MusicGIGS
For about 20 years now, I’ve made a habit of going to gigs alone. Mainly out of necessity – such is the solitary, slightly strange life of the music reviewer (tiny fiddle). But increasingly, it’s something I do by choice. More and more so, it’s a ritual I’ve come to love.
When I first started getting commissioned to write about concerts in Scotland for newspapers and magazines as a young freelance journalist straight out of uni, I couldn’t believe my luck. Something which for ages I had paid to do for fun with my mates, suddenly I was making money from. Best job in the world.
But the caveat was becoming accustomed to going to gigs by myself. Either because the PR company wouldn’t stump up an extra free ticket, or because even if they would, I couldn’t convince anyone to join me. Tickets for amazing artists I’d have pals queuing up to take. But there are only so many times you can harangue a friend into enduring, say, Kasabian with you out of pure solidarity on a wet Wednesday night in January.
The first few times I went to shows alone, I felt like a freak. I felt like every eye in the room was on me, pitying me, the awkward loner with the notepad. I’d drink to numb my anxiety, which was bad for my bank balance, my memory and the legibility of my handwriting. But I eventually made a couple of important realisations. One: it’s practically impossible to look alone in a busy concert venue, everyone packed together in the darkness. Two: nobody gives a shit anyway, and neither should you. Melt into the crowd, and the rest is just your self-consciousness talking.
For years, that was my life. Two, three, even four shows a week, sometimes two in a night. Stone-cold sober, getting pelted with beer at punk and metal gigs, shielding my ears from the screams of hormonal teens at arena pop spectaculars, trying to stay awake during three-hour prog-rock odysseys.
I’ve seen all kinds of incredible artists whom I might otherwise never have seen, from Einstürzende Neubauten to Prince, from Sunn O))) to Beyoncé. I’ve seen all kinds of crap too, but even in the bad shows, I’ve found the good. Moving among different music tribes, a fly on the wall watching people lose their shit in the myriad ways that people will while having the times of their lives, is a fascinating study in human nature, and an odd sort of privilege. It’s opened my mind, and if nothing else, let me witness lots of ridiculously funny scenes. Be it a middle-aged woman cl
