Music

I think live music is what I’m missing most at the moment. Not playing - I count myself fortunate if I’m able to play a couple of gigs in a year - but attending concerts large and small. I was fortunate enough to go to an all star concert at the O2 in London at the beginning of March, featuring Eric Clapton, Rick Wakeman, Cat Stevens and Van Morrison amongst others, and then in the same week saw my mate’s band, Broadcast 2020mhz, supporting Massive Wagons at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal.
Since then, nothing. Loads of gigs were lined up for this year but inevitably the emails started to come advising cancellation. Happily, most have been rescheduled for next year and I’m just praying that they will be able to go ahead then.
It should have been Glastonbury this weekend but that has been another event that had to be cancelled. I am enjoying what the BBC is showing us from the archive though. Adele’s set from 2016 last night, previously unseen footage of the Stones on Friday and the full David Bowie set from 2000 as tonight’s treat (previously only edited highlights shown)
Watching performances on the telly or on YouTube is ok but not really a substitute for being there and being part of a crowd all having that shared experience. Nothing beats the collective cheer that greets the opening chords of Hotel California, Layla or Comfortably Numb (to name but three). Not just a cheer of recognition for a great song but a cheer of anticipation for what is to come - in the case of the examples mentioned, that would be the guitar solos!
Hopefully, live music will return in the future. I promised myself last year that I’d try and get a band together and have a party to mark the occasion of turning sixty - a celebration of having made it this far! I’m sure that particular celebration of “being alive” is going to have a lot more meaning when it finally is able to take place!