Wednesday 19 December 2012

Gig

It’s a while since I have been to a gig, and I had forgotten that standing only gigs and me are not altogether compatible. Firstly, there is the personal distance space problem. I need at least 18 inches between me and anyone else (unless the anyone else is Tom) and this is not something you are going to get at such a gig. I hold my handbag in front of me in the hope that it will deter people from getting too close, or at least act as a buffer zone between me and them, but other people just don’t care so I will have to try and put up with this one. The other one is height. I am not that short, but there are always taller people. Although I suppose one only needs someone of the same height to stand right in front of your line of vision and that’s that. The worst people are the ones who don’t seem to be able to keep their heads still - because they are leaning in to chat to their friends, or doing some implausible side to side dance movement. You end up moving your own head in the opposite direction thus probably sparking of a chain of head waving all the way behind you, each person in the column cursing the one in front of them. Within moments of finding my place (which of course will shift marginally in the course of the gig, but never by more than by a few feet.) I have nicknames for some of those surrounding me who are already really really getting on my nerves. They are not clever names – blond bobber head, whose head is apparently attached to a piece of elastic suspended from the ceiling, the short-arse twats in (porkpie) hats, who are treating us to out of tune drunken renditions of the Dandy’s greatest hits as a taster before the gig starts, the gregarious red headed menace, who, in the course of the gig, will get increasingly affectionate in direct proportion to the number of pints of cider she imbibes. (Although towards the end, they are not whole pints due to spillage.). I continue to grumble silently to myself about their irritating antics, which can basically be summed up as their ‘getting in the way of me seeing the lead singer on the stage’, until I realize that I am not really enjoying the music as much as I should be, and I attempt to switch off this internal diatribe. It’s not long though before it comes back, because a pint of beer’s or whatever’s worth into the set all of my potential sources of annoyance – invasion of personal distance space, people getting in the way etc are exacerbated by the onset of passers by. Or pushers by to be more precise. I would be afraid that one of them might actually push me over as they shove their way back to their spot, sloshing beer on my legs and arms as they go (where on earth did the beer that landed on my head come from?), or stumble back to the bar for new supplies. But I am saved by the fact that my feet are firmly glued to the floor by the sticky morass of half-evaporated beer, that reduces any attempts at dancing that I might have made (which are pretty much zero anyway) to swaying around a bit, rather lamely. Later this issue will be remedied as a gradually developing shallow lake of fresh beer will dissolve the sticky stale stuff, thus liberating my boots. The girl with the red (by which I really do mean red, not ginger) hair solemnly tells Tom that it is his duty as a very tall person to stand behind her at all times, and at some point turns round to kiss him, and then apologetically strokes my cheek. Tom is stoichal about it. I am vaguely surprised that it is so obvious that I am with him, as we haven’t exchanged more than the odd word in the last hour. At this point she is kissing most people. After two hours, the lights go down and then come right back up. The gig is over and my knees are temporarily locked after two hours of standing. But we along with everyone else manage to shuffle through a sea of spilt drink, empty bottles and semi-smashed plastic cups, to collect coats or purchase t-shirts. I bliss. I can’t wait for the next gig I am going to.