This is a followup to my article The Gigging Experience, if you haven’t read that I recommend you read it first then come back to this after!
Introduction #
Live music is a beautiful thing and I’ve been getting my fair share of it over the past year, when I wrote The Gigging Experience back in April I mentioned that the number of shows I’d been to was 35 and counting, now that 2024 is all said and done I have the final count… 106.
I’ve been going to shows at least once a week almost every week, sometimes much more than that like 2, 3 or 4 shows, if there were 100 days in a year I’d have spent 29 of them at concerts, it’s become a cornerstone of my life, so much so that when I have a week where I’m not going to a show (either because I need a break to focus on my work or because I need to save my bank account from becoming emptier than the largest bottomless pit you could ever imagine) it feels like there’s a weird vacuum.
There are plenty of reasons for this skyrocketing increase. There’s the ones I mentioned in the OG article: It’s fun, it adds a new dimension to music, I wanna support the artists, it’s great to meet them, it gives me a sense of work/life balance, and those are all very important, having somewhere to be that’s guaranteed to take up a whole evening (and sometimes morning) keeps me from hyperfixating on projects too much and getting to meet people and socialise in the real world, not just on the internet, is really valuable.
But another new reason I’ve gotten is Instagram, something I didn’t mention in the original article was that I actually started an Instagram account on my birthday at one of my first gigs of the year. It was pretty much a spontaneous decision, but there were 2 ideas behind it:
First is finding more shows to go to, I’d been finding gigs to go to either through recommendations from the ticketing apps (especially the main one I use, DICE) or through Spotify, and those are good but sometimes they miss a lot of shows from the artists I’m following, so I figured being able to hear from artists directly would make a big difference.
Second is having a little place to document my adventures and maybe in touch with people, quickly after creating the account I didn’t just use it to follow artists, I would post about all the shows I’d been to as well, kind of like a picture diary. I post a bunch of pics from the show, a summary of who I’d seen and any thoughts that happened to enter my noggin about the experience, then tag the bands so anyone curious can listen to who I’ve seen.
Both of these worked like a charm, following all the artists I’m interested in means I pretty much never miss hearing about a show or a tour, and the diary has connected me with a lot of people, making that whole sense of wanting to support the bands and socialise go a layer deeper.
It’s one thing for an artist to recognise you as a face in the crowd and another for them to actually know you, I still remember one moment in April, just a week after I dropped The Gigging Experience, where I met the wonderful Ben Kidson a bit after his set, when I introduced myself we traded a few handshakes and thank yous and then he said “Yeah, I know who you are, I know exactly who you are, you’re Entropic Elwood!”, it wasn’t just “yeah I remember you”, it was “I know exactly who you are” that ignited a real buzz in me.
Speaking of a buzz, he’s another great example, Buzz Violet is one of the great bands I discovered last year (more on how later) and me and their frontman George have had some lengthy chats in the DMs, after he read my post from one of his shows he told me how he’d been inspired to put on more gigs and write more songs after being plagued by doubt, it left me with such a strange bittersweet feeling, it was so tragic to me hearing how such a wonderful artist who made such beautiful songs couldn’t see his own greatness, but it was such a privilege to be labelled an inspiration.
It’s not always like this, sometimes I just go to a show, do a bit of headbanging, enjoy the music then hop on the train back home all without saying a word, sometimes no connections are made, it’s still great fun but maybe a bit more surface level. But having these kinds of experiences week after week is really powerful, I’ve been doing so much that 2 weeks can feel like several months just because there are so many memories packed into them, after a whole year of it it’s at the point where I can just close my eyes and picture a venue, a party, a great moment of joy, I can listen to songs and remember being next to the stage hearing them live.
When it was time for me to buy a new phone late 2023 I bought one with over double the storage of my old model in anticipation of how many photos and videos the Gigging Experience would leave me with in 2024, and it turns out to still not have been enough, my storage hit the breaking point and I recently bought a terabyte MicroSD just so I can keep grabbing these memories, so the Gigging Experience can live forevermore.
I feel like I’m living life in a way I never did before, the number of photos I have from 2024 compared to all the years before it really is a testament to that, I truly have escaped the confines of the 4 corners of my room, so now when I’m there it’s because I genuinely want to be, because I enjoy the homeliness and warmth and bedsheets they contain, rather than because I have nowhere else to be.
If anything I now have the opposite problem, I’m actually out too much! I have weeks where 4 days out of 5 I’m at a gig, weeks where I’m in a constant cycle of getting up, having an hour or a few hours to prep, get dressed, eat, and pack all the essentials (earphones, earplugs, phone, and if I need them umbrella and charger) then going right out the door to catch the train to the next venue, enjoy the show, get home, sleep, repeat.
It’s great fun always having somewhere to be, but having all those evenings sucked up means far less time to do everything else, whether that’s writing these personal articles, my contract scripts or just generally relaxing and enjoying the comfort of an empty calendar where I don’t have something to do. Usually the only downtime I get in times like these is that brief window from waking up to going out and from getting home to snoozing, and it’s not long enough to really do what I want to do a lot of the time.
