What a Live Music Event Is!

I hardly dare breath as I enter...

Tonight has a homemade, improvised feel. I’m at Café Oto in Dalston. The trendy Hackney café bar with its carefully designed ‘work in progress’ style is already nearly full as I arrive part way through the first of three acts, Paul Abbott and Ute Kanngiesser. Their set is an improvised piece, of such intensity that I hardly dare breath as I enter, and I certainly don’t make for the bar. Ute has limited herself to live improv for the past 10 years and the piece is as fascinating to watch as it is to hear. Live music normally adds to its recorded counterpart through the performance, but in this case nothing has ever been recorded! Here, the artists have to focus on, and take their lead from each other, bringing an immediate intensity into the room, such that no one in the audience wants or dares to break. There is so much beauty, passion and depth to the piece and performance that when it is finished there is not so much a round of applause as a corporate exhalation. Only when we have been freed to breath again can we express our appreciation.

I definitely need a beer after this and some time to process what I have just experienced! Eventually, with a pint of home-brew, I find a seat. For the first time this evening I am able to relax. As I realise that I did actually enjoy the intense experience of the opening act, I am suddenly struck by a revelation, a moment of seeing the trees for the wood. We are all part of the creative process.
 

Most gigs are about seeing and hearing talented people recreate what they have prepared earlier. In this case however, the music was as homemade as the beer and the surroundings, and we were all part of it’s development. As we strained to see Paul Abbott reach for one set of sticks only to change his mind as he listened intensely to Ute, our reactions, our presence in the room, our concentration - all these things helped to form the piece.

A gigantic crash as the homemade pendulum swings the other way...

And then, as I dwell upon such lofty thoughts and accommodate these delusions of grandeur, we are all brought back down to earth with a gigantic crash as the homemade pendulum swings the other way. Suddenly from the sublime creative studio of Abbott and Kanngisesser C Joynes and the drone of his guitar rudely awaken us. We are no longer part of the process, just onlookers. The only intensity is in the face of the artist as he appears to be wrestling each song from some deep part of his being.  It is fruitless however, because regardless of how deep he digs nothing communicates with the audience. Time for another pint and to move swiftly on!

With a second drink in hand I move to the front and claim a chair on the front row. There are those who love to examine every piece of equipment their musical heroes use, and my new seat certainly affords me such an opportunity as I have a clear sight of the stage. Well I say stage… in actual fact it looks far less like a stage and more like the inside of a man shed! There is an upturned packing case, various different lengths of tube, sheets of sandpaper, hammers and a collection of all those little plastic and metal things you keep thinking will come in useful one day and never do! As their name suggests, the headline act 75 Dollar Bill are American. 

They explain that on arriving in Europe they had the universally dreaded nightmare at baggage reclaim – missing baggage! On this occasion their beloved percussion instruments. What else to do but visit the nearest hardware shop to the airport and buy all the bits they needed and simply recreate the percussion set! At least to my left there are a couple of guitars, although even these are not standard fare for a normal gig. This act promises to be interesting.  In fact, they turn out to be mesmerising.  At times the junkyard percussion is like listening to the start of Genesis’ 1974 avant-garde free-form improvised ‘The Waiting Room’ live. At others it blends with the guitar in a glorious rhythm (much like listening to the end of Genesis’ 1974 avant-garde free-form improvised ‘The Waiting Room’ live!). The homemade motif just continues to flow through the evening!
 

Their final song is an epic masterpiece that sucks the whole audience in as it flows freely around the venue, reaching out and round and through me until I feel one with the band and the music. There is a very real sense that I don’t want the track to end but when it does it brings such closure that I know I have been part of a special experience and my life is richer for it.

The lack of a new CD in my bag...

I leave the venue and pass the merch. stand without purchasing anything, which is most unusual for me. Reflecting on the train home on the lack of a new CD in my bag it dawns that this has been the truest ‘live’ event I have been to during my 50/50 challenge year.  The completely improvised first set - heavily concentrating, not daring to breathe in case any single breath changed the composition for ever - and the total submersion of 75 Dollar Bill’s final song is not anything I could properly experience on vinyl or CD. The second act I wouldn’t want to and the less said about that the better!

