It Is Finished!

I’ll play Musical Russian Roulette...

12 months ago to this day I sat on a bus on the way to a gig and had the idea to celebrate my 50th year by going to 50 gigs.  Its now 3^rd March 2016, I turn 50 in a matter of three or four hours, and I find myself once again on a bus, this time heading to gig #50 – a late night session at the Royal Albert Hall! To mark this momentous moment I’ve decided on something a little leftfield (for me) - if you’ve read my blog of gig #42 ‘So long and thanks for all that Jazz’ you’ll understand I’m not a great Jazz fan. However, this gig appeals because it takes me right up to the birthday deadline (and anyone who knows me, knows I work right up to deadlines!). Its also a grand setting to spend my last few hours of being 49! I am really excited about this last gig as I am completing the challenge I set myself 356 days earlier and I feel a sense of pride.

Tonight is the 50^th gig in the 29^th different venue, and Gwyneth Herbert, whom I’m heading to see and know nothing about, is artist 101! I trust this will not be an Orwellian experience! I don’t know what to expect and it could be a wonderful evening or a total disaster, but listening to new music always excites me. Often in a CD shop I’ll play Musical Russian Roulette and buy a safe CD, a CD by an artist I know or have heard about, and then purchase a wild card. Those wild cards have been some of the best (and I have to say the worst) music I have bought! The feeling of discovering a great album by chance is hard to beat.

The gig isn’t in the main auditorium – Cirque du Soleil are entertaining the masses in there – rather, it is in an ancillary room. As I walk in on the last minute - right up to the deadline again - I realise I am struggling to find a seat at a table. Eventually I find one in the corner and squeeze in. As the gigs starts it soon becomes obvious that although this is relatively late night – as billed - it is not exactly jazz. To me, this feels more like progressive folk. Rewind a year to blog #1 ‘It’s Not My Birthday Yet’ and I mused about Progressive Folk as I genre I’d like to see. One year on and I am finally experiencing it live, albeit unexpectedly!

I am struggling. I so want this to be a fantastic last gig. Musically I like what I am hearing, but if I’m honest, I’m put off by what feels to me like the over bubbly personality of Gwyneth herself. I can’t decide whether she is naturally like this, or if this is nerves or some kind of stage persona she believes is infectious!

Happy 50^th gig and birthday...

As the gig continues there are some fantastic songs and I get much more used to her introductions. A couple of beautiful songs start the second set that leave me wanting to hear them again and again. I’m not sure what has won me over - the great songs, the celebratory glass or two of birthday wine or the gradual calming of her persona as she relaxed into the gig.

As the gig finishes with her strolling round the tables strumming her ukulele, she has totally won me over and I am very glad that I chose this as my 50^th gig to end my 50^th year. So I head to the merch. stall and buy her latest CD (with the two aforementioned songs on) and start a conversation with the artist herself. I tell her about my 50/50 challenge. I mention that this is the ultimate gig and that in 15 minutes I will in fact be 50. Spontaneously, she picks up her ukulele and sings ‘Happy Birthday’ to me and signs my CD with Happy 50^th gig and birthday! It’s a lovely touch to a wonderful last gig and a brilliant challenge!

I turn 50 at a bus stop outside the Royal Albert Hall!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly...

On the bus on the way home I start to try and answer the questions family and friends have asked during this year – ‘Best Gig?’, ‘Worst Gig?’, ‘Best Moment? You get the idea. So here goes the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of my 50/50 Challenge.

Bad:
Blog #3: ‘The Boys are Back in Time’ 
Having to queue for the urinals at Black Star Riders Gig (and then staying to listen to Europe).

Good:
Blog #4: ‘The Siegal has Landed’ 
A master class in guitar playing from Dusty Ciggaar (real name - real talent - check him out).

The Siegal has landed - Ian Seigal @ The Jazz Cafe - 28/3/15

Bad:
Blog #5: ‘Catfish Lost His Bottle Man’ 
I might have well listened to their CD on shuffle (in reality that’s what I did) and the crowd thought this was the height of gig going and live music! DISAPPOINTED.

Good:
Blog #6: ‘I Ain’t Ever Heard No Horse Sing…’ 
Guy Garvey and the MacColls rendition of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’- you had to be there or at least listen on the radio...

Ugly:
Blog #6: ‘I Ain’t Ever Heard No Horse Sing…’ 
Hearing an audience member use the phrase ‘Simply divine, darling’ as she drank Champagne at the Folk Awards! Give me earthy folk (music and people) in spit and sawdust pubs any day of the week over the bubbly swigging awards crowd.

Ugly:
Blog #7: ‘The Curse of the Blues Guitarist’s Face’ 
Faces pulled by Dan Patlansky during solos - thankfully his guitar playing is beautiful! 

