My ten best gigs of the half-decade (2020-24)

One of the many minor annoyances of life as a music blogger is to see/hear people banging on about "epic" gigs they went to in their youth. Gigs by the Damned, The Jesus And Mary Chain, New Order, whoever. Sure, they may have been good. Timing is all. Catch one of these bands at the right moment and bang. A memorable event. But what about the great gigs of recent years? Who's getting all nostalgic about these? Well, I am. Sort of. Yes, it's nostalgia for an age yet to come with Niluccio as he recalls the great shows of that long-lost period ... 2020-24. Er, yeah, because having done a 20 best gigs post for the decade 2010-19 (the first ten years of this mighty blog), it was - I've belatedly realised - absolutely essential that I do a follow-up. Essential. Except, waiting until the end of 2029 for a complete look-back at the 2020s seemed ... hmm ... seemed too long. I could be dead by then. You could be dead by then. The world might have ended. Trump might have gone totally mad (more mad) and started a nuclear war with Canada and Spain. So here we are: a half-decade follow-up. It's a year-and-a-half late (I should by rights have done it in December 2024), but it's still er, absolutely valid ...

-Holiday Ghosts: Lion Coffee + Records, London, 31 January 2020

-Graham Dunning: Hundred Years Gallery, London, 15 July 2021

-The Tubs/Leather.head: Avalon Cafe, London, 17 November 2021

-The Lotts: Lion Coffee + Records, London, 10 February 2022

-Big Break/Self-immolation Music/Island Of Love: Delicious Clam, Sheffield, 29 January 2022

-Powerplant: JT Soar, Nottingham, 16 July 2023

-The Silk Cuts/The Smashing Times; New River Studios, London, 28 September 2023

-Dignan Porch: Two Palms, London, 9 February 2024

-The Rebel: The Windmill, London, 3 June 2024 (plus similar Windmill appearances during 2021-23)

-Autocamper: Just Dropped In Records, Coventry, 4 October 2024

Yeah, all great gigs and all equally as good as that Damned show at Coventry Theatre in December 1979 ("the audience were ripping out the seats ... it was mental"). The amazing thing about this period of gig-going in the 2020s is that a whole chunk of time (March 2020-July 2021) was written off because of Covid. For months and months it seemed entirely possible that there'd never be gigs to go to in the future - what future, no future. But then, gradually, they were back. The first one I went to after more than a year away was Graham Dunning doing his manic clicks-and-jerks-and-scratches stuff in the tiny basement at the Hundred Years Gallery. Masked-up, socially-distanced and with a glass of red wine in hand, the gig seemed like a miracle. The miracle of live music! Yep, there must be something miraculous about it. How else can you explain seeing the Lotts one midweek lunchtime at the now-defunct Lion Coffee + Records venue, struggling with the embarrassment of realising you are one of only TWO people there for the gig, and still enjoying it? Yeah man, I'm already feeling nostalgic about these ten gigs from 2020-24, and I'm already feeling nostalgic about the gigs yet to come. Because: though some of those ancient gigs from the '70s and '80s may have been good, and some of those from a more recent decade equally as good, it's the ones yet to come that are truly exciting. Yep, about the future, I can only reminisce ... 

Leather.head churn out their gloom-rock after carefully re-potting all their plants