It’s very hard to wrestle the time back because, well, do I want to turn down having fun? Swimming in an oasis of sound? The joy of suddenly jumping up, dashing out the door and feeling the flow of the city as I speed along in the trains? Do I want to turn down hanging out with friends? Meeting artists? Supporting them and earning their gratitude? No! But sometimes it would be for my own good, right?
This tug is actually why this article has taken so long to get out, I was planning for it to be out very early in the new year, I took notes for it in the later half of last year and my idea was right after New Year’s I take some time to reflect on all the experiences I’ve had and barrel it out, and I did start on that, but I’ve been spending so much time gigging I haven’t had much time to write about gigging.
But here I am in a rare gap where I’m not going to a show for a whole 9 days! At least if things stay as they are, so here’s the time to reflect.
The title of this article comes from a little sentiment I picked up on. When artists want to say hi to their crowds they’ve obviously got to use something collective, even if you knew the names of several hundred people it would take a little too long to rattle them all off for an introduction, so when they don’t go for an all encompassing “how are we feeling?” and they want to name the crowd, what do they usually go with? The city they’re in of course. So it’s “how are we London?” all these different faces, people, names and lives become one all encompassing group of revellers, London.
And I may not be from London, but given that I’m travelling there almost every week, usually several times a week, and I’m almost always at the front of that group, who better to fit the bill?
And the city has really started to feel like a second home, there are corners of it that I nearly know by heart, where I can put Google Maps aside and just go by instinct, corners of Camden, Shoreditch, Kings Cross and Hoxton that feel like my patch, the turf of the Underground’s Victoria and Northern Lines, the Overground’s Windrush and Weaver, the train and the tube.
It’s often left me wondering if I wish this was my first home. Part of me says no, a part that likes his small town home, a balance between an urban patch that feels like it’s part of civilisation rather than the middle of bumpkin arse end nowhere and a more rural border of greenery that feels more, I don’t know, escaping. London is all urban, you’ve got the odd park here and there but it’s pretty much an all encompassing concrete jungle, lots of it actually doesn’t feel like a city per se, the very centre has all the lit up skyscrapers but the rest feels more like a small town that just never ends, because that’s what London basically is after all, a central core city surrounded by towns that all grew into each other and became one.
The benefit is of course there’s no shortage of places to be, things to do, sights to see, but I’ve wondered if being encased in that jungle full time would feel suffocating, losing that escape. Over time that anxiety has lessened and I’ve leaned more towards wanting to settle in this jungle, but given that London is one of the most expensive cities in the world, totally out of my pay bracket, it’s just a distant dream at most.
So I might not have found a physical home, but maybe a cultural one? I only started to notice mid way through this journey that there really is a defined scene I frequent, it’s mostly rock, mostly punk, but part pop, part rap, part metal, part electronica, with a dash of all the genre derivatives that come from them mixed in.
There are outliers of course, but I noticed a cluster of shared venues, shared hotspots of the gig life, and when I find a new artist they almost always have an Instagram mutual or two, or 10, or 12, even when I have no clue who someone is and things are all new to me, the scene does.
Most shows have a story to tell, but much as I’m a yapper extraordinaire I have to have some constraints on this article, so I’ve settled for a few sets of plotlines, highlights of 2024’s season of The Gigging Experience.
Stories from The Gigging Experience #
Face Down/Voodoo #
Face Down and Voodoo are both monthly events, that start at 10pm and end at 6am, with DJ sets for most of the night and live bands on in between, FD is on the first Friday of the month at SCALA, Voodoo is on the last Friday of the month at Electrowerkz, with Face Down having a bonus show for the day before New Years Eve, held in collaboration with another club night called Girls, Gays, Theys.
It was this “Pre-NYE” Face Down that I first went to back in 2023, I had no idea the whole thing existed but Esther ( the friend who gave me my iconic pink ring at Girli’s Gotobeat Festival) happened to tell me about it at a gig the day before, it was one of those spontaneous fuck it why not moments that prompted me to cap off the year with an overnight party.
And it was amazing, hula hoop dancers danced, roses were thrown, confetti cannons were fired, and the act of the night was Delilah Bon, a heavy punk artist I discovered a while before.
For the start of 2024 I went again, then again in February, but in March I started to waver. The bands were great but most of the night was the DJ sets, and those sets are mostly made up of old school emo, now I have nothing against that stuff but it’s not always my thing and being seemingly the only one in the room that doesn’t know the words can feel ostracizing, I questioned if I belonged there.
So for March I tried Voodoo instead, it was a night of dozens of tribute bands, not necessarily my thing either but I enjoyed it, and a big selling point of the show was their games corner, they had a Sega Genesis and a PS1 in the corner with a bunch of game collections, so rather than knackering myself dancing and headbanging all night I could chill and play stuff like TEKKEN, Gunstar Heroes, or my personal favourites the Streets of Rage games.
When April rolled around I decided to give Face Down another shot, rather than sticking to Main Room on the bottom floor I decided to head up to the upper Metal Room, where another band always plays after the main set is done, the music in the metal room was much more my speed and the band on that night, Blight Town, really brought the energy.
The metal room is a glorious display of mania, the bands turn the crowd absolutely feral, so not only is the music banging but the crowd really is a sight to behold, and then there was the after-party.
