‘The maddest experience of my life’: inside the first British live music in 400 days

This Bank Holiday weekend, as most of the country desperately tried to book a table in a pub garden, the people of Liverpool were given the opportunity to experience something rather more spectacular. On Friday and Saturday, a warehouse on Bramley Moore Dock turned into a 3,000-capacity nightclub, while down the road on Sunday, Sefton Park hosted a proper indie rock gig for 5,000 people.

Entrance was for Liverpool residents only, who had to provide a negative Covid-19 test the day before (and must take another, five days afterwards). Once inside, though, there was no social distancing, no masks and definitely no vaccine passports. Throughout the past year, I’ve done everything from live-streamed concerts, Zoom dance parties and socially distanced gigs in a bid to recreate that feeling of togetherness. It turns out there is nothing like the real thing.

The First Dance was a two-day rave, run by the famous local promoter Circus, and without anyone in lab coats and only a few wielding clipboards, it felt more like a celebration than a scientific study. Sets from Fatboy Slim, Camelphat, The Blessed Madonna and Circus’s founder Yousef provided a blistering soundtrack of the best in house and techno, with confetti cannons and lasers thrown in for good measure.

The doors opened at 2pm on Saturday afternoon and, for a while, the cavernous warehouse was like an awkward school disco as the first few groups kept to themselves, dancing in packs. A few hours later, though, it was chaos; people on each other’s shoulders, strangers dancing arm in arm, and everyone having the most fun possible.

This sweaty, social intimacy “has been missed” according to Mick Jono (29) who, much to his own surprise, enjoyed the lack of personal space. If reading that makes you feel uncomfortable, you aren’t alone. In the days leading up to The First Dance, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in a room with thousands of unmasked strangers. Any misgivings quickly melted away once I was inside and under the influence of the once-familiar combination of loud music and heaving crowds. By the end of the night, I was dancing with new friends.

For 20-year-old Emily Edwards, being at a nightclub felt “very odd for half an hour” but after that she was completely fine. “It was great to be somewhere, surrounded by a load of people. I felt completely safe.” Everyone I spoke to had a similar story.

Twenty-five-year-old Laura Breen described how walking into that warehouse and seeing everyone together was “the best feeling ever. It felt amazing having random conversations with strangers again, and everyone was just in the best mood.”

She believes the lack of anxiety comes from the current low infection rates, the success of the vaccination programme and the negative test needed for entry. “The whole day felt completely surreal but in a good way. It felt like we were in a little bubble, because even in the queue outside you had to wear masks and socially distance. This experiment needed to happen to allow normal life to resume, so we were just excited to be a part of it.”

One day later, it was raining, there was a horrible queue for the toilets, and someone was throwing up in a wheelie bin. Yes, the much-loved Great British Music Festival was back. In a corner of Sefton Park, 5,000 people gathered to watch a proper live gig.

In the hours before anyone took to the stage, the Big Top tent had been transformed into an indie nightclub. Video screens flanking the stage displayed messages such as “Be kind. If someone wants a bit of space, give them room” and “It’s fine to wear a face mask in the big top if you want to” – which suggested that the organisers were expecting a somewhat reluctant crowd. Even the tent was only at two-thirds capacity.

But from the moment the first act walked on stage, it was, once again, as though lockdown had never happened. The crowd, legally able to scream along in their friends’ faces, seemed determined to throw themselves into every moment.

“They're fearless,” the pop singer Zuzu told me after her opening set, which she described as “completely magical, and the maddest experience of my life. You could just feel all that pent-up energy.” Before she’d played a single one of her rousing Britpop-indebted anthems, the crowd was cheering like she’d just told them England had won the World Cup.

That excitement didn’t let up for the polished rock of The Lathums, or Blossoms’ celebratory indie. “Are you ready for the best night you’ve had for a very, very long time?” asked Blossoms singer Tom Ogden. The answer was rapturous applause. Expanded to a nine-piece live outfit, the Stockport group’s dynamic set included swaggering rock, tender acoustic moments and boozy singalongs. Full of joy, it was as though they had been custom-built for unifying moments like this.

Behind the scenes, though, this event felt like a last-ditch effort to salvage a summer of live music. Four hundred and fifty pairs of tickets to a wide range of festivals, including Reading & Leeds, Latitude and Truck, were being given away as an incentive to do a follow-up test this Friday.

It was a rare example of the usually competitive events industry coming together to get the data the Government’s Event Research Program needs to plan out the permanent return of live music. The culture minister Caroline Dinenage was on-site, as was The One Show’s Matt Allwright. It really did feel as though the whole country was watching.

The prospect of festivals taking place in 2021 is still on a knife-edge. A lack of events insurance means that gatherings planned for late July and August are already being cancelled and, unless something is done soon, many more will follow suit. The Sefton Park gig – a one-day event for 5,000 people – took 19 very stressful days to put together. Another wave of cancellations would have a huge financial impact, but perhaps more importantly, it would mean another year of school leavers would be denied the traditional rite of passage that music festivals represent.

These pilot events, as Zuzu explained onstage, were “one small step for Scousers”, but one giant leap towards normality. The crowds clearly had faith. Hopefully the data gathered in Liverpool will give the Government some as well.