My biggest regret: I had tickets to a secret Prince gig – but was too tired to go

‘With a heavy heart, we gave the tickets away – we’d see Prince some other time’ … Mike Gayle and his wife. Composite: Courtesy of Mike Gayle

It all started with an email from my friend Matt: “Prince is playing a secret gig at Koko in Camden. Tickets on sale at 10am.” Attending a secret gig had always been top of my bucket list. I’d come close once, when I turned up late to a mid-90s club night to discover that Philly rap legends the Roots had just finished playing an impromptu set. I was gutted. So when I got Matt’s email, I knew what I had to do: get tickets for my wife and me, book a train to London from Birmingham, find a hotel, and wrangle a grandparent to look after our two kids, who were then four and seven months old. With that sorted, we could do a leisurely hop down to London and have a power nap in our hotel, before heading off to see Prince and party like it was … well … 2007.

That was the plan.