The after-party at Face Down runs from 4 to 6, and the vibes really vary, sometimes I really get in the zone, find a good circle, other terms it’s a bit more awkward, it can be hard to dance like nobody’s watching when you’re in a big crowd where people are actually watching.
This afterparty was the first kind, rather than being aching and tired I was energised, I had such a great time that I booked the next show that very night and since then I’ve been going to Face Down and Voodoo every month.
It’s also rarely its own little gig pipeline, usually I see a band at these nights and that’s the last I see of them, but there are 2, 1 from Voodoo called InRetrospect and 1 from Face Down called Eville, that I’ve gone to see since, Eville especially have become favourites of mine for their fast paced spiky “brat metal” vibe.
Face Down and Voodoo have come to become regular staples of the month, focal points, a new Face Down to go to is what really feels like the new month setting in, when I’m there at SCALA. Whether it’s banging my head to cool bands or leaning along the barrier facing the dance floor I have a big smile really feeling like I’m home, although there is that part of me that still feels a bit distant or out of place, comparing the 10-20 year old nu-metal, emo or pop punk tracks that everyone else seems to know to my much more recent tastes, ultimately it’s the side that feels at home that prevails. After all, I keep coming back, don’t I?
Usually I just stay for the standard 10pm-4am timeline, catch the first train home, but sometimes there’s that itch for more that does keep my feet planted in the club, much rarer than my early days of going, but sometimes.
Just Girli Things #
The next story is more a series of stories, and it starts with Girli. Girli is of course the iconic pop-punk artist I discovered back in early 2023, and she’s kind of become a gig spiral of her own. Not in the usual sense of me going to a show and seeing all her support acts, although she certainly does have a good taste in support bands, but more in terms of connections, it’s that whole knowing a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy type thing, although in this case it’s mostly girls.
The first stop on this spiral is her girlfriend, Kit, who goes by Dirt Flirt. Now I for one had no idea that Milly had a musical partner, but Esther tipped me off that 1. She does 2. She’d be playing a gig, so of course I quickly snapped up a ticket because we love a bit of favouritism.
The show itself was the Isle of Wight Festival’s Quarter Finals, every year this festival puts on shows across the country, each with a bunch of acts, with an audience vote and a judges vote to decide who gets to the next rounds, eventually leading to the festival lineup itself.
After looking Dirt Flirt up I realised I had heard of one of her songs before, Diesel Skirt, what was then her only released track, Milly had put it in one of her special playlists for patrons, Girli FM Gold, where she drops all her top tracks of the month.
At the show, which turned out to be my 5th gig of the year and Kit’s first time playing as Dirt Flirt live, she revealed a whole catalogue of energetic pop tracks, no doubt buoyed by Milly hyping her up.
Each of the other artists at the show brought their own to the table and I was very impressed by them all, ultimately it was The Ariston that went through on the popular vote and Milena Galasso on the panel vote, but everyone had a great night, sticking around to say hi to meet Kit and some of the other bands meant that I had to make an extreme last minute dash for the last train home, narrowly making it with 3 minutes to spare.
Soon after I found out that she was putting on another show 2 weeks later, but I didn’t plan on going because my monthly Zoom chat with Milly (a perk of the Girli Patreon) was scheduled for around the same time, but suddenly shortly before the Zoom was about to start she ended up having to reschedule, and so with an hour left before tickets closed and 2 hours before doors I bagged a ticket and started another mad dash, not away from London but towards it.
This time she was supporting a band called Buzz Violet at their first ever headliner alongside a solo performance from Buzz band member Laurie Debnam.
And it made for a great show, Kit’s music shined again while the Buzz band had a legion of fans piling into the venue to celebrate them, passing around disposable cameras to capture the memories, even though it was a first time taking the lead for the Buzz Band George and Laurie had been performing in other groups before and clearly had their share of loyalists. I was also very impressed by George’s outfit which he told me after was apparently very difficult to perform in!
The next stops on this dirty flirty tour came in May: First off, Sapphic Sounds, Gig no.35, supporting Barcelona born Fox Gunn alongside LA based singer Holly Blair. This one stood out for a particularly opulent venue, Doña, small but gorgeous, with a sparkling sequin door and what has to be one of the comfiest sofas known to mankind, a very intimate venue the artists made the most of that the artists made the most of by encouraging us to all come in closer.
Gunn was really funny and introspective too, apologising to all the straight men before rattling off her track about hooking up with girls who have boyfriends, calling out her own past toxicity and singing about not wanting to feel those desires and getting everyone to cheer for her beloved band of men even though she’s “not the biggest fan of straight men”.
Given the sapphic theme it wasn’t much surprise that I was the only dude at the front (and there weren’t many in the back either) but I felt welcome and at home.
The next stop was a big one, my first time hearing Matriarchy live! Originally that was going to be a later show at the bigger Heaven venue, one which I’d reserved a guestlist spot for, but Milly later announced a small record store tour with a spot at London’s Rough Trade East, of course I couldn’t resist.
The album had only actually released a few days before (May 17th, the show was May 23rd) although as a patron I’d gotten a day early preview of the tracks, but despite the short time I’d listening to the tracks so much that they got glued to my brain and I unlocked the rare superpower of actually knowing the lyrics. As a surprise she spontaneously brought Kit on to play a number of the album tracks acoustically, and the level of admiration they had for each other was so sweetly on display, this was Gig 37!
