AS MUSICIAN Frank Turner raised his fist, the spotlight picked out his red, white and blue wristband.

Pushed up against the stage barriers on Thursday night, my thoughts turned to The Bataclan.

I couldn’t begin to put into words the scale of horrors currently being inflicted on innocent people by Daesh and other terrorist organisations across the world.

It’s impossible to comprehend the impact every single act of terrorism has on those left in its wake and hard to convey anything but an overarching condemnation of these acts and a deep sadness.

The attack at The Bataclan was – as many have pointed out – one awful, senseless incident among possibly thousands, another act in an escalating global crisis.

I’m highlighting it today not because it’s any more or less important or upsetting than bombs in Beirut, the destruction of Syria or millions of refugees fleeing in terror to all corners of the globe.

I’m highlighting it because this time they came for my brothers and my sisters, because somehow – for me – it got personal and it broke my heart.

Leaving politics aside, I just want to use these few words to remember those people, gathered in the dark watching as their favourite band took to the stage.

In my time, I’ve attended hundreds of gigs, I’ve been a DJ, a gig promoter and reviewer and above all, I’ve been a fan.

I’ve travelled the length of this country for the love of music and there’s barely a person I know that I met outside of it.

I feel like I know those who died in front of that Parisian stage, those whose love of music would seal their fate.

It could have been me gunned down in cold blood, it could have been any one of my friends, several of whom watched the Eagles of Death Metal play Newcastle just days before The Bataclan.

Instead, it was people like us – men and women who knew every word, who ran to the front row for the best spot, who saved up for tickets and tore the setlists from sticky stages, the kids who shivered outside stage doors and allowed the bass drum to turn them temporarily deaf.

And it was those men and women who made it all happen, the band, the support act, their merchandise sellers and the roadies, the sound guys, security guards and bar staff.

Within days of the attack, the music scene I know so well had already changed, perhaps forever.

Before Frank Turner could take to the stage last Thursday, hypervigilant security guards doubled in number had searched hoods and handbags, at once intrusive and understandable.

But, we were all still there.

The band, the merch guys, the roadies, sound technicians and bar staff. The fans, the security guards and the touts, flogging rip-off hoodies outside.

I believe The Bataclan was possibly targeted because it represented everything I love about music and those who live for it.

Rock n roll’s rebellious spirit brings with it freedom, unity, a touch of recklessness and above all else, good fun.

Qualities at odds with the agendas of those who massacred hundreds in Paris, qualities that should not – and will not - be allowed to die in fear.

As I shuffled out of the gig on Thursday, shoulder to shoulder with those strangers that make up my extended family, I knew the terrorists could never truly win.

The music will go on.

“We live to dance another day – it’s just now we have to dance for more of us” – Frank Turner