Bad:
Blog #9: 'A Different Kind of Gig’ 
People not returning for the second half of Melkit’s Gig.

Good:
Blog #11: ‘Musical Chairs’, 
Every visit to the wonderfully intimate Green Note.

Standing watching from the wings - Hannah Sanders @ The Green Note - 21/5/15

Bad::
Blog #11: ‘Musical Chairs’, 
Never getting a seat at the wonderfully intimate Green Note!

Good:
Blog #12: ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad’ 
Rory Butler – superb support act - best support of the fifty.

Bad:        
Blog #12: ‘Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad’
Peter Bibby – not a great support act - worst support of the fifty.

Good:  
Blog #13: ‘Foliage and Favours in Beetroot Fields’ 
British Sea Power – a wonderful gig, with everything you would expect (from BSP) and more... one of the best gigs of the fifty!

He's behind you! - British Sea Power @ The Roundhouse - 13/6/15

Ugly:
Blog #14: ‘Filling the Dance Floor with Songs for an Empty Room’ 
Feeling old because I knew people were thinking I was the father of one of the support band!

Good:
Blog #15: ‘The Nursing Homes of North London are Empty Tonight’ 
Feeling young at a gig again!

Good:
Blog #19: 'A View from Outside the Club’
Every visit to the wonderfully intimate Green Note.

Bad:    
Blog #19: 'A View from Outside the Club’
Never getting a seat at the wonderfully intimate Green Note!

Ugly:
Blog #19: 'A View from Outside the Club’
William Nein’s Ego.

Good:
Blog #21: 'The Afterglow of Greatness’ 
Richard Thompson playing 1952 Vincent Black Lightening (I love that song).

Good:
Blog #22: ‘Sustained Class’
Every visit to the wonderfully intimate Green Note.

Good:
Blog #22: ‘Sustained Class’
Asking Danny Schmidt to play Stained Glass before the first set, him playing it during the first set and then chatting with him about the song after the first set! The whole gig one of the best gigs of the fifty!

Bad:       
Blog #22: ‘Sustained Class’
Never getting a seat at the wonderfully intimate Green Note!

The troubadour - Danny Schmidt @ The Green Note - 1/10/15

Bad:
Blog #23: ‘Keep My Seat Warm – I’m on My Way’ 
Getting to the venue late and not being allowed in until the song had finished – they’ll be serving ice-cream at the interval next (oh they did!).

Good:
Blog #25: ‘Nativity Plays and Nervous Parents’ 
Rae Morris from The Kenlis Arms, Garstang Unplugged Singers Night to the Shepherd’s Bush Empire – a special moment to experience having seen her so early on in her career and tonight headlining at the Shepherd's Bush Empire.

Long way from Garstang - Rae Morris @ The Shepherd's Bush Empire - 8/10/15

Bad:
Blog #27: ‘The Problem with an Unbeatable Superlative’ 
Being told off for talking by Jon Gomm (like a Headmaster in Assembly)– when we were just trying to put together the pieces of the phone that had dropped from the balcony and reunite them with their owner!

Ugly:   
Blog #27: ‘The Problem with an Unbeatable Superlative’
Getting beer dripped on my head while the person in the balcony, whose phone we rescued, applauded! (every time – didn’t matter how much I shuffled sideways or backwards!).

Don't let him play your guitar - Jon Gomm @ The Jazz Cafe - 21/10/15

Ugly:
Blog #29: ‘Need a New Guitar, John?’ 
Audience members who declare in the opening bars of a song that they ‘love this one’ and then talk loudly through the whole song!

Good:
Blog #30: 'Sex and a Bit of Protest Thrown In’ 
Just love False Lights and they didn’t disappoint live!

Good:
Blog #31: ‘How I Long for a Leader Who is Like A Jewel’ 
Caramel.

Ugly:     
Blog #31: ‘How I Long for a Leader Who is Like A Jewel’
The comment posted about my opinion that the support act was not up to opening a show at the Hammersmith Apollo!

A jewel of a leader - John Grant @ The Hammersmith Apollo - 12/11/15

Bad:
Blog #32: ‘Alabama Safe’ 
So disappointed in how safe Alabama Shakes played this gig – I was so looking forward to the show!

Good:
Blog #34: ‘May You Build a Ladder to the Stars’
Every visit to the wonderfully intimate Green Note.

Bad:      
Blog #34: ‘May You Build a Ladder to the Stars’
Never getting a seat at the wonderfully intimate Green Note!

Ugly:
Blog #36: ‘I Didn’t Realise the Middle Classes Still Owned Family Pews – My Mistake!’ 
Finding my bag and coat unceremoniously dumped on the floor after I went for a drink during the interval - it is not easy being a solo gig goer at the best of times - but it doesn't mean I have no mates and can be treated like rubbish...

