One of our awesome users, davidjennings (also author of appropriately relevant Net, Blogs and Rock’n'roll) has recently hit the great milestone of attending 500 concerts – he shares with us some of the most memorable shows that make up his ever-growing gigography and what the experiences meant to him:
via last.fm (http://www.last.fm/music/Tangerine+Dream/+images/28967959)
1) Tangerine dream, Brighton Dome, 17 October 1981
I persuaded three of my school friends to come along to this. None of us knew quite what to expect, though I said I thought the light show would be good. It wasn’t that great, to be honest. We were young, inexperienced gig goers. As underage drinkers, we’d also had too much before the show started. I spent the first half hour bored and distracted, trying to build up courage to step across the slumped Afghan coats to make my way out to the toilet. When I did, all my friends followed me. When we got back, now able to relax, everything changed. It was the first time I’ve ever experienced music, created in the moment, which seem to come both from inside and outside me. I wasn’t the only one affected. We left with legs shaking and mouths gaping.
2) Van Morrison and the Chieftains, Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, 7 May 1988
This was my first Van Morrison gig, and the one that has kept me going back another 14 times. Van and the Chieftains were also playing up the road at the Hammersmith Odeon, but the Riverside Studios had a festival of Irish culture and managed to persuade them also to play in their 300 seat theatre. My eldest friend lived just a few hundred yards from the studios at the time, so we managed to get tickets. First the Chieftains played a set, which, to be honest, we didn’t entirely get at the time. Then Van and his band came on and played maybe 45 minutes, ending with a quite remarkable version of Summertime in England. But the real treat was when both bands played the closing set. This was before the Irish Heartbeat album came out, and I’ve never heard songs like My Lagan Love and She Moved Through the Fair before. I remember moments when the lights doomed to a deep red, and Van was just muttering and grunting repetitively. I swear it’s one of the most musical things I’ve ever heard, though perhaps it was like the experience of music from inside the womb.
3) The Magnetic Fields, WOMAD Festival, 22 July 2000
Festivals are great for the vibe, but often after the first day the music starts to pass in a blur. WOMAD is a particular challenge, because there’re so many different types of music on offer. I went to the festival with the same friend who’d been to Tangerine Dream and Van Morrison. At the half way point, we chose to go and see an American band we’d never heard of before, simply on the basis that this might be an opportunity to relax after the wide array of different cultures on offer. We took our place on the edge of the audience at the smallest stage, in the sun, so at least we’d get a tan even if we didn’t like the music. But song by song, we were drawn in more and more. Midway through the set, we stopped talking to each other even between the songs, the better to concentrate our attention on listening. It was only when it was all over that we turned to each other and asked, “Did you just feel the same way I felt about that?!” The shows at Lyric Hammersmith where The Magnetic Fields performed all of their 69 Love Songs album over two nights were pretty special, and technically better than the WOMAD performance, but it’s that one that rekindled my love of music, which had been a bit in the doldrums during the nineties.
4) The Clientele, The Luminaire, London, 8th January 2008
I had to include a gig from The Luminaire: such a great venue, so many great shows. There was nothing special about the place physically, but you could tell that all the artists felt well treated there, and the audience almost always entered into the spirit and gave their full attention. I’d already seen The Clientele several times by 2008, but this winter’s evening somehow turned into something special. I asked my friend Andy and his mates at the end of the show and we all agreed that, about a third of the way in, this performance started to lift – and it just kept on going, reaching a high with an extended jam in Lamplight, always a live favourite. I was one of many gushing thanks on the band’s MySpace site the next morning. Now The Luminaire and The Clientele are both dormant, but this night still holds many special memories.
5) Alasdair Roberts, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 11 December 2009
I’ve been a fan of Alasdair Roberts since 2002, but with each passing year I get a little more obsessive, as he continues to up his game. 2009 was a particularly good vintage for his live shows, starting with the first time I heard songs from his yet-to-be-released Spoils album, which was an incredibly brave and ambitious next step. New songs kept on coming. As well as Spoils, he put out an EP in the autumn, but even when that was newly released, his shows didn’t promote it, but kept on adding to his catalogue. By December, the eighth of nine times I saw him that year (I told you I was getting obsessive!), I thought I’d heard it all. His set started late in a small upstairs room at the Whitechapel Gallery, and I thought he’d probably trot through 45-60 minutes of recent favourites. But no, the new material kept on coming – much of it unreleased to this day, sadly. I was only barely aware of the room slowly emptying as others made their way home. There was no way I was going to miss a minute of this, just for the sake of catching the last train. Some think I’m a bit nutty to see one performer so frequently, but in years to come I think they’ll be saying, “I wish I’d been there the first time those songs were sung.” The 501st show on my gigography will be Alasdair again, and, yes, he’s promising to unveil more new material.
Also, Sleigh Bells at Heaven in Feb was stunning…”
