A Five-Induced Nostalgia Trip

I have posted this before but it was lost to my switcheroo, so in honour of the fact that they added Amsterdam to their reunion tour and I'm going to see them again on Friday night, I thought it'd be good to throw it back up again!

---

I have been drawn in by videos from the current Five reunion tour and it has gotten me all nostalgic and shit, so I'm gonna write about it!

I was 10 years-old when Slam Dunk (Da Funk) was released. I was attending a rural full primary school with a bunch of rich kids and I had just been told I'd be skipping a grade for the next school year. It didn't exactly mean much because the school was so small that three year levels were all put into one classroom and given essentially the same work, but I was feeling sOoOoOo special and smart.

I had also just discovered ~the internet~. I was spending most afternoons and weekends browsing fansites and chatting in Yahoo! chatrooms and on ICQ with people I couldn't quite be sure were also around my age. But we were chatting about Five, so like, who cares if they were a 30-something dude who probably didn't even know where the hell New Zealand was anyway (this actually happened a few years later when an attempt to groom was made, he legit thought New Zealand was a town somewhere in the US).

Y2K hadn't happened yet. 9/11 hadn't happened yet. I had ADHD and didn't realise it, but I was smart enough to skip a grade and my teachers were cool with my behavioural issues because of that. Or maybe they were just hoping to get rid of me sooner. I was hopeful and excited for the future. And I was also Five's biggest fan from the moment they dropped that banger.

Five were there when I lost Dux (prize for top student) to someone who had me proofread her work and had spelt Manukau as 'Manacow' simply because the PTA didn't want the kid with the behavioural issues to win. They decided to include sporting achievements that year, which I couldn't participate in due to my family's economic status. You know, just rich people things.

Five were also there when I started high school. The day after my 13th birthday, I went to Auckland to see them live in concert. My first concert! Even the bullies I'd naturally attracted as an undiagnosed neurodivergent nerd were impressed that my cousin had managed to score tickets. I wasn't cool, at all, but I truly felt like it in that moment.

It'd be a stretch to say that Five's break-up was a harbinger of doom, considering I was an unknowningly neurodivergent teenager struggling through my high school experience as the weirdo nerd with a boyband obsession, and Y2K and 9/11 had happened by the time they announced their split, but it definitely marked ~a time~ in my life. I was able to replace them with a1 as my comfort boyband, but the damage had already been done.

The hope and excitement started to fade. Thanks Osama and Sean Conlon. 😂

All that being said, I still love Five and their reunion actually fills me with joy and has made me realise that my taste in music was always heading in the direction it did with all the genre-blending they got up to. Sure, they were primarily a pop group, but they had TWO rappers and multiple "rock" songs, sampling some of the most famous rock tracks and covering one of the biggest rock songs of all time. Much to my mother's dismay.

I also realised that my husband looks A LOT like J does now. The tweenie Scott fangirl in me is confused as hell, but it's fun to consider the fact that most growned-upz I knew always thought J was the hot one and now that I'm also growned-up (hah!), it's fitting that J is the hottest one now and that my husband looks like him. Winning!

Anyway, here's a playlist of my favourite Five songs. Enjoy!