One’s company, two’s a crowd: in praise of the gigs that no-one goes to
Live
music is, I suppose, all about the moment.
The fact that you're there as it happens. Most live music is loud. There's a
fair bit of choreography of lights, stage gear, fancy moves … all that
nonsense. But mostly, in the rock environment anyway, it's simply loud.
Compared to your really-not-as-good-as-it-needs-to-be hi-fi at home or (god
forbid) your pathetic little personal music player, it's very loud. OK,
I can dig that. But what else? Ah, yes, the audience experience. The crowd. It’s
doubtless a function of age and misanthropic grumpiness, but to me this is more
or less the worst thing about gigs. The other people! At best, they keep out of
your way, don't spill their drinks over you and don't step on your feet. Yeah,
with luck they don't bash into you (probably without even noticing), they don't
talk like idiots over quiet music and they refrain from whooping and hollering
after every song. At worst … well, it's the madness of
crowds. What
are the good things? They're few and far between. The occasional heckle-cum-shout-out
can be amusing, people around you nodding their greasy heads or swaying around
a little is … kind of OK. Mostly, though, I think the value of other people is just
that they prevent the gig from being empty. Because an empty gig is rubbish. Or is it? Actually, I’m not so sure. Years ago I used to think it normal to go to medium-sized gigs in concert rooms holding 100-200 people, or at least about 50-60. These days it's usually 20-30 people, sometimes fewer. Last night, for example, there were - depending on how you calculate it - precisely zero people in the audience (if you discount a guy who had come with the one band playing). Nevertheless, the undaunted outfit played two sets, getting little splatters of applause from me (DJ duties), the sound engineer, the barman, the friend (of course) and a couple of other regular-drinker blokes - pub habitués, who don't watch the bands but get drunk and sometimes clap loudly from the other side of the bar. Showbiz, eh?
To
be fair, I've also been to some well-attended gigs that worked well enough, but
generally the crowded events are awful. Those rammed, jam-packed, can't-bloody-breathe
ones, where there’s no hope of getting near the front or of circulating in any
way. A torment! And I hardly ever remember the bigger gigs. I think it's the smaller-scale stuff that stays with you - Turner Cody playing to 7-8 people in New York, Thee Vicars playing to 15 in east London, Herman Düne to around 30-35 in Leicester. Also George Thomas and David Thomas Broughton entertaining exactly 12 (I counted) in Coventry. In another equally-poorly-attended DTB gig (a different one at the same venue I think) he incorporated into his set a brusquely theatrical bit of stage business where he went around the room packing up the empty chairs that had been laid out in rows (rather optimistically) for the show. It was a memorable moment of Broughton-esque oddity and also, perhaps, a sort of artistic comment on the ghosts in the audience. One slogan I've often used for the Niluccio on noise blog is "no gig's too far, or audience too small", and that remains true. In fact, the smaller the better.
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