All 48 previous gigs have offered slight variations on albums and songs I had or now have in my iTunes library and there have been some very special moments at those concerts. Tonight, on the other hand, is an experience that will not be repeated and it feels so much more significant for it.

Confession time! A few years ago I went to see Cher live - let me just say I brought tickets as a present for someone! It was a spectacular spectacle as you can imagine. What I noticed (which, incidentally, was not that I was quite possibly the only straight guy there!) was that everyone was trying to capture the experience on their phone. It was a perfect example of the post-modern generation as they recorded the current high before they searched for the next one. People, it seems to me, are so scared of missing ‘that’ moment that they fail to live every moment.

Tonight I lived the music. I have nothing but my memory of the gig, no CD, no handheld video - I didn’t try and record it, running the risk of diluting it every time I showed it to unimpressed friends who could in no way be expected to understand, not because they are musical philistines, but simply because they were not part of the experience!  Of course, I can only revisit it in my memory, but it is etched there because I lived it. Tonight remains the truest live event I have been to this year - partly beacuse of the improvisation, partly the homemade nature of the whole evening and partly because the memory won't be worn away by listening to a CD again and again.

I once thoroughly upset a friend who left me an answer machine message of white noise (she thought I would have a clear recording of I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For!) at a U2 concert because I said I didn’t appreciate the message! Her defence was that she wanted me to experience the concert! She was at the concert, I was at home. I was glad she was there, but no amount of white noise on my answer machine made me part of that gig or could help me experience that unique moment in time that she was sharing with thousands of others and U2!

So I’ll stop blogging now as I suspect that the 2 or 3 of you who have read this far were not at this gig with me tonight and nothing I can do will let you fully into the marvellous memory I have of it! But I will encourage you to go to your next gig, not intent on recording it all for later consumption and Youtube but instead to be part of the experience because that is what a live music event is…

Concert: 49 of 50
Date of Gig: Mon. 29th February 2016

Venue
Cafe Oto


Artists 
75 Dollar Bill
 
C Joynes

 

Abbott and Kanngisesser 

 
Running total of artists seen 100

Leaning on a Lampost with a Slight Sexist Nod to Bygone Days

Magicked away on a wave of happiness...

The last gig before Christmas and I’m back at Green Note. I still haven’t learnt my lesson to get there in time to get a seat, so I stand at the back; at least I’m close to the bar (humbug)!

We are gathering for Sarah Spade and the Noisy Boys and an evening of ukulele music. The humble uke has enjoyed a massive growth in popularity recently. Ukulele groups have popped up across the country and self respecting guitar players who would never have been seen with anything less than 6 strings are now proudly standing on stage with their miniature, but mighty, ukes! It is almost as if the diminutive dynamo of the string world has finally shaken off the ‘Formby’ shackle and come into its own. It is not that the Ukulele influence hasn’t been heard – George Harrison has always championed the instrument – it’s just not been seen.  In 1999 Harrison explained,

“Everyone should have and play the ‘uke’ its so simple to carry with you and it’s one instrument you can’t play and not laugh!”

The ukulele is the happiest of all instruments and even in Pete Seeger’s great story-song Abiyoyo it is the lowly ukulele that causes the giant to smile and lie down so that the magician can magic him away and save the village!

And magicked away on a wave of happiness is exactly what happens to us tonight. It is an infectious sound that can’t help but make the audience smile, as sounds from the 30’s right through to the present day are strummed by Sarah Spade and wonderfully accompanied by the Noisy Boys on bass and percussion. With the joyous sound ringing in my ears I don’t care that I’m standing not sitting. I’m not the slightest bit bothered someone has stood in front of me so I am straining my neck to see the stage, or that I can’t reach my glass I placed on the bar due to the crowd!

What would the bright and brilliant uke make of a Joy Division song...

Sarah Spade looks like she has stepped right out of the 30’s in her red dress, pearls and Hawaiian flower in her hair. Her publicity is straight out the 30’s too: “Beautiful Voice. Beautiful Face” D.J. Rob Da Bank (Radio One)! OK obviously the quote is present day but the attitude is pure 30’s. Am I the only one who is insulted by such a quote? Am I really only going to go to the gig if what I see is as beautiful as what I hear? Am I so shallow? Is D.J. Rob Da Bank (Radio One) so shallow? And why, oh why, does Sarah Spade need to put such a quote on her publicity? Would D.J. Rob Da Bank (Radio One) say that about a bloke playing ukulele?

