Disclaimer: I’m normally not a fan of live gigs. A roomful of strangers is no picnic for someone with social anxiety; it’s usually too loud (and I’ve got plenty of friends with hearing damage from going to over-loud concerts in our youth); it’s expensive; and I actually usually prefer the studio version of songs to those recorded live. Not to mention COVID.
So I was surprised to find myself at not one but two concerts this weekend, although both were with my favourite musician of all time, Billy Bragg, so it probably counts as nearer one and a half. At last night’s concert he said he’s been doing music for forty years now, and my fandom has been for just about as long. (No he didn’t say that last bit – that was me expressing myself poorly). Strangely, his music doesn’t appeal to anyone else in my family, apart from one of my brothers (see if you can get tickets to the Christchurch show, Hamish – you won’t regret it!).
So, I ended up going to both gigs by myself, although caught up with friends whilst there. The audience was mostly people of my vintage if not even older. It was a sea of grey hair. There wasn’t much dancing going on but lots of singing along which I loved as I knew most of the songs he played. And it wasn’t too loud!
So, the music was great, but perhaps even better was the anecdotes and explanations between songs. It gave me a far greater understanding of the music, and of Billy himself, than you’d get just from the songs themselves. Did you know he’d shaken hands with the Queen? Or that the first time he met his wife was when he was best man at her first wedding? The only person I vaguely feel sorry for (apart from the original husband in that last scenario I suppose, although details are scarce), is the ex who dumped him for the boyfriend he’d stolen her from (there’s a theme here!) back in the 80’s. Apparently he was over here in Dunedin at the time, doing a tour of NZ and Australia. Turns out she was a rich seam of material for his subsequent album. Maybe it’s safest to steer clear of singer/songwriters in your personal relationships? Bloggers, however, are a totally different story.
And of course there’s always the merch!
Billy Bragg ‘one step forward, two steps back’ tour – highly recommended