Record Store Day is one of the most important occassions for music on the calender. This years was bigger than ever, which meant lots of people were left disappointed as the big releases quickly left the shelves. But how was yours?
It's surprising how many people haven't heard of Record Store Day. It's also surprising how many people have and are prepared to loiter round city streets at 4 in the morning to snatch up the latest one off releases.
Founded by a record store employee Chris Brown in 2007 the day aims to celebrate the importance of music, and particularly music that is paid for using real money, in the modern age.
For the unitiated, hundreds of bands participate and release one off singles or special tracks on 7, 10 or 12 inch vinyl. Every independant record shop in the country (sorry HMV) stock these exclusives, often of limited quantity, and sell them to those hardcore enough to show up, which is a LOT of people.
This year, as always, was the biggest and best one yet and some of the exclusives, such as the highly sought after Radiohead single release, were sold out in minutes, often by those who'd queued for hours before the shops opened.
At London's Rough Trade stores, the hub of UK vinyl, there were plenty of in store performances from bands such as Wild Beasts and the queues for the store stretched round the streets.
This writer spent the day in Brighton, another epicentre of British music at the moment. After an hour and half of queuing I managed to get into Resident in the lanes and quickly snapped up all that I came for, that is the Arctic Monkeys, Kills and Rekords Rekords releases.
It's the spirit of the day that is most special. Fans talking to other fans, recommending releases, chatting about music, not staring at a screen and downloading all and sundry. The music industry will forever need the hardcore few, the vinyl buyers, the t-shirt purchasers, the fanzine writers. The music industry may be dead but long live the music.
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