Next stop, Gig 38 just a few days later, where Kit supported the badass musician Nella, this time as 2 piece with her bassist Willow, who she introduced me to.
Willow is a very multifaceted creative and essentially became a gig pipeline of her own, after I perused her IG page I found she was also the bassist for singer Molly Burman, who was playing a show that was part gig and part funeral, with Burman deciding to retire her solo persona and its old songs with it.
Curiosity struck me so I put on a black suit and tie and headed off to the small Windmill Brixton pub to pay my respects. When I got there Willow made sure to say hi and actually asked me if I remembered her, leaving me surprised and pointing out that she was the reason I was there! It’s usually supposed to be me asking if the artists have a clue who I am, not the other way around!
From the ashes of Molly Burman the solo artist came a new band, Molly and the Dolly Shop, in all their glamour, and I got to take home a wonderfully drawn funeral pamphlet made by Willow. (See what I mean? multifaceted!)
That was Gig 45, and 46 and 47 were back on the Dirt Flirt and Girli train. 46 was a small fundraiser for aid to Palestine, 47 was Matriarchy’s big hometown tour.
Being on the guestlist meant I got to come be a fly on the wall for the soundcheck, seeing not just the sound systems being sorted out but the choreography getting put together, improvised and re-improvised as showtime approached, there was a brief scare as it turned out they’d forgotten to actually put my name on the list, but a wave of awkwardness and a radio call later and we were stamped in to rush to the front and enjoy the show, with Kit opening I was immensely pleased to see her get to graduate from small pubs to a big nightclub and a huge crowd, having the singalong superpower was pure magic and it was great fun seeing the practised choreo come to life for the real thing.
This month of the pipeline closed out with Gig 48, the Breaking Sound show. As you might guess Breaking Sound focuses on putting on gig nights to showcase emerging talent, and for this one Willow was first on playing her solo music together with her boyfriend Charlie. Having only heard her as the bassist for Kit and Molly I had no real clue what to expect from her music, but I ended up being very impressed, emotive, great with storytelling, I quickly picked up some favourite tracks, especially the roadkill themed Highway Graveyard. Each of the other 3 artists, Lucy’s Playhouse, Mateus and RTHUR shined in their own ways too, LP being more like the typical rock stuff I’m used to, Mateus being a solo slow paced bassist complimenting his mastery of the guitar with beautiful vocals, while RTHUR dropping a variety of bopping beats that easily had me picking out favourites, especially Call You in Heaven.
July had 3 more gigs along this web of connections, the first I didn’t even realise until I got there!
Gig 50, July 4th, Election Day. A story you might have spotted already if you’ve ready my democracy article. A few weeks before then I’d gotten a random Instagram sponsorship from an artist called shortstraw, I figured fuck it why not, let’s have an election day gig, and just booked without even looking into her music, a true random punt. Once I got there I had a skim of her page and saw none other than Kit hyping her up, and I got to meet her and Milly at the show!
The shortstraw M.O. was perfect, a mix of punk mania with grime remixes of JME and Skepta, it was even more fitting given that mid gig I read that the Tories were facing electoral oblivion. It turned out that shortstraw, Erin, was a childhood friend of Kit’s and the reason her sponsorship made it into my feed was probably because we had Kit as a mutual follow.
I was so impressed that I quickly bagged a ticket to her next show 2 weeks later, Gig no.53, supporting punk sensation Soft Play, although the venue was a fucking inferno the mania of the crowd and the tracks on the stage were impeccable.
The next day I was seeing Kit again for RAGE: The Fifth Circle, Gig 54, this was a show put on by The Elegists Collective, featuring band gigs and poetry readings, Willow made sure to say hi again and actually told me she was so honoured by my compliments to her solo work that she’d shown them to her family, what a compliment!
For Gig 56 I saw my last Molly and the Dolly show, 65 and 70 my next Dirt Flirt shows, then came the return of Buzz Violet.
They had been on a hiatus ever since their February show but returned to support math rock band Orchards, I was already tempted but hearing that none other than Willow was joining the Buzz band lineup I of course made a point to turnout for what became Gig 76.
George promised me that there wouldn’t be so long a wait this time and true to his word, he announced the Buzz Birthday Bash for November 18th, which (with a shortstraw gig inbetween for Gig 78) turned out to be my next stop on this pipeline for Gig 91, a beautiful show of balloons and tunes, in truth that month long gap had been long enough that their music had started to drift from my mind again, but hearing it reminded me just how beautiful and iconic their sound really is, leading to the lengthy back and forth of praise to George I mentioned in the intro, bless them.
After another shortstraw show (Gig 93), the last stop on this particular pipeline was Gig 97, the Beggs Sisters, you see because Willow just wasn’t versatile enough already, playing bass for Kit, Buzz and Molly Burman and going solo, she also has a family act with her sister Lula and her dad Nick, the Beggs Sisters, and they had a show lined up for December 1st.
