It's funny how something as simple as your husband telling you to listen to an album because you'll like it, can lead to a moment in time that you can call one of the ''best'' in your life.
The album was Neko Case's Blacklisted. It was a killer and started the biggest musical obsession and ''lovefest'' of my life.
When Neko and her band came to New Zealand in 2010 I was in Wellington on January 20 with [husband] Simon and my best friend, and fellow Neko fan, Inge to see her. Nothing could stop me from being there. I'd been out shopping and gone back to my Cuba St hotel.
On the way to the lift I passed a nattily dressed chap in a blue shirt who looked a lot like Paul Rigby from Neko's band. Back in my room and out on the balcony I looked down to the pool area. Stretched out below was Neko's singing mate Kelly Hogan.
I totally freaked, grabbed my bag and keys and raced down to the pool area, heart beating like a teenager meeting One Direction.
I pretended to be looking for someone, then I looked at her and said ''Excuse me, are you Kelly Hogan?''' ''Why, yes, ma'am, I am,'' she replied in her gorgeous toffee-toned Atlanta drawl. So we chatted away, me trying not be hysterical and failing, but she signed my John Rauhouse CD which she sang on and was so sweet.
I gave her a Delgirl CD. We left each other in the lift and returned to our rooms. I promptly burst into tears, sent texts to everyone I knew and shook with shame and glory until Simon came back from the movies and thought I'd gone mental.
That night I stood with Inge, Simon and our friend Donna in the San Francisco Bath House, post-Mojito and roast pig dinner, sweating in the stuffy heat of the crowd waiting for the band to come on stage. While the support act played, I got the signatures of Paul Rigby and Tom V. Ray on another album cover: I'm shameless.
Neko was glorious. It was better than anything I could have imagined, everything I'd dreamed it would be. She sang 18 songs, with a three-song encore. I cried all the way through Deep Red Bells, tears of absolute joy. It was perfection.
Simon tried to get me to go and talk to Neko after, but I couldn't. I didn't want to tempt fate, I was a stalker now, after all. We headed back to the hotel to bed. I heard them come in at 2.30am all raucous and happy.
So was I. It was one of the best nights in my life and one I'll never forget.
I hope Hogan will forgive me.
- Lynn Vare is a Dunedin musician and librarian.
• Tell us about your best day. Write to odt.features@odt.co.nz. We ask correspondents not to nominate weddings or births; of course they were the best days.
