What Live Music Means To Me

January 08, 2018





We have all experienced that moment when the lights dim and the pre-set playlist ends and the crowd erupts in cheers as their favourite artists make their way on stage to perform their set for the night. The feeling of your heart racing as the music kicks in never dulls and the adrenaline rush you gain from it is like no other.

My social media posts generally consist of a lot of music and I tend to attend a lot of gigs due to my huge love of it. Over the past few years I think I've seen about 50 different artists live at various points and always try my hardest to see as many of those that I love whenever they are in a city near me. For this reason I thought it would make a nice bit of Monday evening reading to share why I love music so much, the live version of it in particular.

Let's start with the generic part of the post where I speak about how special it is that so many people come together and celebrate the music of one artist. I adore this, the fact that people with such different backgrounds to mine (and those with similar ones too) are able to congregate in one place and lose themselves within music for a couple of hours a night is magical to put it lightly. Everything that you may be going through gets put on pause, family issues and work stresses are washed aside, life is just stopped for a few hours while you scream the lyrics to your favourite songs alongside a bunch of strangers who are doing the exact same as you. 

Live music is a safe place, it is a home away from home for me. I would happily be completely broke from buying too many concert tickets (as my current bank balance shows) and be aware that in a few weeks time I will be screaming along to a song that means a heap to me than spending it on things that won't hold the memories.

For this reason last year I decided that I was going to follow Mayday Parade (who are a band that got me through a hell of a lot during my early teenage years) round for three of their tour dates, the first being in Brighton, then London and finally got on a plane to Amsterdam and watched them in a country that was completely foreign to me. 

I think Amsterdam was probably the most powerful of all the tour dates to me due to the fact I knew nobody, usually when I go to gigs in England I would know a group of people that were attending and hang with them but this forced me to become friends with new people and leave my comfort zone. These people were so easy to talk to, sitting in a queue for a few hours with people is a great time to make new friends and the fact that they were all so amazed that my love for the band had lead me to travel such a distance was something they admired (in comparison to my parents thinking I was absolutely mad). I actually made friends with one of my now closest friends that night and it is so strange to think that a band literally brought us together.

For me, my love of live music doesn't just stop at the live performance of it all. As much as I adore watching my favourite artists on stage singing to those that appreciate them and the power of them having their lyrics sung right back to them I also began to realise what I wanted to do with my life when I was at gigs. It has completely inspired me to want to take up music photography, to begin exploring the way that I am able to capture the emotion of a performance within a single image. Every gig has photographers, every gig has a crowd, every music photographer is usually there because of their love of live music and music in general. 

Over the past two years I have worked closely with local performances but also had two of the artists that I have been in complete admiration of take me on as a photographer for their shows. Knowing that someone I believe in enough to support also believes in me enough to support me and my progression as a photographer has changed the way I see live music completely. 

The last gig I attended was Dodie at Koko and watching her perform to a sold out venue, achieving her dreams while I was also working for her was insane. Seeing people's appreciation for my work once I publish it after every gig is something that will never grow old, it's an intimate form of art and builds a connection between the artist and the audience. But this time I am the artist, I am building a connection with even more fans and people who love the music that I love through my art and that is incredible. 

So, for me, live music isn't just about seeing someone live or bragging about how many shows I go to. It has always been about getting lost for a few hours, finding a home in music and being surrounded by those who appreciate the music as much as I do. It is slowly becoming a job for me, and I can honestly agree with the saying that if you find a job you love you will never work a day in your life. I love this, I will always love live music and I will probably be just like my mother and encourage my kids to celebrate their love of music in the same way she does to me (I will also probably be the awkward mum that tags along to the shows because I love the artist too and claiming that I'm still cool when I'm like 46). 

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