YOU know those gigs where you walk in as a casual fan and walk out as a die-hard? I went to one of those on March 2nd, 2020.

I’d spent the days leading up to the Big Thief gig familiarising myself with their back catalogue, having had the band recommended to me by a friend with an extra ticket. After a few days of cramming on Spotify (other artist-scamming, misinformation-spreading streaming services are available), I entered Glasgow’s Old Fruitmarket looking forward to a solid 7.5/10 show.

Seven songs in, it happened. ‘It’s not the energy reeling, nor the lines in your face…’. As frontwoman Adrianne Lenker flung herself into the first lines of ‘Not’, I realised I was in the presence of something special.

I’d rarely witnessed that level of passion and intensity onstage. It was hard to tell whether she was feeding off the audience or lost in her own world and completely unaware of them.

By the time she reached her tumultuous guitar solo, I was a convert. I’ve been to hundreds upon hundreds of gigs, and every now and then you’re lucky enough to be part of a moment.

This was a moment.

As a society, we were in the last days of that ‘This feels increasingly concerning and hard to ignore but we’ll probably be fine’ stage. Seven days later, I went to see Steve Martin and Martin Short’s comedy show at the Hydro, and the mood had already darkened significantly. 

The performers joked about bumping elbows instead of shaking hands, while the audience sat elbow to elbow wondering ‘Is this still okay?’.
Three days later I walked into the office, informed my editor that this immunocompromised liability would have to start working from home, elbow-bumped my colleagues and uttered the first of approximately 3000 ‘When this is all over’ promises.

At that point I assumed ‘all over’ would be within a few weeks, and the idea that I would go two years without experiencing live music would have been inconceivable.

I’ve spent most of that time indoors, having both the advantage of a job that allowed me to work from my living room and the disadvantage of an immune system that required me to. As normality became a distant memory, my comfort food was old concert clips on YouTube (that and actual comfort food, but that’s for another column).

I kept coming back to Big Thief’s ‘Not’. Snippets filmed on phones. Talk show performances. The song never lost its potency, but my attempts to relive that feeling from the Old Fruitmarket were in vain.

In January 2020, Rolling Stone spoke of the “profound connection Lenker and Big Thief have fostered with their fan base”, adding: “Lenker was given a much-needed reminder when she witnessed audiences crying and holding each other while singing along to every word of her songs”. It’s hard to capture that on YouTube.

In much the same way as working from home left me looking back with fondness on minor office inconveniences such as canteen small talk and awkward urinal ‘Roll on Friday haha’ grunts, I would now happily put up with everything that used to bother me about gigs.

Spending two hours waiting for my favourite song, saying ‘They’ll probably play it in the encore’ only for the encore to consist of one new song? Glasgow Uni accents chatting all the way through the set? Always being stuck behind the tallest man in the venue, regardless of where I stand?

I’d have put up with it all and thanked you for it.

Gigs have long since returned, but being in the ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ group means returning to gigs isn’t so straightforward.

I’d turned down a few recently, but as tickets for those gigs purchased in 2019, 2020 and 2021 started arriving I had to weigh up whether it was time to get back into a crowd.

After speaking to an immunocompromised friend, I decided to go for it. With a January booster topping up the three vaccines I received last year, I figured this was the time to tentatively ease my way back in.

Which is how I found myself, almost two years after Big Thief at the Old Fruitmarket, following that up with Big Thief at the Barrowland.
Given how much has changed during that time, it was comforting to find the greatest venue on earth completely untouched. 

Still the same iconic name in lights. Still the same warm cans in plastic cups. 

Still the same poster informing us of an upcoming Echo & The Bunnymen gig that’s been upcoming since Britpop.

We stood near the back of the room with our masks on, and as the band kicked off with ‘Promise is a Pendulum’ I felt part of a communal excitement that I hadn’t experienced since March 2020.

Finally, 15 songs in, came the moment of catharsis that I’d been waiting for. ‘Not’ was as life-affirming as I hoped it would be. Lenker’s voice as soulful, her guitar as fervent.

It was immediate and all-consuming, not just a clip or a memory.

This was a moment.