The stages of life - a slippered pantaloon's pathetic plea

They think it's all over ... it is now. Or maybe not. The unexpected re-appearance of a gargantuan HMV in Birmingham has, it seems, slightly flummoxed "industry specialists" (and lots of other people who barely know what they talking about). It's apparently massive - stretching all the way from the city's central Dale End district right out to Solihull, ten miles away (er, not really). But, it's big. A huge music shed. And, because it's 2019 and no-one can get enough of the stuff - it's apparently got lots of vinyl. Hip hip hooray! Or not. Anyway, as my regular readers will know (all zero of them), I'm no fan of HMV and, to paraphrase Peter Mandelson, I'm intensely relaxed about whether this much-discussed company is going to "succeed" or not. If, like the supermarket giants in their sector, the HMV Vault monstrosity just sucks the life out of Birmingham's other smaller record shops, I don't see how that would be a good thing. But, I guess we'll have to see. Meanwhile, among the various "selling" points for this rebooted record shop is the fact it's got a purpose-built stage for in-store performances. Which is ... much less good than it sounds, if you ask me. Why? Because, having now been to approximately two million gigs in my lifetime, I'm increasingly convinced that stages ruin live music. Ruin it! Genuinely. Over the years, my gig-going has downsized and downsized and downsized. My first-ever gig experience at the end of the seventies was a Thin Lizzy indoor mega-concert attended by more than 10,000 people. (Gulp). In the 1980s, I was going to a few small-ish things in local pubs but mostly a lot of stuff in student union concert halls - typical size: rooms that could hold maybe 400 people. By the late 90s/early 2000s it was the London indie circuit (so-called "toilet" venues), but not tiny places by any means, mostly biggish backrooms of Victorian pubs with a 100-200 capacity.

What am I going on about? What's this got to do with HMV? Well, dotted throughout my "late-period" gig-going (the last 15 years or so) I've been to quite a few things in non-typical, stage-less venues - clothes shops, disused office spaces, old factories, barely-converted warehouses, etc etc. And ... independent record shops. With the latter, it's been a ... journey. Having virtually shunned all record shops since working in one of the bloody places in the mid-eighties, in more recent times I've semi-reluctantly been going back to them for in-stores - usually pausing only to inwardly scoff at the ridiculously-inflated prices of what's on sale (just lately they seem to be asking £49.99 for virtually any second-hand vinyl album that isn't completely wrecked). But curiously - and probably because I've had such an ingrained antipathy to record shops (actually to all shops) - I think I've failed to properly notice that some of these in-store performances have been the best gigs I've attended in any given period. Played right in front of the punters on the shop-floor next to the now-ignored record racks, pound-for-pound these gigs are better than ones in "real" venues. And oddly the penny has only really dropped through reading the corny old Birmingham HMV story, "permanent stage" and all. HMV are doing exactly the wrong thing. Building in distance between performers and audience. Nope, as HMV will almost certainly never realise, stages are a mistake, an anathema even. Large gigs, ditto. Small performances with an almost impromptu feel are simply better - sometimes far, far better - than more formal, larger-scale ones. More intimacy, more immediacy, more intensity, more excitement, more spittle from the singer splashing onto your jacket ... you get the idea. Add to this the fact that no band playing to an audience in excess of 200 (maybe even 100-plus) is worth seeing anyway because they're trying too hard to be the next Nirvana or whatever, and ... I rest my case. Yes, part of the subtitle to this esteemed blog is "No gig too far, or audience too small", and I stand by that. It's definitely worth travelling some distance for a gig if it's any good, but only if it's a small affair when you get there. No stages, please. At all. And indeed, if possible, no formal bars either. These days, with the tiresome business of everyone taking idiotic photos of themselves when they're out (yes, well done, you've gone out), the whole world is a stage. We're all strutting about on our little platforms.

William Shakespeare, captured in a rare selfie

Do I sound like a bitter old man moaning about people having ... fun? Probably. It could be that with my increasing curmudgeonliness I'm already in Shakespeare's sixth age of man from the "all the world's a stage" speech - the "lean and slippered pantaloon". Shuffling around at home, my voice getting all childish and trebly as I rail against ... everything. Fine. But I'm still right about big stages and giant music sheds. Bye! (Exit stage left ...).