This Is How I Remind Me

I don’t display much in the way of obsessive behaviour in my approach to music.

What I do have is a Word document listing every concert / festival I’ve been to – kept simple; just the artist, venue and date.

I’ve got a friend who keeps his tickets as a memento – though technology has dealt a fatal blow he never predicted as most events now use paperless e-tickets.

It wasn’t until well into my 30s that I thought to compile my list. A way of keeping track of who I saw. Looking at it provokes memories, and charts the course of my life with locations changing as I moved.

It also charts changing tastes and the fortunes of the various acts, some keep recurring (Belle & Sebastian – six times) and others appear once.

In some cases as they disappeared without trace shortly afterwards.

As I started compiling it some 20 years after my first concert there was a lot of backfilling.

Memory and a trawl through my record collection as a prompt gave me the acts, the venues and a rough idea of the year. The internet did the rest.

Want to find the date that The Boo Radleys played Warrington Parr Hall? Some helpful soul already put this information online (10th June 1995) thereby giving this nostalgist a little buzz of satisfaction.

There was only one result that confused me. I was convinced I saw Mogwai with my regular gig buddy of that period at Leeds Metropolitan University around the time of their debut album in 1997. Except the Internet says they didn’t play there until 18th October 1999. By which time that gig buddy had moved away from Leeds and I have no idea who I might have been there with. Was I even there?! I’m 99.9% sure I was.

The list is also a reminder of the ageing process, or maturing perhaps.

First concert I attended after leaving home for university:

It was a spur of the moment thing, only found out about it that afternoon and off we went. Back then usual concert strategy was get to the front. Never mind that once there you were tightly packed in and subjected to the flailing arms and legs of crowd surfers passing overhead. All that mattered was getting as close as possible.

Another sign of the times, like the Discman and Tamagotchis; crowd surfing and stagediving were big in the 90s but I don’t remember when I last saw them.

That night at Wedding Present we were at the front but right of stage.

Directly in front of the speaker stack.

Contrast with my more mature approach. Its now comfort over closeness. I’m an inch under average height which makes finding the optimum viewing spot a little more difficult. Plenty of times I’ve had a decent view ruined by a six footer moving in right in front of me.

With age, my preferred position has moved to the rear. It allows for a more all encompassing view and its easier to sidestep any towering hindrances. You also aren’t hemmed in and subjected to constant jostling from that drunk guy who has lost all sense of equilibrium…

In the 90s and 00s when youth rendered me invincible I didn’t give a thought to the impact on my hearing. Standing in front of the speakers left a ringing in the ears but it was gone the following day. Tinnitus be damned, that was for old people.

Turns out old = 39.

I didn’t realise how bad it was til I got outside and could barely hear.

Just a disorienting combination of loud ringing from within and muffled sounds from without. Driving home not being able to hear the car engine was disturbing. Waking up the next morning some of my hearing had returned but it was uneven between left and right leaving me feeling weirdly off balance. Thankfully that passed but my hearing isn’t as sharp as it used to be.

Which is why I now wear ear plugs whenever I attend live music.

It seemed a simple trade off between that, carrying on without them until my hearing was ruined, or never going to another concert. One of those things that if I could go back in time I’d tell my younger self of the damage and to always wear ear plugs.

Though the younger me would probably just say, ‘yeah right grandad’.

Maturity has brought with it a family and more considerations.

Also notable for the worst hot dog in the history of humanity. I hadn’t eaten beforehand: it was the only option. Turned out to involve a stale dry baguette way bigger than the dog, no sauces available. It was an act of endurance to force it down my throat – another lesson learnt, always make time to eat beforehand. I got home to bed sometime after midnight only to be woken within an hour by a crying baby with a temperature who kept it up most of the night. Who needs sleep anyway?

And then there were concerts I didn’t get to.

A month before Black Keys, I should have seen Jack White; 4th November 2012 at Bridlington Spa. This time Baby J got the disruption in beforehand, with a sleepless night preceeding the concert and necessitating an early Sunday morning trip to an out of hours doctor to get her checked over. Frazzled by lack of sleep and concern at leaving my wife to deal with whatever the problem was meant that I stayed home.