Good:
Blog #37: ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go (Go!)’ 
Wonderful multi-media gig - Public Service Broadcasting - one of the best gigs of the fifty!

Good:
Blog #38:‘Leaning on a Lampost with a Slight Sexist Nod to Bygone Days’ 
Every visit to the wonderfully intimate Green Note.

Bad:        
Blog #38:‘Leaning on a Lampost with a Slight Sexist Nod to Bygone Days’
Never getting a seat at the wonderfully intimate Green Note!

Bad:
Blog #40: ‘Bellows, Books, Lamps and Dolls’ 
No Sound Engineer for a gig - if you are going to run a venue you need some basics!

Ugly: 
Blog #42: ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer – One Music?’ 
White people trying to dance to African music!

Good:
Blog #47: ‘It is finished!’ 
The personal and lovely happy birthday from Gwyneth Herbert! 

Concert: 50 of 50
Date of Gig: Thurs. 3rd March 2016

Venue
Royal Albert Hall


Artists 
Gwyneth Herbert

Total number of artists seen 101

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

Groundhog Day with Added Deja Vu!

Each tune crashes on the rocks and dissipates...

The venue is full. The red lights flood down through the smoke. The expectation of the audience is high. The stage is set. The band take the rapturous applause and strike the first chord…

Even though I am on gig number 48 and 11 months into my challenge I still love the day leading up to a gig. However mundane, difficult, or long the day is at work the knowledge that in the evening I will be listening to live music is compelling. If I have seen the band before I recall high points of previous gigs, or possibly, if I have been there before, I relive great gigs at the particular venue that I am going too. The day bristles with expectation and as we near that first intro from the headline band it is near bursting point. At most gigs, a few songs in, I catch myself, before total immersion, enjoying the moment of realisation that the expectation has turned into reality.

But not tonight. A few songs in and I am wondering why tonight is different. With each new song I try hard to float away on the wave of expectation that normally carries me on its crest to musical delight. But tonight there is no crest of a wave with white horses charging only a nagging feeling that this gig is going to be a disappointment, as each tune crashes on the rocks and dissipates.

I soul search. Am I in a foul mood? No. Am I distracted? No.  Am I gig-weary after 48 in as many weeks? No. I recognise some moments of beauty and high points in the songs.

Is it the venue? No, I love this place. The last time I was at the Roundhouse was a tremendous experience. There are venues that have a wonderful atmosphere when you walk in and the Roundhouse is one of those venues for me.

So is it the band?

 
A 2 dimensional feel... 

Well, it’s very hard to catch the mumbled introductions. This hinders any rapport with the audience and gives off the feeling that they are just here to tick the songs off the set-list. The sound seems unbalanced. The brass instruments cut through, and drown out everything beneath them. So much so that I fail to recognise the sound I enjoy on the band’s CDs. It gives the whole gig a 2 dimensional feel, and each song seems shallow. It is in this mire that the appearance of mediocrity surfaces. The gig appears lacklustre and the musicians as if they are going through the motions.

The highlight is ‘In the Mausoleum’ (perhaps it is the highlight because the title resonates with my feeling about the gig!) the penultimate song of the night. It is too little, too late, and this gig is confined to that particular file of ‘disappointing’. In 2009 Lonely Planet named Beirut as one of the 10 liveliest Cities in the world to visit. Unfortunately the band that bears the city’s name, on this showing at least, has a long, long way to go before they can be named in the top ten liveliest live bands.

As I write this blog I fear I have been too negative, and think I must be to blame for not engaging properly. So I search for a review of the gig to see what others thought and I find one on the Guardian website. The first inclination is that I have got it wrong, as the reviewer gives Beirut 4 out of 5 stars. However, on closer examination I feel slightly vindicated in my assessment of the gig: Maddy Costa writes, “most of his between-song chit-chat is garbled by the oddly balanced sound system, which is besotted with trumpets and careless of all else.” 

Groundhog day with added deja vu... 
On reading the review more closely I discover this is in fact a review from their Roundhouse gig in 2007! Groundhog day with added deja vu! It seems that far from being an off night this is exactly where the band were and where they want to be… Maddy Costa continues, “that's partly down to the venue's soupy sound, which blunts the mandolin and ukulele strings, swallows the double bass and reduces every drumline to a throbbing heartbeat, and partly Condon's choice”.

 
I leave frustrated. The overriding experience of gigs for me is that a band playing live brings an added dimension to their songs, not that a dimension is taken away. And because that added dimension is missing, so I take little away from tonight. It is a very unusual experience for me to leave a gig feeling so disappointed.

Concert: 48 of 50
Date of Gig: Fri. 12th February 2016

Venue
The Roundhouse


Artists 
Beirut

DD Dumbo 

 
Running total of artists seen 97