In any event, she lets the music speak for itself with a mixture of original and cover versions, traditional ukulele songs (including Leaning on a Lampost) and songs I never dreamt I would hear on the uke! Delivered with the lovely, light touch demanded by the instrument, but also with the balanced backing of the Noisy Boys who prove that beauty is no necessity for music talent!  There is an infectious fun feel to each song, aided by the antics of the Noisy Boys, which seeps out from the stage into the audience. Standing at the back I see the waves of musical melody wash over the gathered crowd, people engulfed in their fun-filled foam, giggling as they surface for air.

The interval is soon with us and as the crowd dissipate to queue for the toilets. I manage to revive my drink and finish it, and decide to check out the CDs. The percussionist is sat close by, relaxing during the interval, and he starts up a conversation;

“Do you play an instrument?”

“Yes – a little!”

“Guitar?”

“Yes and the Uke”

“Oh! That accent’s not from round here…”

“Yeah, I used to live in the northwest”

“Whereabouts?”

“Last place was Cheshire”

“Oh Joy Division. They were from there weren’t they?”

“You know one of my biggest regrets was never seeing Joy Division…”

And so the conversation dissolves into an appreciation of Joy Division! And immediately a challenge crosses my mind. What would the bright and brilliant uke make of a Joy Division song, and would it make you smile?!

Set against the hype, and the false, forced jollity of a commercial Christmas...

As I make my way back to my spot in the corner at the back of the venue I am still trying to get my head round the fact that I ended up talk about Joy Division with a member of a ukulele singer’s backing band! Chalk and cheese, light and dark, now and then – but I guess it proves the old saying, ‘there are only two types of music: good and bad.’  It’s a simple saying and a simple truth, but one that we learn too late in life I fear. The irony is that although in 1979 I knew who Joy Division were, I didn’t ‘allow myself’ to like them because they were not the type of music I was into. That is why it is such a big regret that I didn’t ever see them live - simply because I wasn’t sufficiently open to the possibility that I could like them. I had a closed mind when it came to music and a musical closed mind is a cardinal sin. How apt the album title: Unknown Pleasures. It’s an album I still listen to, and love, to this day but which remained unknown to me back then.

Having said that, 35 years ago I would never have believed that I would ever go to a ukulele concert, yet alone so enjoy playing the instrument. At least I have now learnt to be open minded when it comes to music (even if an open musical mind can sometimes let you down – I kept my mind open to the possibility that Genesis would produce a good album after Gabriel left!)

Back to Sarah Spade, and the second half is every bit as good as the first. The fun continues, and some of the crowd even find space to dance. This is as far away from a Joy Division gig as I imagine that it is possible to get! I doubt that in 35 years time I’ll be talking to someone who tells me that their greatest regret is not seeing Sarah Spade live but tonight has been an uplifting occasion of great musicianship. Set against the hype, and the false, forced jollity of a commercial Christmas it has been a genuinely happy Christmas gig! Even the very unsubtle innuendo in her obligatory Christmas song raises a genuine smile.

Now home and onto the internet - there has to be a ukulele tab for a Joy Division song…

Gig: 41 of 50

Date of Gig: Sat. 19th December 2015

Venue
Green Note

Artists 
Sarah Spade and the Noisy Boys

Running total of artists seen 87

The Eric Idle of Genesis?

Running tirelessly headlong from one new high to another...
It is said that Eric Idle is the one of all the python boys who has never quite let Monty Python go. Co-writing ‘Spamalot’ is just one example of him (supposedly) harking back to yesteryear. If this is the case then perhaps we can call Steve Hackett the Eric Idle of Genesis! I’ve seen Peter Gabriel many times and he has never played a Genesis song. Admittedly I’ve never seen Mike Rutherford or Tony Banks outside of a Genesis gig and I would never go and see Phil Collins even if you paid me more than he was earning. Steve Hackett on the other hand has always slipped a Genesis song or two into his set. Recently he has been doing even more than that – his last tour was even entitled ‘Revisiting Genesis’ - and at tonight’s gig he promises a second half of the ‘G thing’!

