The Bros fan

Amanda Bradshaw, 46, academic writer from Lowton, Lancashire

I’ve been a Bros fan for more than 30 years. I’ve got every single release, including the original 1987 12in of I Owe You Nothing, which wasn’t a hit – I found it in the basement of Debenhams in Wigan a couple of years later and I cried. Every time they were on TV, I’d be ready with the remote control so I could record them, and I’d watch each appearance on a loop.

Amanda Bradshaw with Matt Goss … ‘He spent so much time with everybody.’ Photograph: Amanda Bradshaw

Five years ago, I found out that Matt Goss was coming to do a signing at HMV in Manchester. For the week before, I was transported back to being a 15-year-old. I was so excited that I was finally going to meet him, I decided I was going to get his autograph and have it tattooed on. It would be on the back of my leg, so no one would see it, but I would know it was there. It would be a permanent memory. It was also poignant for me; when I first adored Bros, when I was 14 or 15, my mum and dad had just got divorced, and it sounds like a cliche, but music – not just Bros – got me through a really difficult time. Having the tattoo was like marking the occasion.

Matt was very gracious at that signing; he spent so much time with everybody. He was very insistent about where he should put his autograph, and then he gave me advice about how to have it tattooed, none of which I remembered. When I got home, I showed it to my partner, Gavin, and told him about my plan. He thought it was hilarious. I got the tattoo done two days later. In the meantime, I covered the autograph with sticky tape to make sure it didn’t come off in the shower. When I peeled off the tape – I don’t know anything about the physics of ink and sticky tape – I was just thinking, “Please don’t let the tape peel the ink off.” I went into a tattooist on the way home from work and it took 20 minutes and cost £60. I’ve never regretted it.

The Gloria Estefan fan

Matt Hemley, 39, theatre journalist from London

Matt Hemley with Gloria Estefan. Photograph: Matt Hemley

My partner jokes that I have Gloria Estefan locked in a cupboard. Thankfully, I have the self-awareness to know that my flat shouldn’t be dominated by her, so most of my collection is in boxes.

I’ve got her music on every format – CDs, tapes and LPs, although when I was a teenager the LPs just decorated my walls because I didn’t have a record player. My whole room was taken up with her. And her label was good at sending stuff if you wrote in – a courier once arrived with billboard posters and a lifesize standup cutout figure of her. That came to university with me, and my housemates would decorate her every Halloween. Nowadays, I just keep a few signed photos out in frames, and if I’m home alone I’ll watch one of her concerts on DVD. I never get bored with singing along.

‘Most of my collection is in boxes.’ Photograph: Matt Hemley

It began when I was 11. My dad had heard her song Go Away, and he wanted it for his birthday. I bought it for him, but I loved it and I pinched it, and I’ve loved her ever since. I loved the vibrancy of her music, and its uplifting nature. I was a gay teen and there was something very comforting about it.

Twelve years ago, I was working for Broadcast magazine, covering radio. I found out that she was going in to LBC, so I contacted the PR, asking if I could come in and say hello, and they arranged for me to sit in on an hour-long interview. I gave her a Christmas pudding because I thought that was something she would never have had in Cuba, where she’s from. Last summer, I was invited to dinner in London with her, and she told everyone about the Christmas pudding. I was amazed she remembered.

Then, when Twitter launched, I started following her, and after a few tweets she realised who I was and followed me back. Every year on my birthday she sends me a direct message, and they have become more and more personal. But I think my favourite memory is from 2015, when I went to the opening night of the musical about her life, On Your Feet!, on Broadway. I knew she would be there, so at the interval, I looked to see what room she would go into. When the second act began, she didn’t come out immediately, so I made my way over. When she came out, I approached her. Her bodyguards came forward, but she said: “I know this person. How are you, Matt?” I don’t think I’ve ever felt so proud.

