Live ...

Probably the aspect of music I've neglected the most in this blog is the live stuff. I did one post a year or two ago about seeing Leonard Cohen and gave a few thoughts about what makes a great gig, and certainly mentioned various shows I've been to along the way, but considering the huge number of words and lists I've devoted to artists, albums, songs, charts, etc, I don't think I've written that much about gigs.

Perhaps it's because I don't get to as many as I used to, perhaps because I think it's harder to quantify/review than other things. You experience a show, from one narrow perspective, then it's gone. I've read reviews of shows i've been to which were nothing, absolutely nothing, like the show I experienced. I think I can tell a good gig from a bad gig, but perhaps not if I get too drunk!

Anyway, I've been to loads of gigs and plenty of festivals. My tastes have become more sedate as the years have gone by. Never much of a mosher, but now i'm happiest sitting comfortably!

We're rather lucky in our little commuter town as we appear to have a rather super little music scene - at the local church, in the last few months, we've seen Cate Le Bon, Gruff Rhys, Martha Wainwright and, last week, King Creosote. It's as if I'm sending them a list of my favourite artists and they're putting them on especially for me. Actually, I might try that.

So I still do gigs to an extent, though it's been a few years since I went to one I had to stand up at! You know me, if I do a post, I take it seriously, so i've tried to get to the bottom of every single act I've ever seen, from headliners to support act to afternoon festivals to free shows - I've managed to list about 300 now. There may be a few more not even my memory can access but I think most is covered. Puggy? Slovo? Scatter? Remember them?

Who have I not seen?

Bruce Springsteen
Martha and the Vandellas
Paul Weller (goodness knows how not)
Public Enemy
Stevie Wonder
David Bowie (too late for that probably)
PJ Harvey
Janelle Monae

There aren't that many others I should really make damn sure I see if I want the key to the kingdom of heaven.

There really aren't hard and fast rules for what makes a great gig - sometimes I think bands who've only done a couple of albums have a real advantage as the fans are likely to know and like and hence greet rapturously pretty much song. People complain about Bob Dylan "not playing the hits". What hits exactly? When someone's got 200 songs that might be considered classics, everyone's going  to be disappointed some way or another.

The best thing I can say about Wilco at their peak was that, at some of their gigs, they didn't play any of my personal favourite Wilco songs and yet the gigs were still magnificent. The same is true of Gruff Rhys who now has so much solo material which is completely alive and up to scratch that no one minds him discarding the whole back catalogue of one of the great bands of all time.

Some bands are very good live, to the extent that you think they'll be better than they are on record - Embrace are a good example of that, the Polyphonic Spree, the Hold Steady etc Belle and Sebastian are now a better live band than they are on record, whereas they used to be the other way around.

My favourite venue was probably the Brixton Academy back in the day - big enough and small enough, grand enough and shabby enough, boisterous but not unsafe, well laid out but still heaving. My favourite festival ... hmm ... tricky one ... I think in terms of lasting memories, it would be Benicassim, but in terms of one I might go to again, it would be ATP.

See, i'm still finding it hard to write about gigs. Frankly, I'm amazed that I let 1000s of people invade my personal space quite so often!