%20fox%20and%20newt%20Leeds%20nov%202025.jpg)
[Thanks to Dave Mays for this picture of Loaf of Beard in Leeds recently]
40 years ago more or less, a song by an Austrian band Opus called Live is Life was in the charts in the UK. It would be a few more years until I fully appreciated the sentiment behind that title, as I started my own live appearances in late 1990 with Leeds band Big Wednesday. For the past 35 years, I have played live in many different acts, some formal, some made up on the spot, some as solo artist and I estimate probably around 1700 performances (I am not sure of the real number but I have definitely done around 600 in the last decade according to this blog and its listings). I know loads of people from, and have the vast majority of my friends linked to, music somehow or other. Playing live has been my way of socialising and making contacts to allow collaborations to happen and so the circle of life/live continues. I write music, I run a couple of labels, I create visual art, but playing live in a venue, squat, festival, under a bridge, in a park, in a road tunnel, in a cycle tunnel, at an actual international BIG festival (rare, but has happened a few times), weddings, in a cellar, in a front room are where I feel happiest and most comfortable and rewarded. Live is life for me and as long as I am fit and able to perform, I will do.
Of course, playing live involves other folk to help the process. Promoters and spaces, sound engineers and lighting tech, loads of people and this band of collaborators help keep things running. I have been a promoter myself and this taught me about managing my own expectations as a performer. I have of course been to thousands of gigs so I can see both sides of the performer/audience barrier and I try to break down that barrier as much as I can when I am on stage.
Live music is a social good in my experience and I worry how or if it will survive much longer. Covid caused havoc with a lot of venues shutting temporarily or sadly for good and now when enormo-gigs with 100 quid plus ticket costs attract huge audiences and the smaller venues struggle to get folks into gigs for a few quid (I know this is a bit of a generalisation, but there is some truth). Venues have also not been helped by stupid court cases by idiots who like the vibe of living in a city or town, but would rather not have to have a venue that has been in existence much longer than their accommodation contributing to that vibe.
So, after this stream of letters and words, what is the conclusion? Support your local music scene, get involved, perform and enjoy it. While it is still possible. Live is life? Too right it is.
LoS
