666 : Why I ain't doing live streaming gigs!

I’ll let you into a secret, I just don’t get filmed concerts. In lockdown, I have tried the plentiful streams coming from some of my favourite artists (Insomnium, Enslaved, Swallow the Sun, Hevy Devy) and I also tried revisiting films of classic shows. Both have sadly left me cold. I adore Frank Turner’s “England Keep My Bones”, but heretically I left his full album performance on Thursday midway through coz I was bored. You can see me surging in the crowd in the footage from both AC/DC and Iron Maiden triumphant early nineties Donington headline sets, yet I barely get through the opening numbers with both shows before I decide I have something else tp do.

Hevy Devy is doing for charity but let’s hope Bloodstock will be on.

You see, for me live music is a participative event and not something that you passively consume. It is a full four dimensional experience and sadly when confined to two dimensions in my living room it just doesn’t cut the mustard. I adore live music because it is full immersion and you lose yourself in its every beat and fluctuation. That just isn’t possible when a cat is likely to wander in at any minute and plonk themselves on your lap or even worse, a four year old appears stating that they can’t sleep and “what you watching?”.

Live music is my hobby and before the world went to shite I gigged at least once a week, more if I could feasibly get away with it without risking initiating divorce proceedings. It is my passion and very much my drug of choice. I adore the thrill of waiting for the band to appear. That initial high as they hit stage and the audience surges forward. The communal feeling of bonding as we all scream the lyrics along as one. I am not practically socially articulate and in many ways I prefer my own company as its just easier and less stress inducing. However there is something wonderfully uplifting and therapeutic about the company of strangers and that unifying feeling of all becoming lost in the same moment. 

There is nothing like being in the row.

Every show is different. It is dictated by the venue, the band and the crowd. I have seen audience reaction turn a mediocre performance into something bordering on biblical and I have also seen a lacklustre crowd squeeze the life and energy out of the most wonderful of performer. I just adore that tingling feeling as the lights go down, when you feel you just might be about to witness the greatest thing you have ever seen. There is just nothing, nothing like it. Over thirty four years I have seen thousands of bands play, performing hundreds of thousands of tracks in countless venues ranging from vast fields to tiny upstairs rooms. But no matter how many shows I have been to, I still get that that giddy feeling of expectation in my stomach when I know that I am off to see a band. I still get excited about the prospect of finding a new gem, a new obsession, a new act that blows my socks off. And to be honest no matter how well Frank strums his acoustic in his front room or no matter how hard Enslaved bring the breakdowns in an empty hall, it is just not the same. For me it just feels weird, hollow and lacking.

It ain’t fun being alone.

So I’m going celibate till this all blows over. If you are getting something out of watching bands strut around their rehearsal spaces (or their living rooms), pretending that there is someone else there, then I am very happy for you and really rather jealous. I sadly am getting nothing from it and instead will sit out this particular trend and will just have to wait for the real thing to return. I’ll buy merch and throw the odd quid into the crowd funding campaigns, but for me the best that I can do is drop the needle on the vinyl, close my eyes and wait for all this to pass.