20 years ago today, May 12, 2006, I was coming home from school on the 370 bus, deep in nervous anticipation about tomorrow's release of Stadium Arcadium. I had a pre-order for the deluxe edition, with all of those silly marbles and spinning tops and slips of paper, at my local JB HIFI - basically Australia’s version of Best Buy. It was Friday afternoon.

Then something twigged, deep in my brain pan. Two weeks earlier, on another Friday night, I had gone out and seen someone gushing over the release of Tool's 10,000 Days that they had picked up... THAT afternoon. He was walking around with one headphone in, which is insane behaviour in any case, even more so when it’s to hear a Tool album for the first time.

I'd always had it stuck in my head that, in Australia, albums came out on Saturday. (And the research I’ve done today proves I was correct to think so!) But over the past few years, I guess, more and more retailers were just releasing stuff on Friday.

I thought - why not? Why not just see if they've put the album out early? A quick detour home with my friend Mark to get the pre-order receipt and we rushed back up the road to JB. As I entered the store, "Slow Cheetah" was playing over the store speakers.

The album had leaked - I had helped leak it - but I hadn't listened to any of it out of some weird loyalty to… not just the band, but the ritual. I wanted the first listen to be special, not interrupted by anything. When I heard “Slow Cheetah,” I knew this was it - it was out. I was going to hear it, and hear it this afternoon. That also meant I didn’t want to hear “Slow Cheetah” for the first time like this.

I got my pre-order and we hightailed it out of there (I guess “Torture Me” was playing by that point), down the hill, down Marion Street, to Mark’s house. His room smelled like Lynx Africa, and if World of Warcraft had a scent it’d probably smell like that too.

Stadium Arcadium was the first album whose release I was around for, and the excitement around it almost certainly cemented my love for the band in a way that wasn’t repeated for other bands, before or since. I’m sitting here now, typing this, because of everything that happened in the first few months of 2006. The emergence of the stadium-arcadium forum, the album trailer, the iTunes bonus tracks, that little acoustic show ¾ of the band played - it was over a six month period, but it feels like two weeks in my memory, just a blistering, non-stop arrival of excitement that can really only happen to a fifteen year old with nothing else to worry about. I sure as hell couldn’t tell you about what was going on at school, or in my personal life, during this period.

I had missed By the Way by a year or so, and it was five full years before I’m with you, and by that time I was an Adult with Responsibilities. This was it, a Goldilocks moment.

Mark and I listened to all of Jupiter sitting at his computer. It wasn’t the beautiful ritual I had envisioned, but it was better in every way, this experience of hearing these songs for the first time, giddy and astonished, out of his dinky little speakers. You know the ones. This was in the days of MSN Messenger, and we even got into an argument with someone - who? how did we even find each other? - about the lyrics to “Wet Sand.”

I had to go home after Jupiter ended, and Mars sat there, unheard and tempting me. Even worse, I had to go out that night. Just before I left, I put the CD into my player and listened to the first tantalising seconds of “Desecration Smile” begin before shutting it off - it was too torturous. I don’t even know when I got around to listening to it. Double albums really spoil you.

There’s a few other memories from this period in this letter from almost seven (!!!!) years ago here. Twenty years is a long time, but it’s gone by in a complete flash. Another twenty will go by before we know it. And while nothing will be the same, and I’ll never have this kind of all-encompassing experience again, I know how lucky I was to be there, living this period as it happened, making all these core memories that I can look back and smile on. I’m still friends with Mark, too!

I encourage you to think back to these moments of your own, hell, start writing them down - publish them - send them to me! A band isn’t just the music in your head but the life you’re having while you hear it. And I’m glad so much of my life is tied up with this silly little band.

Thanks for reading.