The Bon Jovi fan

Melissa Holmes, 42, web developer from Derbyshire

Melissa Holmes (left) waiting for her big Bon Jovi moment in 2003. Photograph: Melissa Holmes

I’m hearing-impaired, but that doesn’t stop me enjoying Bon Jovi’s music and melody. I have listened to the CDs hundreds of times. Live shows can be a little frustrating, however because, although I can follow along when they play, when Jon Bon Jovi tells stories or gives little speeches those can be difficult, if not impossible, to understand. I was at Giants Stadium in New Jersey and Jon gave some kind of thank-you speech near the end of the show, and whatever he said had some fans in tears. Everyone was talking about it afterwards, but I’d hardly made out a word.

If you include solo shows by Jon and Richie Sambora [the band’s former guitarist], as well as TV appearances where they have played live, I have seen them 83 times in seven countries. The main thing is the atmosphere, but also I kept going back because I really wanted to hear two specific songs live: Hey God and Dry County. They didn’t play either at my first show in 1995, and I was gutted. So, to avoid missing out again, I did every show that I could: I did all three England shows in 1996, and then I did every ticketed show in the UK and Ireland that Jon, Richie or the band did from 1997 until 2009, plus a few shows elsewhere in Europe and in the US. It took me until show 52 in Dublin in 2006 before I finally heard Dry County live, and, while I did get to hear Hey God in 1996, they didn’t play it again at a show I was at until London 2011, which I think was show 80 for me.

I’ve arrived at venues anything up to 32 hours beforehand to try to get front row; sometimes with sleeping bags and tents, sometimes not – we started with tents in 2006, I think. Before then, everyone just sat out. I’ve been threatened (along with other fans) with having the cops called on me in the US when we wanted to camp out before a show. Luckily, it got resolved, and we camped – and we got front row.

The Monkees fan

Iain Lee, 45, broadcaster from London

Iain Lee, Monkees superfan. Photograph: Matthew Percival

Seeing the Monkees live for the first time in 1989 was amazing. It was spiritual. It was joy and ecstasy unlike anything else. For a 15-year-old, it was a little bit sexy. Despite the mullet he had at the time, Davy Jones was a sexually attractive man, and, I’m going to say it, I fancied him.

It had all started with the TV show – 9.25 in the morning during the school holidays. Some people have their Bowie moment – when they saw him on Top of the Pops doing Starman – but mine was seeing the Monkees mime Valleri. Shit! This is it, man!

‘I’m going to say it, I fancied Davy Jones.’ Photograph: Alan Messer/Rex/Shutterstock

I went to Our Price in the Queensmere shopping centre in Slough to buy a greatest hits album, but they had two: one double, and one with a couple of new songs. I didn’t have enough money for both of them, so I went to the fountain they’d just installed outside the shopping centre – which was normally filled with bubbles from people putting washing-up liquid in – and I stole the extra £2.50 I needed. That was the first sign of obsession: stealing to feed my habit.

Since then, I’ve probably spent £200,000 to £250,000 on the Monkees – on buying things, on travelling to see them, and on setting up 7a Records to release really obscure Monkees records and solo material. The label is a very expensive hobby, but we do it to make the records I want in my collection that don’t actually exist. And the spending started early: at 14, I was convincing my mum to write out international money orders for £100, which I’d send to the US, and then six months later I’d get some really shitty-quality live bootlegs back.

The single most expensive thing I’ve got is a 1967 Monkees Gretsch guitar, which cost about £3,500. I wouldn’t say that ended my marriage, but it didn’t go down particularly well with my wife.

The U2 fan

Beth Nabi, 40, university professor from Jacksonville, Florida

Beth Nabi with The Edge. Photograph: Beth Nabi

I’ve seen U2 73 times in 10 countries since the first time in 1997, and even found an opportunity to merge my love of the band with my academic research.

