in front of thousands of hysterical females.
As the supergroup came to the end of their set, shooting t shirts into the waiting crowd and thanking their fans for such incredible support there was just one more act of naughtiness for McBusted to pull out of their bag of tricks.
The first few bars of debut 2002 single Year 3000 were greeted by the biggest scream of the night, the crowd jumping and cheering the six boys on stage. My sister turned to be and grinned, before turning back to her childhood sweethearts.
Then three, giant, inflatable boobs shot streamers out of their nipples into the arena.