Yet, is it a simple yearning for times past? On his Genesis Revisited II Album he talks about now having the musical technology to make the sounds he had envisaged back in the ‘70’s and so part of the rationale for the album was updating the songs. The tour that accompanied the album was proof that as much as he wanted to revisit these songs, so did the many others who flocked to see the shows. Perhaps Eric Idle and Steve Hackett both recognize that in this post-modern world, running tirelessly headlong from one new high to another, the paying public sometimes crave an evening of the familiar! Or perhaps Idle and Hackett are simply proud of what they did and want to keep sharing it!

It is not that Hackett hasn’t produced an impressive solo back-catalogue. He has been prolific in his writing, performing and recording over the years since he left Genesis. Tonight is a mixture of the two - the old and the new – recognizing that it is 40 years since his first solo album, recorded when he was still a member of Genesis, and that 40 years on he is still writing and recording.

Slide as gracefully from one pose to another...

I have seen Hackett many times, the first in 1980. I have seen him with full band, with his brother John and Roger King as a classical trio as well as the aforementioned full Genesis Revisited concert. Tonight I’m disappointed with the mix and the first half also highlights a weakness in Hackett’s performance - the vocals. Perhaps it is because he is not the strongest vocalist in the world that his songs are best in their instrumental sections! He has an ability to write the heaviest of riffs that wouldn’t be out of place at a Heavy Metal concert, and yet in the same song incorporate an ethereal flute solo! However, too often the vocal sections let the songs down. It’s not that I am not enjoying the first half, it is just that I have seen better sets from him than this one.

I do not know Steve Hackett, but I always get the sense that he is a reluctant star! Often, although not tonight, I have seen him hide behind ‘70’s US Police TV Show sunglasses. He seems ill at ease with acknowledging the audience and rarely speaks to us. As he plays each song, between his parts, he painstakingly checks his pedals, making sure his lead is not under his feet. In getting his left hand into the right position it feels as if he barely notices us. Just occasionally, as he holds a note, does he glance up and offer a smile at the front row.

He is the least likely looking guitar hero. From his clothing to his stance, and from his smile to his wave nothing seems natural for him. So many guitarists slide as gracefully from one pose to another as they do from one note to another, but not Mr Hackett! This apparent awkwardness on stage sometimes makes it seem that he has not one musical note in his bones, which of course, could not be further from the truth!

Constantly changing time signature...

And strangely enough many in the audience seem exactly the same! As they mouth every word their bodies move in an ungainly and constantly changing time signature that even Genesis in their heyday wouldn’t have attempted! Their fashion sense and hairstyles seem rooted in the past, and above the stench of old age sweat and alcohol is a cocktail of BO and halitosis! But they love him. I love him. The person next to me loves him. Even the hanger-on’s love him because he is who he is, and he plays what he wants, and despite what he looks like he is a fantastic musician!

The first half ends with a standing ovation and during the interval the air is heavy, not just from the BO and halitosis, but with the expectation of some obscure ‘G thing’ stuff!

As one, the crowd love the second half. Can anyone who grew up listening to Genesis not love the chance to hear ‘Get ‘Em Out By Friday’, ‘Firth of Fifth’, ‘The Musical Box’ ‘Cinema Show’ and (the obscure one) ‘Can-utility and the Coastliners’!

As with the first half, the second is given a standing ovation. Hackett has never been at the forefront of musical fashion. Those of us who have admitted to being Genesis fans have had to put up with a lot of stick over the years. But we know what we like and we like what we know, and after tonight’s show its safe to say Hackett knows what we like. Long may he continue to make the music he wants, because it is the music we want too.

Gig: 26 of 50
Date of Gig: Wed. 7th October 2015

Venue
Shepherd's Bush Empire

Artists
Steve Hackett

Running total of artists seen 54

Happiness is a Warm Pun - My Tribute to a Beatles Tribute!

The rest they say is history…

The Beatles are so much part of everyday music history and we credit them with changing the face of popular music that we forget that it’s a simple pun that gave them their name. This blog is a homage to that forgotten pun, as I become a musical pundit, not necessarily as an expert but simply because I can say I punned it! If you expect the puns to get better don’t read on this is a long and winding road. I know I should let it be but with a little help from my friends we can work it out and if we let them into our hearts we can make them better… (I told you it wouldn’t get any better!!)