I teach graphic design and digital media, and I had been studying U2’s visual identity as a fan. I went to Vancouver for the start of their 2015 tour – everyone goes out early to hang around the rehearsals, so there’s this great community – and I noticed lots of the people had U2 tattoos, and it hit me: I wanted to capture this. I wanted to know what marks they put on their bodies and why. From then on, I documented the fans in line. I would interview them and document them, asking: “What does this band mean to you that you have them on your body?” And now the U2 Tattoo Project has had an exhibit in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And it has been on the U2 official site, which was mind-blowing. As a fan: holy shit! Bono may know my name! For any fan to have their idol aware of them is sublime.

In 2017, when they toured playing The Joshua Tree in full, I wanted to work the U2 Tattoo Project in Europe, and see what the fan culture was like in those cities. I try not to think about how much that cost – the first rule of fandom is don’t look at your bank account. I went to every city for every show, but the night of the second Rome show, I had been talking to fans all day, I was exhausted from the heat, and I was overwhelmed and I needed a break. I sold my ticket to another fan and I walked around the city. I went to the Colosseum instead of going to see U2. It was a huge moment: I have a ticket and I’m walking away. It was big step in my development: I came, I saw, I conquered.

The Bruce Springsteen fan

Sindy Grewal, 54, executive coach from London

Sindy Grewal at Springsteen’s Broadway show in 2018. Photograph: Sindy Grewal

I grew up in a traditional Asian family, and teenage girls weren’t really allowed to go to concerts. I wanted to see Springsteen on the River tour in 1981, but none of my siblings would go with me, so I couldn’t go. However, my mother bought me a ticket to see him at Wembley on the Born in the USA tour in 1985. I was overwhelmed, and I cried when he did Independence Day. I’ve now seen him well over 50 times, although that isn’t much compared with lots of superfans, but my friends know I’ll cry if he does Thunder Road, especially the acoustic version.

For me, the important things are the live shows. I’m not a collector. I don’t have every edition of everything that has come out. I don’t have 15 versions of the same album. I’ve never really got that. Instead, I travel to see him because I feel that he’s different in different places: there’s something about the way he relates to each different audience. Seeing him at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, his home state, with his people, had a real sense of community. When I saw him in Australia, because it was such a long time since he’d played there, there was the sheer enthusiasm of everyone. Pittsburgh was unusual because so many of his songs are about places like that – the Johnstown Company, which is mentioned in The River, is in Pittsburgh. I have to keep going to see him because I keep thinking he may not be playing much longer: I may never see him again, if he decides to stop touring.

The Take That fan

Janie Burden, 34, music promoter from Somerset

Janie Burden with Robbie Williams. Photograph: Janie Burden

I suppose my strangest piece of memorabilia is a piece of carpet from HMV in Manchester. It was in 2006, when Take That did a signing there. A group of us camped outside the night before – it was so cold; in hindsight we should have taken a Thermos and some sandwiches – because it was a big adventure. After the signing, some staff came out with bits of carpet, and they said it was the carpet Take That had been standing on. No clue about which member had stood on it, or even if really the soles of their shoes had just brushed it. It lived in the boot of my car for a while because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Every time people saw if, they would ask why I had a piece of carpet in the boot, and I’d tell them someone from Take That might have stood on it. They’d look at me and say: “Oh. OK.”

I first got into them through my older sister – I was six and she was 18 – but it was when they reformed in 2005 that I became a superfan. They were my first band, they were back and I was the right age. I started camping out because I wanted to meet all of them.

The most memorable meeting was when Robbie Williams rejoined in 2010 and they did a Radio 1 live lounge appearance. In the early 90s, they had brought out a set of Take That dolls – you can see who they’re meant to be, but they don’t really look like the members – and I got a set, although they sold out really quickly. My sister told me: “Don’t you dare ever take them out of their boxes.” So at Radio 1, it wasn’t just that I got to see all five of them together again, but I also got Robbie to sign my doll. And now I’ve got all five of them in their boxes, signed.