You Don't Live Like I Do

Last week, P and I went to a Pitchblack Playback event this evening to hear Joy Division's "Closer" album played in full in the dark, at Cultplex in Manchester. The cinema PA was good - not oppressively loud like a nightclub, but bass you can feel and quality good enough to really appreciate the music and the production. They have to keep fire escape signs on for legal reasons, so you get given a little blindfold to keep the last of the darkness out.

I'm not really used to Joy Division as an album band. They only released two in Ian Curtis' lifetime, and their most famous track "Love Will Tear Us Apart" doesn't appear on either of them. There's about a billion releases in their name though, from live gigs, various scraps left around the recording studio, and other ephemera to feed the obsessive fanbase. So listening to this from start to finish was an odd experience. It covers a lot of ground musically, definitely anchored in post-punk driving guitars and basslines but embracing some of the electronic / dance vibes which would later be explored by New Order. If you're sitting in the dark with no distractions your brain certainly makes a lot of connections with other things.

Everyone sitting down was weird, but me and P tapped our toes and jiggled along to the music happily. Which made it a more communal experience than just doing it on my own, which I think would have been a different vibe again. But most people there were in small groups, with only one or two solo adventurers.

Due to P's broken leg we left shortly after the playback concluded - they had a second album listening party that evening, and the accessible exit is through the listening room, so we couldn't stay without essentially being trapped for the duration. It was an interesting experience and I'm glad she suggested it as a date idea.

A fortnight ago, on 5th October, I headed over to Sheffield to see This Is Radio Silence, one of my favourite bands. They were playing a support slot for I Am Imperfect, who were launching their debut EP, alongside another band who I managed to miss. This was a solo trip for me, and I was excited to go back to Sheffield for the first time in a few years. I'd almost not gone, but two factors swayed me. Firstly, a friend let me know that the venue was built around an open courtyard, meaning the CO2 levels would be low at the bar and in the social area. Secondly, the band had stated on social media that this was likely to be their last gig in their "current format", so I expected it might be a while before we saw them onstage again.

There aren't any late trains back from Sheffield on a Saturday, so I would have to miss the headliners' set, but I figured it'd be worth it to be able to have a few pints and not worry about parking in the city centre. There were a lot of delays and cancellations both ways, so I ended up taking an even earlier train home and not getting back until midnight. The venue was nice, I saw some old friends and met some new ones, and generally had a nice sociable time.

I'm really bad at describing gigs, but the TIRS set was brilliant. The band room was tiny, almost as small as my living room, and pretty packed. The band have a load of quality material to draw on, and they picked some real high points, including new single "By Everyone". The projected visuals complemented the music, and I was able to lose myself in the set.

I spent more time travelling than I did at the gig, but I don't regret it a bit. They're an amazing band on record, and even better live.

This weekend I went to Goths on a Field. It was a very chilled out event which was somewhere between a camping weekend and a music festival - nine bands on one stage across two days with about 50 attendees. It's been going for a few years - this is the fourth one. This year I decided to tag along. Sadly cosmolinguist couldn't join me; he had to stay home to look after the dog. The venue is a working stable farm, so there was a lovely smell of hay and horses around the place. The main stage was actually a barn. There were some tiny ponies and big cows in the next field. My wild swimming goth friends and I pitched our tents around a central gazebo we called the Officer's Mess - "we're not officers, but we are a mess".

Due to leaving late I missed most of the bands on the Friday night, because I wanted to pitch my tent before it got too dark, which is much harder single-handed. I did however catch Jo Carley And The Old Dry Skulls who were wonderfully theatrical, with a double bass with ribcage and pelvis, some foot-pedal drums from the guitarist and a washboard with finger cymbals! It was good creepy fun, though I did draw the line at white Brits selling "voodoo mojo bags" at their merch stall. As part of the small festival vibe (and local noise restrictions) the bands were finished by 11pm, long before most people wanted to go to bed. So we grabbed drinks and our camp chairs and headed to a large event shelter in the camping field which had been erected for this purpose. I sat and chatted to both friends I knew and strangers, and it was all rather lovely at first.

Unfortunately, I managed to drink rather too much. I don't remember much of the night, although I did managed to fetch myself some water to try and rehydrate. By the time I woke up on Saturday I was feeling very rough indeed, and missed the entire afternoon session in the barn. The DJ stage was outside the barn near the tents, so I did get to hear Duracell Bunny doing a Doof set while making some solid food. However the Saturday night bands were great, starting with Palindrones, followed by Holy Braille who did a really high energy set I was vibing to, and the trad goth rock stylings of Chaos Bleak who appear to be the latest incarnation of the Nightbreed Records House Band. I was still a bit too fragile to do more than sit and enjoy the music, but being to enjoy live music in a well-ventilated venue with lots of people around which made me really happy.

I didn't stay up as late as I'd like on the Saturday night either, probably due to not sleeping well the night before. But I got to chat to friends old and new about all kinds of silly nonsense. I got up reasonably early on the Sunday, as we were supposed to clear the campsite by noon. I was one of the last few on site, because I was moving slowly and taking my tent down single-handedly was a faff. But, much like EMF, the "everyone's a volunteer" ethos meant that the campsite was totally clear by the time we left, with no rubbish or tents left behind.

In summary, I didn't have quite as good a time as I'd hoped, but that was largely self-inflicted. I was on the periphery of the friends group there, which is based around the "Goths on a Bus" coach trips from the North of England to M'era Luna festival, which I've never done (and am unlikely to want to spend that many hours cooped up on a coach during a pandemic), but everyone I met was nice. I am looking forward to going again next year, and managing / pacing myself a bit better so I can enjoy more of the experience!

We're tuning in, watching it on live Freeview broadcast. Really enjoying the hosts. The first interval act between Alyosha and Rebecca Ferguson was breathtaking.

I took a few notes during each performance, so from the first semi-final in descending order of total score:

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