Well, it was gig 17, you know what I mean and I’m watching The Fab Beatles! My excuse? I’m on holiday in Devon, it’s Sunday afternoon, the sun is struggling to shine and it’s free!

So it’s confession time – lighters in the air anyone else who has seen a tribute band! I will admit I have seen a couple before. The Bootleg Beatles, who were just a night out in the student union back in my under-grad days at Hull (at this point you would be forgiven for thinking I am a massive Beatles fan as two out of three of the tribute bands I’ve seen are Beatles tributes, but I’m not nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah) and The Musical Box.

The Musical Box, a Genesis tribute act, were a much more conscious decision than either of the two Beatles tribute act gigs I’ve been to! My excuse was that I never had the opportunity to see Genesis in the best era of their career, the Gabriel era. So a tribute band was the only way I would ever be able to experience a little of what it must have been like to see Gabriel in his ‘slipperman’ outfit pushing back the boundaries of what would become known as multi-media. However, as interesting as it was for an avid Genesis fan too young to have experienced Gabriel, it was not a wonderful gig, just a simple reenactment with some other guy playing the role of my hero.

Let sleeping acts lie…

So tribute band - yes or no? Despite my confessions, on the whole, I would say no! If it was 20 years ago today that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play and the band has long since split then you should probably let sleeping acts lie!

Unlike classical music, live performance of popular music has become firmly wedded to the composers and that has built in a life span when it comes to performance. If the original band splits, so the chance to see the songs performed live is, generally, lost. It is this marriage and ultimate divorce that has spawned the tribute band – people want to get back to where they once belonged before the bird had flown or simply experience what they had missed! So if I kind of get a tribute act of a band that no longer tour, I certainly can’t understand tribute acts for artists who are still performing!

You’re back again – no no no not a second time…

However, the tribute band is now under treat as yesterday’s bands have realised there is money to be made in their own nostalgia, and so the tribute band is being replaced by the reunion tour! Yesterday, all those bands seemed so far away, now it looks as if they’re here to stay, Oh they believe in yesterday. Tribute band or reunion tour I still can’t help feeling that a band and its live performance are always of its time. If I missed it because I was too young, not hip enough, or too broke to see them I can’t recapture that now!

When going to a gig I will always aim to catch the support act. On the one hand I want to discover new music, and on the other I want to brag about seeing them before they were famous! Whilst albums can be enjoyed and rediscovered 30 years on, the thrill of catching a band live at the height or - even better - just before the height, of their fame and power is very much part of the experience and however good the tribute act or reunion tour may be nothing can recapture, replace or relive the first time round because little darling, its seems like years since they’re been here. I am much more jealous of a colleague who saw Led Zeppelin live in Birmingham with a handful of people before they were famous than my friend who got tickets to the 2007 reunion gig!

I can hear them this time…

Yet, I’m still at this gig. Not because it’s a Beatles tribute act, but simply because it’s a free performance on a Sunday afternoon at a local theatre in an English seaside holiday town. I’m not even a daytripper I’m here all week - thank you very much! What a fabulous initiative by The Exmouth Pavilion the place is full and its proper family entertainment. Yes, there is a grandmother who had seen The Beatles in their heyday and there are children young enough to be Paul or Ringo’s great-grandchildren but everyone is having a great time. People are singing along, dancing (there is something in the way they move) and so the band is not allowed to leave the stage until they have exhausted their Beatles repertoire. This is Devon at its best, this is English summer holiday at it best – you don’t need a settled climate to have holiday fun!

Asked if there is any difference from the original, the lady who was there in the 60’s replies with a grin, ‘yes I can hear them this time!’ The Beatles’ grandchildren’s generation don’t care - baby they don’t care, if the suits, boots and hairstyles are authentic or if the Hofner Bass is a copy or real this is live music and they are loving it.

Those of us caught somewhere in between are happy to be entertained. The band are as tight as the mop top wigs they wear and they are playing songs we know all the words to. They have made a real effort to look the part and it’s all adding up to a lovely Sunday afternoon. No, I wouldn’t want every gig to be like this but it’s a gig that’s guaranteed to raise a smile, so may I introduce to you the act you’ve know for all these years….

Gig: 17 of 50

Date of Gig: Sun. 23rd August 2015

Venue
Exmouth Pavilion

Artists
The Fab Beatles

Running total of artists seen 39