Amnesia: the best way to approach the new socially-distanced gigs

So, live music is back. Seemingly slain by the fearsome coronavirus, it's pulled off a minor rebirth miracle. Bloodied and shaken, still suffering from some serious after-effects which may yet prove fatal, live music is once again a going concern. Rejoice, rejoice, three times rejoice! Sort of. Because, though live music (at its best) is a great thing, it's now obviously a very different proposition in a time of socially-distanced gigs. Leaving aside (obv) the preposterous - and incredibly dull-looking - large-scale bashes in country parks and other outdoor boredom zones (with their grotesque "human pens", dreary "superstar" DJs etc), the prospect of scaled-back COVID-secure gigs in my own world of no/small-audience gigs is ... intriguing. And a little worrying. Mostly for aesthetic/artistic reasons, not health ones. Basically, will they be any good? Are they going to be neutered to the point of turning into something tedious and atmosphere-less? I'm not really a fan of moshing or lads-down-the-front argy-bargy, but it's also true that some of this human-on-human liveliness is often one of the hallmarks of a genuinely exciting gig. Noise, aggression, energy: remove (or even significantly reduce) these and a lot of rock-based gigs are likely to become pretty anodyne affairs. 

There's often a fine line between so-so/boring gigs and genuinely exciting ones anyway. Sometimes it just needs there to be one "freaky dancer" person jiving it up down the front to change the feel. Or for the gig to be in a darkish, enclosed space (uh-ho) rather than an over-lit, over-large or overly-sterile room. (Hmm, sterile). You might be safe for coronavirus at a new-style gig, but the atmosphere and vibe could be killed stone dead. Yeah, not exactly an uplifting thought. And not exactly what struggling venues around the country - the entire world - want to hear. But probably true nonetheless. Well, what can you do? Probably just suck it and see. For fringe oddball types like me, gigs are important and back in March I was saying how even a long empty week without the opportunity to go to a stuffy backroom in east London to have my hearing ruined was hard, and the longer-term prospect bleak. Nearly six month later, I've (sort of) got used to things. In fact, the re-appearance of relatively interesting gigs has come about earlier than I expected. Now, I just don't want them to be too much of an anti-climax (low expectations are the order of the day ...). In one sense, six months seems an almost brief hiatus in the scheme of things (which, after all, is a global pandemic). But six months is still six months. It's a big chunk of time. Incredibly enough, this lengthy segment of 2020 might well be the longest no-gig period of my pitiful, underachieving life for at least 30 years. I think. Back in 1990, marooned in mad old Madchester doing a degree, 1989-90 was my final year and after Christmas - with exams looming - I don't think I broke out of the university library and away from my industrial-scale swotting long enough to go to any gigs (though, who knows, I may still have squeezed the odd one in). 

So no, Professor Niluccio urges you to approach this period of reborn COVID-secure gigs with a bit of circumspection. Sitting at tables in "bubbles" miles away from the musicians rather than standing at the front barely centimetres away from the sweaty, acne-faced singer - this is the new, not-so-exciting normal. I am only medium-enthused. But, I've got my eye on a few gigs in September so I'll report back (bet you can't wait ...). Overall, I reckon it will probably be advisable to approach these gigs with a certain amnesia. Deliberately forgetting that, while it's not supposed to be life-endangering, live music is also often about danger and excitement. Not real danger but a sense of danger. Remove the danger and sometimes all you've got is er, safety. Take care out there ...