It wasn't just about flashing lights and pinball machines blowing up and things like that. It was about using encores, bringing back the good songs and using techniques that I knew about from rock performance.

No one respects the flame quite like the fool who's badly burned

I don't really know any other musicians like me. I grew up backstage with my dad who played in a post-war dance band, so I always feel at home at a venue.

I have to say that anger is the blanket that comes around me, and that blunts and blurs my sense of proportion.

The fact of the matter is, I'm f**king brilliant. Not 'was' brilliant. 'Am' brilliant.

Young and old will sit and judge unfeeling, while the empty churches' bells are pealing. And the green hills lay ignored, untended, lonely watchers remain unbefriended.

Although I was well past my teenage troubles, our music was specifically designed to lubricate the passage from adolescence to adulthood.