It was one of those moments that made life worth living.

Barfly was grungy and grotty and grimy and gritty and even still seemed smoky, years after the smoking ban coming in. Drinks were served in plastic glasses, and by the end of the night the floor would be a slimy black mess liable to leave its mark on anybody drunk enough to fall over onto it. There were generally plenty of candidates.

In the upstairs gig area the atmosphere was electric as the 200-odd crowd of loyal fans, random drunks and the odd music-business professional waited excitedly for the band to come on stage. Sam and Sienna, who had chosen not to go backstage to see the boys beforehand, not wanting to distract them, were propping up the bar at the back of the room, trying to look cool but both churning inwardly at what they were about to witness.

‘However many times I’ve seen Mikey perform, it’s always the same,’ Sienna whispered to Sam. ‘Proper, shit-scared fear just before he comes on.’

‘Aaah. I think that means you lurve him,’ Sam teased her. As the words came out of her mouth, she wondered if the abject terror she was currently feeling said the same about her and Dan. This was going to be the first time she’d seen the boys strutting their stuff on stage (though she’d watched them in rehearsal plenty of times) and her nervousness on Dan’s behalf was, at this precise moment, bordering on the maternal – not an adjective she would usually employ to describe her feelings for him.

But now the already dim lights were dimming still further, until the room was in complete darkness. And suddenly – kerrash! The spotlight was on Olly and his new, state-of-the-art drum kit.

As soon as he started, Sam and Sienna looked at each other and smiled, squeezing one another’s hands, just knowing that it was all going to be OK. Then the spotlight was on Ross, teasing the crowd with the bass line for a good minute or two, which soon had everybody dancing around, spilling their plastic pints on the increasingly slippery floor.

The spotlight turned to Dan, playing the extraordinary melody he had composed in twenty-four hours on his lead guitar, and all the drunken fans were startled into silence. Sam felt the hairs on her arms stand on end. She turned to look at Sienna, who was looking equally gobsmacked.

‘Fucking hell,’ she mouthed.

But then the spotlight was on Mikey, the lead singer, the pretty boy – the Damon Albarn of the group.

‘Awwwright, Camden!’ he shouted, and everyone shouted back, ‘Awwwright, Mikey!’

‘Right. That was just a taster of one of our new ones. This shit-for-brains does have his uses!’ He gestured at Dan, back in the spotlight once more, and there was a ripple of laughter through the crowd.

‘Love you, Dan!’

‘Love you, Mikey!’

‘Love you, Ross!’

People were shouting, hollering. Sam could see girls at the front of the stage actually reaching up to try to touch the boys.