I’d come across this show months before but held off because the platform selling the tickets, AXS, was an annoying one that you had to make an account for and I couldn’t be bothered with the faff, but AXS also runs tickets for OVO Arena Wembley, a venue I’d been to mid way through the year, so I ended up having to make an account anyways, with that little hurdle out of the way and curious to see what the family act was like I grabbed a ticket at the very end of October.
When December rolled around I made my way to the small Dingwalls 2 venue alongside Camden Lock, resisting the temptation of the ads encouraging me to visit the nearby chippy instead.
The Sisters only had 1 support with them on the night, but that support, Roxanne De Bastion, was an excellent artist, I was so immersed in her set that I only even took 2 pictures, I couldn’t divide my time between photography and immersion because I was just so caught up in the music, most notably her track Wasteland, an ode to a changing Berlin, and a series of songs from her album “Songs From The Piano Player of Budapest”, which she calls a “collaboration through time” with her grandfather Stephen, a Hungarian concentration camp survivor, telling his story through a mix of her vocals and recordings of his piano playing, I was so impressed that right after her set I ordered the vinyl and bought a copy of her book about the story, The Piano Player of Budapest.
The Sisters themselves were absolutely amazing, there was so much storytelling behind every song, beautiful voices, Willow and her sister Lula were so invested in telling eachothers stories, with a little tinge of edge in their humour.
They had a song called Transition Period that they renamed to I’m on my period, which surprisingly earned the men some praise as we all had a laugh, as opposed to an earlier show where Lula said they’d gotten stony silence, so much so that it was like all the men felt their balls shrivel up. She also told us the story behind a not so sweet love song about a guy she was into who was leading her on and wouldn’t break up with his girlfriend, she showed up at his work and sang it in front of him. Then there was another song about a crush she didn’t act on who later got herpes, I hope his balls didn’t shrivel up too.
There were some much sweeter moments though, a special highlight was Like Her, a song Lula wrote about how her daughter will grow up, mulling over whether or not she’ll imitate her mum.
And behind the two of them there was Nick, “the leggy blonde sister” as they called him, who was clearly so proud of them, I could see it in his eyes, but his words also made things clear enough he said if he never got to play with anyone else again he’d die happy, and I can understand why.
When Willow asked me what I thought at the end of the set I told her: I’ll tell you a secret, even for the best bands there’s a degree of fatigue for me by the end of the set, but you could’ve played 10, 20, 30 more and I still would’ve been into it, which she told me was something she had actually been worried about, I was so happy to not just compliment one of my favourite musicians but to give them confidence just where they might feel a weak point, to say hey, you’re going in the right direction!
To commemorate the show I got some extra mementos to go by, several stickers of Willow’s design that went to my phone case and a Beggs Sisters badge.
So in case you’re struggling to keep track we went from Girli to her partner Kit, then from Kit we have her friend Erin and her bassist Willow, then from Willow we have her as a solo artist, the other 2 bands she plays bass for and her family act. From 1 act to 7, it’s stuff like this that really explains how I went from 35 to 106.
The Birth of a Band #
This story actually might be the most special one for me, after going to a gig called UPGRADE in early April I found a curious DM on my Instagram, a band called Hiccup had been at the show too and came across my profile, they invited me to come see their set in Soho, part of an all evening show at a pub beautifully named the Spice of Life.
I was very surprised that a band was actually reaching out to me personally in that way, and that caught my curiosity, but I held off at first since the show was the day after Face Down, I wanted to see if my brain would be fried after overnight partying or not. It turned out that I was compos mentis after all so I made my way into the venue right on time for doors.
Hiccup is a duo of Jess on the vocals and Lewis on the guitar, supporting by a backing mix, they were on first and were setting up as I made my way in, and they told me that this was actually their first ever gig, the band and its early songs had been months in the works but they’d never been played to a live audience before, as well as the usual array of punters they had some friends and family along but it turned out I was their first organic audience member, no pressure then!
Thankfully they weren’t dogshit, or any kind of shit, they were actually right up my alley, Lewis’ edgy guitar riffs mixing with Jess’ upbeat vocals to create that contrast of dark subjects mixed with happy go lucky sounds, a tonal dissonance fit for our modern age, none of their songs were out at the time and my overriding thought was wishing they were so I could play them incessantly.
After their set they were incredibly welcoming and introduced me to their group, especially their photographer Fraizer who told me the story of how he’d escaped the corporate world for something a bit more adventurous and human, hanging out with them and watching the rest of the amazing bands capped off a great night.
I kept up with their music over the next few months as they released their first 3 singles, Life Update, Headache and Braindump, and got to see them again in July at another all evening show, the Camden Rocks All Dayer,
I last got to see them in September the day after they released single no.4, Bed By Ten, kindly being gifted with a bunch of badges for my collection, one for each song and one with the band logo, and we were able to have a great heart to heart about the industry and the little part I play in trying to hold up the artists within it, and their plans to travel in their kitted out van turned home, at the end of the night they kindly saved me from missing the last train home by driving me in that van to the station.
Jess and Lewis are a wonderful duo and Hiccup definitely has to be the earliest I’ve gotten into a band, and I’m very pleased I took them up on their invitation to see their first show.
