On Friday evening, 13 April,  I received an email notification from WordPress telling me one of my blogs – my Top Ten air guitar songs – was on Freshly Pressed. I was having a beer at the time outside a pub by the River Thames in Hammersmith, West London, on my way home.

It’s funny, it’s just a small thing objectively, but I was SO excited. It’s what all us WordPress bloggers hope for, I guess. And it led to a weekend when the hits on my blog, the comments, likes and followers went through the roof compared to before.

Since I started blogging in October 2011, I’ve had a steady stream of hits and interest and I’ve been really pleased about it. There’s something mutually supportive about the network of bloggers which I find quite inspiring. But things just went to another level from Friday.  My previous best number of hits recorded was 75 –  I felt quite good about that at the time.  But it was just nowhere…

Friday 814

Saturday 1,877

Sunday 1,427

Monday 1, 441

And then today I fell off the front page and the score as I write is 152.  Hey that’s not bad! Double my best before Friday.

But it’s not only the hits.  It’s the number of people who have pressed the “like” button (132 to date) and all those people who have been good enough to comment (124, I think).  On the air guitar post I’ve had so many great comments, complimentary but – and this is the best bit – offering their alternative best tunes and recollections of air guitar, or drums, or just rocking out.   When I started my blog, my main objective – or should I say hope – was to get a bit of musical debate going.  That has happened this last weekend and I’m really so pleased about it.

I hope I can keep it going now I’m off that front page of FP, which is why I’m also very grateful to all the people who are now following me.  88 at the moment. I genuinely feel quite humble about that.

And the interest from all around the world is remarkable too.  It’s good to know there is a shared interest in the joys of air guitar and rock and metal.  I’ve always thought music is the great unifier, along with football – so important when geopolitics can so easily divide us.

Sermon over – let’s rock!