I guess the average American, perhaps the ones who only follow the top 20, may have forgotten about Darren Hayes when Savage Garden split but for those of us who were left breathless by his talent he has been with us all along.  After I saw Savage Garden at the Ohio State Fair in 2000 I bought the DVD, Superstars and Cannonballs (Live in Australia), and have watched it more times than I will probably admit.  I paid attention when his first solo album, Spin, came out in 2002 and then The Tension and the Spark in 2004.

          Darren’s angelic voice never left my head or my CD player and for seven years I waited for another chance to hear him live.
 
          That's why I suckered Jim into driving 5 hours with me to Borders in Chicago.  So far I have stood 5 hours and after Darren sings 5 songs I will stand another 2 hours to get his autograph.  It is excessive, expensive and physically painful. 

           I am unduly satisfied, though, as I listen to to Darren Hayes belt 'Truly Madly Deeply' across a ten foot space of tightly jammed chairs.  I think they were placed there as crowd control; for we have now spilled out into the bookshelves and overflowed into the CD displays. 

          It is like he is my TV, only 3D and interactive.  As I lean to the right to see around the black speaker that has obstructed his face he leans to his left and smiles.  I imagine the line of my section of crowd, leaning like the Tower of Pisa, is even more distracting than the constant clicking of cameras and flashes of light that his audience has become.  He continues with 'I Like the Way' and 'Void' from The Tension and the Spark and then introduces his closing song 'Casey' also from his new album with a story about why he wrote it.

          But wait…maybe I’ve gotten ahead of myself.  Maybe I need to back up a little bit.  Maybe I need to travel back in time...