There’s a man at every gig I’ve ever been to
There’s a man at every gig I’ve ever been to. He’s about five foot two. He likes wearing black, as far as I can see. And I’ve never met him.
I don’t want to meet him. But I think about him a lot. Any time the band enters the boring middle section of their set, I almost think about him exclusively. I wonder about his life. His obscure five foot two ways. I wonder about every aspect of his existence that has led him to stand in front of Maquina, an indie covers band, and Parastatic, respectively, in the last month.
I’m a music journalist; I’m at plenty of gigs. But this poor chap… how does he afford it? How does he stand there beerless night after night and muster up the spunk to go again a day or two later? How does he ward off the tinnitus or Plantar fasciitis? How does he do it?
By track eight, I generally entertain the thought that he’s not at every local gig going, but rather he’s simply at every one that I’m at—a sort of benign Dostoyevsky character mirroring my social moves or a strange whim of my consciousness that goes before me, soberly to the edge of the stage. An apparition, alchemically born from Fender feedback and the slosh of IPA.
But that thought is a fleeting one for the cheap fantasy writer within me, coaxed out by boredom. I prefer the apparent reality that there is a saint in our midst—a humble man in a black T-shirt with bespoke earplugs that his mother bought him for Christmas, endeavouring to attend every ostensibly hip gig that Newcastle has to offer, ‘supporting the scene’ for kicks.
I like to think that there’s one of these fellows in every town. They mightn’t all be five foot two, and they mightn’t all wear dark band merch, but they’re out there, taking ‘er easy for the rest of us sinners, entranced by the vaguely intoxicating hum of artful music performed with varying degrees of competency and style. They nod their favourite appreciative nod—a nod that just about passes for dancing—and they ‘engage’ with culture in a manner only imagined by every outlet that has ever postulated the importance of ‘grassroots spaces’.
These unknown souls – sponges to art, just destined to be wrung out before the number 12 bus arrives, if only someone could lure them towards a chat over a pint – are the pillars of culture. They’ve seen everyone and everything in your town. And all they ask for is a spot at the front and the odd band T-shirt, preferably in black.
Without them, the world flounders. The art scenes crumble. And the ambient hum of our towns and cities is snuffed out, leaving behind nothing more than the same sigh-like puff of smoke wearily exhaled by a recently extinguished candle. You don’t know their name, and you never will. They are not to be disturbed. They are there to enjoy themselves… and be quietly marvelled at between tracks six and eight.
Leave them be. But protect the spaces they rely upon—if only so that you can go along next Thursday to see if, once again, they’ll be dryly waiting for the headliner stage-left at The Cluny, or perhaps more accurately, which band merch they’ll be sporting when you inevitably see them nodding away to the ambient fuzz of the experimental track seven. Because they’ll be there. They’ll be at every gig you ever go to.
