Recently I watched the up-and-coming folk singer Odie Leigh perform at The Poetry Club of SWG3 Glasgow. I was particularly excited because it was a very small and intimate location, with a capacity of 125 people according to the venue’s website. As I entered and found a lovely spot to stand on the balcony, I overheard a staff member tell his colleague that they’d let in sixty people so far, and were expecting a couple dozen more. I settled in and waited for the set to begin.
Unfortunately, although the music was wonderful, the atmosphere felt off from the very start. Leigh admitted that she was in a bad mood, expressing frustration at the Scottish weather and her homesickness. She appeared to be entirely fed up with touring and confessed that she doesn’t like attending gigs herself. Above all, she seemed perturbed by the size of the crowd, comparing it to a house party, and was frustrated by our lack of audience participation. The crowd was referred to as a ‘library’ several times over the next hour as Leigh tried (with mixed results) to encourage people to sing along.
Leigh seemed to interpret the quiet nature of the crowd as hostile or unfriendly, but I felt entirely differently. I thought it was refreshing. Here I was, in a room of less than one hundred people, gathered to listen to some wonderful music. Yes, it was a small venue, but we were attentive, and we were ready to relax and nod along to some heartfelt indie folk. There were no phones out, no flash photography, no screaming or crowd interruptions. This was a cozy, pensive environment… and yet it did not seem to align with the performer’s expectations.
The encounter left me reflecting on our contemporary concert etiquette. Last summer, fans threw objects on stage during performances by Harry Styles, Cardi B, and Bebe Rexha. In 2022, Mitski faced anger from her own fans after requesting that they put their phones away during her performances. It seems that concerts have increasingly become places for fans to be seen and heard, to have an experience focused more on themselves than on the music being performed.
Now, I think a certain level of dialogue between fan and performer is needed. Perhaps the biggest draw of live music, of course, is being able to interact with the music and the performer as the show plays out. The question is whether this dialogue between fan and musician always has to look like singing along, or being particularly raucous. While the Eras and Renaissance tours are being heralded as global phenomena, welcoming millions of fans and making billions of dollars in doing so, I have to ask: have we lost the art of the intimate gig?
Perhaps, between the widespread and extended loss of live music during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed so immediately by the massive spectacle tours exemplified by Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Harry Styles, we have forgotten the beauty of a very small show. We feel the need to fill the space with bodies and fill the quiet with noise. We are uncomfortable with a modest group of attentive listeners, subdued but engaged.
There should always be space for big stadium gigs, and I’m sure there always will be, given how profitable they are. But we should also leave room for up-and-coming artists to develop in more intimate spaces, even spaces which might feel akin to a library, where there is thoughtful rumination and room to grow. We should view the small gig, not as inferior to the Eras Tour and others like it, but as equally worthy of appreciation for what it is: a unique opportunity to experience live music up-close and personal.
There’s no need to be uncomfortable. There is beauty in the small.
Image via Katherine Coble.