Zan - the final post for the A to Z Challenge

So it's a made-up word.

It was 1990, the height of Warhead's short career, Corey Wallace had made up this word - 'Zan'. Out of nowhere.

It really stood for anything, and we started using it in sentences - it was a noun, verb, adverb, pronoun, present participle, you name it.

Zan was it. A versatile word that fit every occasion.

And best of all, it was all ours.

Only we knew what it meant. It was code. Our code.

Andrew Moffat, Nick Nathaniel, Mark Dopson, Corey Wallace and myself - Cesco Emmanuel.

We were so young and naive, with no clue what life held in store, but we were playing heavy music, sometimes we loved it, sometimes we hated it. We were seeing other parts of the country. We played in some really messed up hell holes, hardly any money, terrible sound, one occasion I got electrocuted while performing.

But hey, we had fun didn't we?

Yes indeed, we zanned it.

Those were the days.

I hope to never forget those great, young, innocent 'Warhead' times.

Gigs, gigs, gigs

I love playing shows. Even the ones where I'm exhausted. Just getting up on a stage is like a drug for me. I've played hundreds, maybe close to a thousand shows over the last ten years of my life.

But yet, it's only happened a few times, perhaps about four that I can truly remember, where there's this perfect synergy between band and audience.

Four times. From 1990 to present day.

These are those times: -

- Roxy Cinema, Trinidad (October 1990) - My first 'real' show with my thrash metal cover-band Warhead, at the end of our set, the crowd was screaming our name, I was 16. We played an encore. The band lasted another year before we called it a day. I thought my music career was over then. Little did I know it was just beginning.

- El Mocambo, Toronto, Canada (November 2008) - I played a solo acoustic show for a group of underprivileged migrant school children. They all wanted my autograph after. I've never experienced such gratitude, I was 34. They never heard my music before. Such honesty and appreciation.

- Womad Festival, London, England (July 2014) - Charlie Gillet Stage, 4pm show. The crowd was screaming for us (Kobo Town) in-between every song. They sang along to songs they never heard till that evening, I know this because we've never played at Womad before. It was the loudest and most appreciative audience we've ever played for, we signed autographs for almost an hour after, I was 40.

- Assumption Church, Trinidad (2001 - present) - The Saturday evening choir is sometimes a hit and miss, but every once in a while we get it right, and we play hymns the way they're meant to be played - reverent, with love and homage to God, and I can see the look on the parishioners, that they enjoy what we do, and for a brief moment, the church is filled with a sense of peace and love. God's peace perhaps.

Four times, over the space of 25 years.

Not bad. Not bad at all.