Bambimania! #
This one is an old school bookend, I first saw Aziya all the way back in 2022 at my 6th ever gig, back when she was supporting Nova Twins (you can spot her in the first image of that show on the original article!); She only had a few songs out at the time, her 5 track EP We Speak of Tides and her demo girl meets world, but those songs were iconic, oozing alt rock energy, the EP tracks Slip! and Heaven For Me were particular earworms.
Despite being a big fan of her music I never found the chance to see her again, my interest in her music was kept alive mostly by YouTube, where she put out lots of YouTube shorts promoting the tracks, playing them around city streets from London to New York and exploring her production process, it helped that her first new track was the lovestruck Atomic, paired with a music video where she rushes and poses along London’s embankment.
This was just the first track of another EP, Lonely Castles, which was rounded out by the faster paced, equally striking Mars Retrograde, keen to support artists and brainwash my dad into having excellent musical taste I made sure to buy the EP on vinyl for him, but it was later in 2024 with the launch of her mixtape, Bambi, that things really took off.
After launching the first single Party’s Over in early April she decided to host a fan meetup on the day the second track, crush (tom verlaine) dropped, June 7th, I was already planning to be in London that evening for Face Down (with another gig before that too) so of course I jumped at the chance to meet an iconic artist, heading down to the Netil House photobooth where the music video for the track had been filmed.
She was incredibly kind and enthusiastic and as well as getting to chat we took a bunch of pictures and videos singing the song in the booth, a bit of an on the spot moment given that I’d decided not to do my homework, only listening to the track once on my way to the meet so I didn’t know the words, but it was a catchy banger. I ended up leaving with piles of goodies, more than I bargained for, I ended up with a badge (which was actually my first, but I ended up losing it to a Voodoo mosh 2 months later), a photostrip from the booth, a bunch of stickers and a full size signed poster, all on a day where I didn’t have zippy pockets, folding up the poster half a dozen times I managed to keep it safely in my pocket and get through the next 2 gigs.
The Aziya meetup wasn’t quite a gig, but let’s call it event number 42, Aziya did actually have a gig only a few days later, a headliner at The Shacklewell Arms pub, but I sadly ended up having to miss out on it since it shared a date with Girli’s Heaven show, and I couldn’t really ditch a show I was on the guest list for!
But I did end up finding a much later gig she had all the way in November, so I got myself a ticket and waited again. Not quite as long as November though, in late October Aziya hosted a listening party for Bambi 2 weeks before launch at her studio that I got to be one of the lucky few to attend, event no.79.
She played us the whole tape including the then unreleased intermission tracks and the title track Bambi and talked us through the whole concept, exploring vulnerability and its upsides and downsides, something represented even by the title and the symbols of the project, the Bambi name invoking Disney’s delicate doe, with text presented in an edgy heavy metal font next to a cutesy bunny (that doe is cordoned off by copyright).
And of course we took home another batch of goodies, a Bambi t-shirt and a signed poster, and I was able to snag 2 more badges on the way out to make up for what I’d lost.
Bambi itself really stood out as a song, a really catchy much more dancey pop leaning track that felt like Aziya really stepping out of her comfort zone, I plugged the gap waiting for it by looping one of her posts with a snippet of the track an unhealthy amount of times, before discovering from an earlier post that the full thing had been played on a radio show called Foundation FM, having to scroll back every time the track was finished was slow and awkward but the track was such a bop that I couldn’t help it!
The wait was eased further when the November gig finally rolled around on the 6th, 2 days before Bambi’s launch, after 2 years I finally got to hear these songs I’d fallen in love with live, most of them for the first time, and I wasn’t disappointed.
In the lead up to her set I had this excitement I hadn’t felt since waiting for Milly to come on at Gotobeat, she had so much energy, and once again remembering the lyrics felt like such a superpower boost, when she played 2 of the old classics, Slip and Girl Meets World, I felt like I was in a time warp back to 2022 in the best way, such a long wait but one that was well worth it.
Originally the last stop on the Aziya train was going to be a pop up store to celebrate Bambi’s release on launch day, at Netil House’s brother_ldn clothing store, but the pop up was delayed after Aziya was invited to go on tour with pop sensation Griff, and that tour just happened to include a London stop, once again the spirit of fuck it why not took me there.
The venue was one of the biggest I’d been to, Alexandra Palace, also known as the People’s Palace, also known to most as Ally Pally, a colossal complex with multiple halls each with a capacity of thousands, with the largest, the Great Hall, having a 10,000 capacity. Just reading about it was captivating, but when I actually got there I was blown away, at the top of a tall hill the Ally Pally complex has a stunning panorama of London and the building itself has around 7 different bus stops just for people to get around it, an absolutely colossal building.
Getting to see Aziya play to such a huge crowd was amazing and Griff proved to be a magical pop artist, her elegant voice combined with all the big visuals projected onto the stage made for a memorable night,
and to make things even better she later released a live album, the Vertigo Tour Edition, with recordings and music videos straight from the show, which felt like being able to relive my own memories in HD.
The thing with these shows is when you’re in the pit, earplugs in, speakers blaring, it’s hard to actually hear a lot of stuff, with these recordings they pick up a lot of the nuances I might not, you can hear all the crowd, little details like the sounds of camera flashes, and I can just picture myself back there, leaning on that barrier with a smile, almost like an irl braindance.
