A 56-year-old woman from the Philippines has shared how she moved to Manchester 30 years ago due to her love of the Manchester music scene. Ann Nazario moved to the region when she was just 25 in 1996 after hearing The Smiths and The Stone Roses on the radio in her hometown.
The music lover, who has gone to over 1000 shows in the last ten years, is now trying to go to 200 gigs in a single year to mark her 30th anniversary and to keep her love of live music alive following a cancer diagnosis earlier this month.
Radio station sparked the dream
She said: "When I was a teenager there was a radio station in the Philippines called WXB102 that we used to listen to when we were teenagers. It played a lot of The Smiths, New Order, Depeche Mode, things like that - what we call New Age in the Philippines."
"The first Smiths song I heard was Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now and I just got into it straight away. Then I heard Girlfriend in a Coma and I just knew this was my band and this is what I wanted to do."
"It's all down to The Smiths how I ended up living here. When I was a teenager, I didn't feel like I belonged in the Philippines, even though I was born there I felt like there was somewhere else I needed to be. So when I found out the Smiths were from Manchester, I just thought that's where I wanted to be."
Finding her way to Manchester
However, by the time Ann was thinking of leaving her hometown, The Smiths had already disbanded. She subsequently moved to the United Arab Emirates but was 'miserable' until she finally moved over to Manchester. Since moving over, she has various jobs, including worked at the university, and now works at Kingbee Records in Chorlton.
She said: "I was in a really bad place. I wanted to leave the Philippines but I didn't think the Middle East was the right place for me. I just didn't know what to do. And then I saw The Stone Roses on a Top of the Pops video that my brother gave me and it renewed my love for Manchester and I thought to myself this is really what I should aim for."
"I remember seeing Mani at an event at Salford Lads Club and I told him my story and thanked him for saving my life. I'm really pleased I got to do that before he died. It was such a terrible pain when he left last year."
"It's just a shame that now I've moved here and The Smiths and The Stone Roses are gone. But it's just the place I wanted to be and I've been here ever since."
Gig challenge and cancer diagnosis
Ann has even had her story featured in A People's History of The Smiths by Iain Key and Richard Houghton. Since 2017, Ann has challenged herself to see 100 gigs a year and this year she hopes to see a total of 200 to mark her 30 year anniversary in Manchester.
It comes as earlier this month, her family were told that she has been diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer that has spread to her liver. Her only option now is to undergo chemotherapy treatment at The Christie in Manchester. Her daughter Adele, 25, decided to create a GoFundMe page to raise funds for her mum with three main aims: to continue going to gigs for however long her battle takes, to take a trip to the Philippines to see her family and to ensure financial peace of mind.
Adele said: "The idea came from the fact that she's just a really unique person. She hasn't really gained financially from all of the things that she's been doing, she just always lives as if it's her last day on Earth and she just wants to do the things that she wants to do."
"But she doesn't do it selfishly, she just gives and gives and spreads joy, and goes to these concerts and supports these artists. It's just the joy that she always brings to people's faces when they see her, it's incredible."
Ann also runs her own podcast, called Ask The Drummer Podcast with Ann Nazario, where she has interviewed over 200 drummers, including Stephen Morris from New Order. Adele continued: "She puts her time and effort and soul and passion into it. She has books and books of scripts that she writes and research that she does, and all of it off the back of literally zero funding."
"She does it all for free, just for the love and the support of the drummers. I just want her to get her dues for how much love she's put out in the world."
And despite her recent diagnosis, Ann doesn't plan on slowing down and is off to watch Paul Weller perform in Liverpool for her 140th gig of the year. Adele added: "What I wanted to be able to do was just give us that layer of protection and that weight off our shoulders and we can already feel it from the support that we've gotten."
"Having that financial backing has just made it so much easier for us to just give her the best chance of keeping up that passion and continuing to do what she loves."