Its gotten easier as she’s gotten older. But those baby years also induced a desire for an early finish. It used to be that an 11pm curfew was the norm.

There became a trend for concerts on a Friday or Saturday to start earlier and be done by 10pm as the venue would turn itself over to a club night. Double the income stream for them. Teenage and twenty something me would have felt short changed by a 10pm finish. But when you know you’ll likely be woken at some point in the night by a baby / toddler with its own wonky internal alarm clock? That early finish and the prospect of an extra hour in bed was a big positive.

Fatherhood also put paid to festivals.

It was hot, dusty and with lousy facilities but over four nights had headliners David Bowie, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Bjork and Sex Pistols. Most memorable part was on the way home having to quell a panic attack on the platform at Birmingham train station. Four nights with little sleep, a lack of food with any nutritional value and rounding things off with vodka soaked drinking games until the early hours of Monday morning caught up with me.

There were many more festivals.

A bewildering number of stages featuring a diverse range of genres (we headed to the Pyramid Stage for the English National Opera performing the final act of The Valkyrie from Wagner’s Ring Cycle). Glastonbury was a week long event. Arriving Wednesday when the campsite opened, staying until Monday. And needing a day of recovery before going back to work.

2007 was a mud year. By Sunday my feet were in agony from the constant damp and being stood up all day. Crawling into my tent each night and pulling off boots and socks, steam would waft up from my feet and my soles were lined with painful ridges.

It was the first Glastonbury I went to after meeting the woman that would become Mrs J.

Returning home to our flat afterwards she recoiled at the sight of the unshaven, mud spattered tramp in front of her. I needed a shower and then a bath to get clean. I’d already binned my tent rather than bring it back, as it was unsalvageable but having got me home I had to bin my boots as they grew mold.

That vision put her off coming with me for several years, finally giving in and giving it a go in 2010. We basked in unbroken sunshine all week long. It was the perfect send off, Mrs J said there was no need to go back as she wouldn’t get that lucky again.

I haven’t been back either.

Junior J came along in 2011. And I decided that family came first. Leave from work was precious and using a week for me to go off and have a good time without them didn’t seem a fair deal for them.

There’s history in the list with the names of venues that have long since closed down.

And Arrested Development. Who we came away from feeling short changed, as they were over and done with inside 40 minutes. The highlight was actually support Me Phi Me playing Black Sunshine, which sampled Another Brick In The Wall in a reggae style. Sadly, The Mayfair was demolished in 1999 to make way for a shopping complex.

It had three rooms ranging from tiny (125 capacity) to… not much bigger (the big room held 500). It was the place for indie and alternative music in Leeds. Spoon have always been a little known secret here. In the same year Transference was a #4 album in the US. Getting to see them in such an intimate venue was a joy. It closed in 2014 for refurbishment and never reopened as it was realised the scale of renovations required wasn’t financially viable.

There have been surprises along the way, I’ve always been one for getting there to see the support act.

Often they’ve faded away into obscurity but there are notable exceptions.

BSP were chaotically brilliant but they would soon be overshadowed by their support that night: The Killers. Seven months before they released Hot Fuss, none of us had any idea who they were.

Or had the foresight seeing them that night in the 375 capacity venue, that within a year they would be massive.

There’s a notable gap in the list covering 2004/05 as a reminder of my year of adventuring abroad.

While I was in Sydney, Nick Cave was played in a circus big top at the Luna Park theme park. I was sorely tempted but on a tight budget decided that I couldn’t justify the cost. I’ve still never seen him live. Sometimes you just have to go for it.

Here’s to plenty more additions to come.

Another change I’ve noticed over time; in the 90s the crowds were generally younger heavily skewed to the under 30s.

Whereas now its normal to see plenty in the audience that are older than me.

To quote the immortal Austrian pop rock standard by Opus:

Live Is Life!

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