The day after the Griff show came event 88, the Bambi pop up, with Aziya playing a short solo set in between a bunch of DJ sets, passing out a plentiful supply of White Claws and giving us first dibs on new merch, including Bambi caps and CD/Zine combos.
When Spotify Wrapped dropped at the end of the month I found out that Aziya has actually dethroned Milly as my top artist, with bambi taking the top spot on my top songs playlist, with another track from the tape bbydoll taking second place, out of the top 100 overall 10 of them were Aziya tunes, so getting to meet her and hear her live has clearly rubbed off on my music tastes!
Anecdotes #
I could tell you about my times seeing one of my favourite bands, the punk 4 piece Sounds Mint, or discovering and getting to know apocalyptic electro rock band HCK9 (Half Cut K9), or the shoegaze artist Hongza, the rock and roll Moonshine Heavies who I was introduced to at Isle of Wight alongside Kit, catching Kid Kapichi again, seeing iconic rapper Lil Yachty at the colossal Wembley Arena and going to several other big gigs, great stories, great people, great music, but like I said, I’ve got to stop yapping sometime, those were my top highlights.
So, what else is there to brush over?
This actually nearly happened last year, I went back to Gotobeat for 2024 and the headliner for that year, SOFY, was far from crap didn’t really grab me, but later I listened to her track WET PAINT and got hooked, went on a listening spree later and really explored her back catalogue, a series of upbeat backing tracks mixed with witty lyricism, I became a big fan and now I’ve booked to see her again as she tours her first album, Another Day In Paradise, sometimes second chances do work!
I’ve also gotten an ever expanding collection of gig memorabilia and mementos. There’s more merch, alongside extra vinyls I got several dog tags and a necklace from Eville, 2 zines (the Aziya one and a RAGE themed one from The Elegists that I bought a month after their show), pictures (also from Eville and another bunch of rock and roll artist Laurie Wright).
Then I’ve got posters (Aziya’s Party Over one and a “Like Madonna” one I bought from Kit’s store), piles of tickets and wristbands, band kit (the drumsticks from punk band Monakis and a guitar pick from Sere of Lemon Power), the photostrip from the Aziya meet and of course my pin collection.
There’s the 5 Hiccup pins, the 2 from Aziya, one from the Beggs Sisters and one I bought from Eville.
And as if that wasn’t enough there’s also clothes, I said I wasn’t in the market for shirts in the original article and that was true, honestly buying new clothes is something I was kind of anxious about, pretty much my whole wardrobe is either hand me downs or gifts from my parents, knowing what to go for, what sizes to get, was a world I wasn’t really used to.
But then Milly had a bunch of old clothes to get rid of and was selling them on depop, and I eyed a certain blazer she had, I had my reservations, we were a similar enough size but I couldn’t really gauge it just from a picture, and it was “women’s clothing”. Now I’m a progressive, I know that just because you slap “women’s” on the name doesn’t mean you’ll spontaneously combust if you wear it as a guy, but I guess it still had a bit of a psychological effect on me.
After some umming and ahing and seeing others buy from the shop I just went with that fuck it why not spirit, and even though I had to get used to it it turned out to be a cool comfy outfit, I wore it to one of Kit’s shows since I thought it would be funny to show up in her girlfriend’s blazer and then she told me it actually used to be her’s and she thought I wore it better. Now, very flattering, I think the jury’s out on who really has the better style, but still, great addition to the wardrobe.
Then there’s that Bambi shirt from Aziya and later I bought another shirt from Owes. Owes are a band I discovered supporting Sounds Mint, on my way out from the show their bassist Charlie handed me a little note “bring this to a gig for £5 off merch”, they had a show the next day and it seemed like their wouldn’t be another for a while, so even though the show was all the way in the town of Hertford, well outside my usual London patch, after some more umming and ahhing and some nudging from a friend I decided sure why not.
Turns out that was their first time experimenting with that little gambit, and Charlie was very happy to see that it was what tempted me back, they also gifted me some free chips, so that was nice, not the best chips in the world, but chips are chips right? Anyway, when I actually got to the merch stand all they had were shirts, so I just decided why not and took the deal and bought one anyway, and it’s a pretty cool shirt!
It’s funny, I’m someone who usually really despises commercialism, I always liked to wear plain colour shirts, no brand logos, because I didn’t fancy being a walking billboard, yet here I am with band shirts and memorabilia all over, but hey, these were people I actually really wanted to rep and really do like, not because I like them as some product but I like their art and they’ve seemed to be decent people. A diluting of my values? Maybe, maybe not, you can have markets without capitalism, and as things are it’s not like we have much of a choice on if we play the capitalist game, so if we have to at least here my money’s going to a good place I’m happy for it to be.
Conclusion #
This is the first article I’ve worked on that I really felt “this should’ve been a video”, I’d love to be able to use snippets of the roughly 400 videos, worth around 200GB, that I’ve got on that SD card to tell this story and really bring it to life.
But sadly it’s actually also the worst candidate for it, because obviously those videos are all of… Songs, songs that are mostly copyrighted up the wazoo. That kind of content is very dicey to use, they might be my videos, but they’re not of my music.
