Sound of silence

As the pandemic puts live music on pause, Andrew Welsh looks at the impact it’s having on performers and promoters

Our weather may be famously unpredictable but it’s normally a given that Scotland’s summer equates to prime festival season for music lovers. Courier Country has long proved a fertile stomping ground for rock and pop-fuelled revellers, with iconic money-spinners such as the latelamented T in the Park and colourful retrofest Rewind Scotland – as well as smaller attractions like Solas and the Fake Festivals – finding permanent homes in the area’s green fields.

Add in such niche extravaganzas as DunDee 80s, Outwith and Bonfest and live music’s importance to the wider events calendar is clear to see, so its absence from our lives is especially disconcerting in an era when virtually every generation enjoys a stake in the festival fun.

This year’s longest day marks three months since the complete cessation of all forms of concerts, and for those working in the live music industry the realities of a festival-free summer are really starting to hit home.

Among them, veteran songsmith Ian McNabb – best known as frontman with Merseyside psych rock veterans The Icicle Works – recently posted a poignant message to his Facebook followers lamenting the career plight he’s facing due to Covid-19 restrictions.

“The prospect of not being able to do a gig for a year is weighing heavy on me,” he wrote.

“Shout out to all fellow musicians – it’s truly terrifying, it’s our blood. And our money. It’s not just the music either, it’s seeing people and interacting with them. Getting on the road and having a laugh. I’ve been doing this since I was 14. I know there’s far worse things happening in the world but playing music every weekend has been taken away. It’s really, really tough.”

One of the few Scottish venues McNabb has made a home from home is Backstage at the Green Hotel in Kinross, where Hull-raised promoter David Mundell has been staging gigs since 2010 via his long-running Mundell Music production company.

Like most whose livelihoods depend on live music, David’s been left in limbo since curtailing his packed concert programme on March 16, with most of his energies since being poured into the tricky task of rescheduling against a backdrop of almost total uncertainty.

“Right from the word go I tried to be positive and, like others, I thought that from September onwards we’d probably be back to normal, but that was just on a gut feeling,” he says.

“You could possibly debate that that might still be the case but a few bands now are getting jittery – they’re cancelling and wanting to book for

It’s not just the music either, it’s seeing people and interacting with them. Getting on the road and having a laugh

spring of next year. In all seriousness, I don’t think there will be a lot of music between now and 2021.

“Even if we were allowed to open again in September with a full capacity, would we still get the same amount of people coming to shows, or would half of my crowd decide they don’t want to go into that kind of environment?”