August 2009 Archives

My daughter's becoming a gig-monster. I suppose it should be no surprise, it's probably in her genes. I'm now approaching the 30th anniversary of the first gig I went to (AC/DC at Birmingham Odeon), an event I might celebrate if I could only remember the date. Since then I've been to more concerts than I can hope to remember and seen many bands that I've subsequently forgotten.

For almost 20 years I've occasionally found myself watching bands I have little or no interest in, generally for the purposes of work. Some of those have surprised me, others have disappointed, and a few have been excruciating experiences I never hope to repeat. After two decades of being involved (sometimes loosely) in promoting live music I have become accustomed to knowing which gigs I can get away with avoiding - experience is a valuable asset.

Now I find myself having to attend shows I'd rather avoid. Primarily these are for the purposes of 'escorting' a vulnerable young adult. Except that she rarely shows many signs of vulnerability, and would probably prefer me not to escort her at all. I guess I understand this, I wouldn't have wanted to go to many gigs with my parents - and never did, but this may have been due to the fact that I didn't go to any gigs till I was 15. She's 12.

My first experience of the hell that is being visited upon me was as I stood on the edge of the rampant mosh-pit during Bullet For My Valentine's set at Sonisphere. I can't say that I was impressed, because I wasn't. I can't tell my daughter that I've seen it all before, because she isn't interested. This said I have subsequently taken to referring to BFMV as Welshtallica, adopting the classic stance of the parent ridiculing their child's 'inferior' musical choices.

What's the world coming to? I go away for 7 days and there's a riot on the streets of Birmingham, Renato dies, Birmingham City went up for sale (again) and the football season started way too early. Surely it's still the summer; the variable weather conditions are proof enough of that.

There were also a couple of blogs and assorted news pieces which appeared to confirm my thoughts of the last few blogs. They can be found here and here

Then Thom Yorke weighed into the debate on albums and digital music, which is fair enough since Radiohead have placed themselves at the vanguard of this revolution.

Thom is someone I admire, his band remains one of the best and most inventive groups still playing today, but there are flaws in his argument. The CD was not solely responsible for killing the music industry, or at least not in the way he describes. It didn't really prop up the industry as sales of new material continued to boom for a long time.