And because of that I can’t share them either, I actually tried uploading all these clips to my YouTube channel, not planning to make them public but just so I could watch them back on PC without having to fork out for a Google Drive subscription, maybe share them with a few friends or add a link to the collection in this article, but YouTube videos under 3 minutes and in a vertical aspect ratio automatically get uploaded as shorts, and you don’t have a choice to convert them into regular videos.
I do understand that there is a need to protect artists rights and as someone who spends about half or ¾ of his income on gigs, whether that’s tickets, travelling to them, buying merch, tipping artists or supporting fundraisers I’m the last person to try and them rip off, but I hardly think a video or two from a set is doing that. If anything getting to hear what they’re like live could show someone what they’re missing and generate a sale or two where the real money is, because as we know there’s certainly fuck all of that on streaming services and most digital platforms, unless it’s something like bandcamp where you really are buying an album not just offering a tenth of a penny by proxy.
Anyway, the point is pictures and words are what I have to make do with.
I still have what I call “social vampirism” not in the sense that I’m a bloodsucker, but you know how there’s that trait vampires have where they can’t go into your home unless you invite them in? I’m a bit like that with socialising, I almost never start conversations in person.
It’s not because I’m introverted, I’m an extrovert through and through, I feel like I thrive when I’m talking to others, it gives me ideas, energises me, inspires me, in fact a huge chunk of my article writing is just self plagiarism, I have a bunch of chats with people about a topic then pinch what came out of them and work them into the articles. Of course we all need our private moments, but I’m someone who feels best in shared company.
So where does that vampire gene come from? A bit of it is politeism gone mad, I don’t want to bother people, and that’s a good thing to care about, not wanting to force yourself into someone else’s space, but I also still feel that way even when someone clearly isn’t busy and I know full well they’d be happy to chat. The other part I think is tied to that experience of losing ties with my old friends group, when you go through that time of a place you once felt welcome becoming less so over time, it’s hard to feel welcome again.
And there’s also the problem that I’ve found gig friendships to be fleeting, it can be hard to get to know people when you’re surrounded by blaring noise. You don’t chat during performances, attention belongs to them, but even in between there’s always a backing playlist for the intermission. So a bunch of those friendships might not even get as far as knowing names, you say hi, you have fist bumps, hugs, you smile when you recognise each other, but you don’t really know much about each other, there’s just the joy of a familiar face in a familiar space.
And if you do get beyond that, have good chats, keep in touch, those friendships are still tied to the gigs and don’t really branch out beyond them, so if we don’t share any shows together, we don’t meet up and don’t really stay in touch. That can be hard sometimes, I know some people can make ties, have lengthy gaps in them of months or even years and then meet up again with the same love like nothing changes, for me friendships are more like flowers, you water them and they live and bloom, you leave them, they wither and die.
Now I don’t mean for that to get too deep, I’m having an overwhelmingly great time at all these shows and the vast majority of people I’ve met have been kind and complimentary, I’ve been showered in praise for kindness, sweetness, supportiveness, humour, my fits, my hair, my teeth, I’ve had great discussions, listened to excellent storytellers, there’s no shortage of energy going round, so it’s not woe is me.
But to me friendship is something more than having nice experiences, it’s the people you keep up with all the time, if not daily or weekly then monthly, with substance, long conversations, lots of sharing, that type of thing. And I do know people like that, but they’re mostly people I’ve met online, almost entirely from many years back, it’s not from this scene, and maybe those are some ties I was hoping to make that I didn’t, a trick I missed. I went for the music, but the social element was a big part of it on the side and it hasn’t always taken me as far as I’d wish.
But hey, it’s by far improved my life by a million miles, not always the greatest substance and not always the best balance of work and play, but the escape from working, the joy of tunes and people, I wouldn’t trade it.
As has been proven by the track record, I’m still going. The Gigging Experience has already started off strong in 2025, I’m at 21 shows and counting, several ahead of where I was this time last year. 3 more Face Down’s, 2 more Voodoo’s, 16 regular shows.
I’ve also starred in 2 music videos as an extra! The first for Kit’s latest single Bodycount, where I also did a bit of running (carrying bits and bobs, playing the music) and a teeny bit of camera op,
the second for a track that’s not out just yet by Sounds Mint.
So I’m doing my share for the scene and I’ve got the stripes to show it too, lots more memorabilia. Balloons from Buzz Violet’s birthday bash and Hiccup’s newest single launch party, light rings and fake cash from Voodoo, friendship bracelets and a photo from indie band Coming Up Roses.
Then there’s more setlists, more pins, and another Vinyl (the last copy of electro pop artist Tatyana’s limited release of her album It’s Over) from Hongza as a thanks for paying for the mastering of his upcoming track Space Song I got (alongside shirts and pins) a great big recording board from his Coming of Age EP and a tote bag, then there’s 1 more zine from Laurie, which alongside some stories from his time on the road with George covers a kind of manifesto for his music, country made for Brits instead of Yanks.
It seems that this wealth of experiences, memories and mementos to show for them will only get bigger over time, and what a joy that is! Right, time to get on with everything else I’ve left in the oven, maybe we’ll be back here again next year for another reflection.
If you’re curious about more of The Gigging Experience, keep up with the gram! I’m trying to find the time to keep that diary up to date with everywhere I’ve been and everything I’ve seen!