In the pandemic’s darkest days, when our horizons were largely limited to the four walls of our house and the very notion of attending a ‘gig’ seemed completely preposterous, something amazing happened. Across the music industry, artists and bands dug out their webcams (or high quality recording equipment), ushering in the age of the livestreamed gig. Some of these performances were strikingly professional – mammoth pyrotechnic happenings beamed from cavernous super-clubs – while others were endearingly homespun, putting the ‘bedroom’ into bedroom pop. But they all shared an admirable desire to put on a show in trying times.
Still, I think I’m finally ready to admit, nearly two years into the ‘age of the live stream gig’, that pretty much all of those performances left me somewhat cold. No shade cast on the performers, who were busting a gut as per. It was simply that, without the thrum of the crowd, the atmosphere frequently felt funereal. It reminded me of the days of Top of the Pops, when a band like U2 couldn’t (or wouldn’t) make it to the studio and would instead play a sterile, audience-less beamed in from LA. It would invariably fall flat, not least when followed by footage of people pogo-ing around to Aqua or someone similarly naff back in the studio.
