Artist: IDLES
Support: The Big Moon
Venue: Millennium Square, Leeds
Date: 8.7.21 [Cancelled]
With large public gatherings still banned at the time, another gig bit the dust. The knock-on effects of endless cancellations made rescheduling such large scale events an impossibility.
Gigs Are Back
Date: 23.5.21
Location: United Kingdom
It’s been a long, long time but gigs are back.
‘Access All Areas’ art print available from my Etsy shop: https://tinyurl.com/ykyh34ue
Artist: Baxter Dury
Venue: Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
Date: 23.3.21 [Originally scheduled: 17.4.20 / Subsequently cancelled]
Rescheduled time after time and then cancelled due to COVID restrictions. In a world without live music we were compensated with a live streamed gig from Baxter Dury’s home. Dark days and strange times.
Gigography stats for a year locked-down and crushed by COVID. At least I went to 9 gigs before the music stopped.
Artist: Nightmares On Wax
Venue: Leeds Town Hall
Date: 20.9.20 [Originally scheduled: 1.4.20 / Subsequently cancelled]
This should have been an awesome night. We had central front row balcony tickets for a special 25th anniversary, orchestrated performance of ‘Smokers Delight’, against the beautiful backdrop of Leeds Town Hall. The tour was only due to visit select worldwide locations with Leeds being the hometown gig.
The real life nightmare of the COVID lockdown put and end to this dream.
Artists: Various
Venue: Leeds Festival [2020], Bramham Park, Leeds
Date: 28.8.20 [Cancelled]
The combination of Rage Against the Machine and IDLES would have made it worth enduring a day with Generation Y. Cancelled due to the COVID lockdown.
Artist: Gary Numan
Venue: Live from the Drive-in, East Yorkshire Airport
Date: 21.8.20 [Cancelled]
Here in my car, I feel safest of all . . .
Under lockdown the gig scene was in stasis. It seemed like large gatherings in hot, sweaty venues wouldn’t happen for the foreseeable future – but for a moment there was light at the end of the tunnel.
A drive-in gig, where everyone stayed in their own car, within a designated grid square, safe and sound from anyone else. Such social distancing seemed like an alien concept but in a world without live music it was a viable option. However, it was never to be. With COVID levels going from bad to worse, lockdown ensued and all plans were grounded.
Artist: Various
Venue: Bluedot [2020], Jodrell Bank Observatory, Cheshire
Date: 23-26.7.20 [Cancelled]
Having thoroughly enjoyed a day at the prevoius year’s Bluedot festival, we booked tickets for the full 2020 event . . . little did we know what was to come that year. As the entire live music scene (and much else in life) was halted by a global pandemic, the festival was postponed for a year.
Assured of a similar line-up when things got back to normal, we held-on to our tickets but 12 months later COVID chaos still reigned. Spikes in virus levels, the need for quarantine ‘bubbles’ and near-impossible international travel scuppered any plans for large gatherings with international line-ups. As tickets rolled-over for a second year, we decided to cut our losses and cash them in.
After an enforced 2 year hiatus, Bluedot triumphantly returned with a very similar line-up in 2022. Sadly on this occasion we missed-out and Björk remains on my ‘must see’ list.
Artist: Baxter Dury
Venue: Royal Albert Hall [Online]
Date: 17.4.20
In the early days of the first COVID-19 lockdown there were no gigs. Venues had to close their doors. Artists and audiences had to stay at home and live music was no more. However, musicians are an innovative breed and quickly adapted, using online tech to collaborate and stream live performances to their homebound fans.
This live session (streamed from Baxter Dury’s home) took place on the evening when I was originally very much looking forward to seeing him play at Brudenell Social Club. It was also my first ever virtual gig. Simply not the same but at the time we took whatever live music we could get. Hats off to all of the artists who kept music alive in those long lockdown days.
COVID-19 Lockdown
Date: 23.3.20
Location: United Kingdom
The day the (live) music died. Ghostlights at UK venues became the only sign of life for the foreseeable future.
‘Access No Areas’ art print available from my Etsy shop: https://tinyurl.com/bhpze2hr
My Gigography 