Live Music - A Look Back..

I'm going to blame it on the pandemic. Missing live music happening is really starting to get to me and as a result I've started to reminisce about some of my favourite gigs over the years.

One that sticks firmly in my mind is the Whitney Rose gig I went to back in July 2019. At this point, it feels only right and proper to thank my friend Steve for introducing me to Whitney's music. I look forward to the day when we can be at a Whitney gig together. Hopefully, it will be at the Long Road 2021 (the first drink is on me!).

Whitney Rose is one of those rare artists where, with very little effort, I like everything she's recorded. I like the way she approaches songwriting. I like her voice - traditional-sounding country but with a contemporary twist. She's most definitely one of my favourite artists.

And so as soon as the 2019 UK tour was announced, I jumped at the chance to buy a ticket. The concert was at St Lawrence's Church in Biddulph, close to where I grew up, but now some fifty or so miles north of my current location. The gig was a Friday night and, after leaving work later than I intended, I endured a fraught rush hour journey north up the M6. A very quick McDonalds en route provided me with sufficient sustenance and I made it to the gig with about ten minutes to spare. Phew.

The concert kicked off with a support set from Demi Marriner and Robbie Cavanagh. I had seen Demi previously at a different gig in Birmingham but I had not seen her parter Robbie before. They each played a couple of songs individually and also came together to play as a duo as well. It was an excellent support set and, as is usually the case in a seated Church venue, the sound was superb. I thoroughly enjoyed their music and managed a brief chat to them in the interval and was happy to buy a couple of their CDs.

Robbie Cavanagh and Demi Marriner

After a short break, it was the moment I had been waiting for. Whitney Rose took to the stage. Without delay, she effortlessly and brilliantly performed several songs from her most recent (at the time) album, Rule 62. The zenith of the evening for me came with Whitney's version of the Lesley Gore song, "You Don't Own Me". This was delivered with power and passion and even ended with Whitney climbing into the church pulpit, which seemed a very brave thing to do! At the end of the song, I really wanted to give a standing ovation but I reneged on this thought. At a seated church concert with a mostly senior audience, it didn't seem appropriate but I regret not doing it to this day. It was a performance more than worthy of adulation.

The performance ended with much of the audience wanting more, which was duly supplied with an excellent encore. After the concert had finished, I was happy to join the sizable queue to chat to the lady herself. Whitney was just as charming as I expected and was happy to chat and sign a couple of things for me.

Meeting the lady herself after the gig - a sheer delight!

I wonder to myself why, more than twelve months on, am I posting this review now?As mentioned before, I am really missing live music at the moment. The memories of this gig are quite vivid, such was how much I enjoyed it and the impact that it had on me. Coming into the gig, I had very high expectations but they were more than met and plenty more. It was a wonderful evening.

My Music Listening - An Evolution!

In this blog post, I am going to look at how my music buying and consuming has changed over the years. It will be interesting for me to look back and hopefully it might be interesting for others too. I'm sure my music listening habits aren't all that different to a lot of you out there.

For me, it all began with messing about with some of my parent's records. I assume for obvious reasons that they only ever allowed me to play with the less valuable end of their collection. Although as a 6 or 7 year old, I'm pretty sure I spent just as much time arranging small plastic toys on the turntable and changing the speed in order that the toys flew off in random directions.

I graduated shortly after this to having a Sony Walkman and I would transfer some of my parents records to blank cassette tapes that I had bought from Woolworths using my pocket money. I would combine this with attempting to record songs off the Top 40 on a Sunday, normally stopping the recording about two seconds after the DJ had started talking over the end of the songs. I had many fun hours playing music on my trusty "ghetto blaster" - it still fully works and I've had it such a long time, the independent shop I bought it from closed years ago when the owner retired.

Panasonic ghetto blaster and Roberts radio - both still in perfect working order!

 

Soon after we got a dial up internet connection at home, I discovered a programme called 

Napster where you could download music digitally from pretty much any artist or band you could imagine. Despite only having dial up, I thought at the time that it was fantastic. Normally I'd set a single song to download, get something to eat, and by the time I got back to the computer the transfer had either failed or completed. I guess that at the time I didn't consider how legal or otherwise this was.

I did always have a small music collection, firstly cassette tapes and then CDs. I would buy 

the occasional one myself and I would also ask for albums for birthdays and Christmas, and so on. The majority of my music listening was by this point digitally, listening to mp3 files 

normally while using the computer.

After a while, Napster was taken down and I went through a spell of not being all that 

interested in music. I would listen to music in the background now and again, but I didn't 

actively seek out new music.

Some time later, we were at a family gathering and I noticed that the host was playing some 

background music from their laptop. The technology enthusiast in me was curious and so I had a bit of a gander at what programme they were using. The host caught me looking, "It's called Spotify. It's great, you can find pretty much any music you want on there." This all sounded very promising. For the price of only about one album a month I could have unlimited access to all the music I wanted. 99.9% of anything I've ever searched for I have been able to find, even some music that could be considered very obscure. 

Streaming is just so convenient. For example, it saves me from having to have a bunch of CDs rolling around in the car getting damaged. That said, a few years ago I made a conscious decision to start a physical music collection again. Everyone's collection is different and is personal just to them. I like that it also directly supports the artist - the person or people responsible for producing the art form that I enjoy. I try my best to buy CDs directly from artists - whether that is at gigs (not really at the moment) or from their website. I also like to have CDs signed by the artist - it just makes it that bit more special. You just don't get that with music downloads. As a good friend said to me once, "You can't get an artist to sign an MP3 file"!

Part of my CD collection.

My OCD compels me to have it in alphabetical order!

While vinyl continues its comeback, physical CD sales are dwindling rapidly. Who knows what the future will hold? Some artists are moving more towards a more regular, download only EP approach. I'm more of a traditionalist myself - I like the build up and anticipation of a new album release. One or two songs are released ahead of time to whet the appetite and then the countdown is on until release day. I love the feeling of holding a brand new album, having it in my hand just makes it feel more special. I hope I continue to have that feeling for a long time to come.