Thursday 16th December brought with it the prospect of an Interpol gig at the Carling Academy in Birmingham. As expected the band created a euphoric, indie-based ubiquitous atmosphere that stole each individual’s identity and made them clap, bounce, sing in agentic synchronisation. Being one of the crowd members, I was forced to do the same, I felt compelled to do nothing but enjoy this band’s uniquely profound music. Even when I discovered to my horror that the phone that was once comfortably nested in my pocket had seemingly leapt out to join in with the bouncing anthropoids; the situation presented no alternative than to enjoy the potent show Interpol were professing before me. Notably worried by the loss of my polyphonic counterpart, my mind was changed into nothing but a slightly more anxious Interpol fan. I realised that interrogating everyone that was oblivious to anything but the soul-pounding sound being poured out of the speakers or physically searching through the rough sea of people would prove futile. As a result, I did what any deindividualised English man would do and enjoyed the gig with an ever-increasingly spilling pint in firm grip in hand.

“Can you see what you’ve done to my heart?” Interpol’s Slow Hands lyrics were reflected in my phone loss influenced depression. By the time the gig was over, I pragmatically thought that my phone had either been stolen or was inhumanely torn to pieces of polyphonic entrails on the venue floor. However, something good was to come out of this enthralling story of man-to-phone compassion. Something that proves, contrary to the fear-inducing media, that something good can come out of Birmingham. Failing to lose complete hope, I borrowed my drunken friend’s phone and dialled the number of my own I’d come to love: 11 digits of technological bliss. To my sheer disbelief, the phone actually rang and an ominous character answered, ‘You’ve got my phone’: I could think of nothing else productive to say and the beer wasn’t helping.

After a little conversation, I discovered that he was across the street from me outside the academy and I went to meet him, he gave me the phone back with no problems and I thanked him with a sweaty but meaningful handshake of passionate thank you (passion that was one step below kissing your mother after receiving the most useless presents at Christmas). There was a look in his eyes that suggested he wanted money, but after enquiring he just denoted that he hoped someone would do the same for him. I later discovered that he had actually phoned my house and arranged to post it back home for my unfortunate hell-bound soul. For a brief moment, I literally felt like I was in love with this damn kind man. The exposition of the night was far from what I had expected and I wandered what motivated the man to act in a seemingly altruistic way, when he could have sold my phone and earned points with Satan on the opposite side. Whatever the motivation behind this one man’s kind act, it shows that not all people in Birmingham are gun-slinging gangster motherfuckers. It also shows that apathy is not as omnipresent as it seems to be on the surface. Either this or Interpol fans are just nice guys, well I try not to speak arrogantly for myself, but I have been known to buy people presents at Christmas.

The underlying message of this article should now be glowing with clarity. Not everything in British society has been affected by social-decay and there will always be people willing to do things for others despite putting themselves out. Let’s just hope that you’d do the same.