Tom Dunne's Music & Me: Our first gig back really was something special
Tom Dunne and Something Happens playing in Greystones for their first gig since restrictions eased.
“Well this is awkward,” I thought, more than once. Something Happens’ first gig since Covid 19, The Whale Theatre, Greystones.
“It’s like riding a bike,” people had said. But it wasn’t. It was like dating again after a long prison term. I checked the mirror, I checked my hair.
Seeing me ‘dressed up’ had startled the children. “Where are you going?” they’d asked as if I was trying to escape.
“I have a gig,” I told them making it sound all very ‘Magnificent Seven’ and heroic. I was warming to this when they suddenly lost interest. “You look great, dad,” they chimed, “good luck.”
“You look great.” Like something your mother would say when teenage you was preparing to meet a girl at the cinema. All I was missing was a bouquet of flowers.
The dressing room was torture. My conversation skills have withered on the vine. They’ve been replaced by a vague, panicky feeling of 'how does this work?'. What on earth had I to say that didn’t involve domesticity, school uniforms, bin night or the unexpected passing of distant relatives?
“Drink Tom?” someone asked.
“No, no, fine thanks.” I answered. Father Stone, eat your heart out.
And then, thank God, it was time. “Stage time 5 minutes” a voice said. Four words I last heard in December 2019. I swallowed a little with nerves, but I actually like that feeling, that no-turning-back moment. It was time.
The audience, if anything, seemed more nervous. Covid 19 protocols required temperature checks, the production of your cert, been made to sit in pairs, wear a face mask at all times and no alcohol consumption. It seemed more designed to prepare you for surgery than a gig. I wondered if they might be tied to the chairs.
And then it began. One minute I was side stage, the next I was singing, surrounded on all sides by the same three people – Alan, Eamon and Ray – that I have stood with since 1984. People who have been in my line of sight from LA to London, Helsinki to Bunclody and all points in between.
We finished the song to rapturous applause. The sound of an audience that hasn’t been an audience in way too long. We were completely thrown. Somehow in the preparation, the rehearsals we’d grabbed, this bit of it all, that human response had never crossed our minds. We looked on dumbfounded, a little embarrassed, totally speechless.
I joked that if we were stuck we could play musical chairs and we carried on.
This show, The Unmusical, is one we’d been working on. It is basically the songs interspersed with tales of how a band could leave its lead singer in Davis, California and not miss him for 12 hours, or how we failed to get Tommy Ramone into a Dublin Night Club, or how my mother had said to an NME journalist, “They’re not great are they?”
At the end, the audience sang along with Parachute. I looked out: 50 people, organised in pairs, singing their hearts out through facemasks in a ‘pub with no beer.’ I couldn’t help but think that this was yet one more completely odd (if delightfully so) moment in a time that has been so utterly littered with them.
At the end, a little confused by the curfew, the gig just ended. We finished one song and that was it, time to go. It felt like the bus had arrived too soon. We were just getting to know each other. There were still so many things we wanted to say.
“I’m afraid that’s it,” I said, “thanks so much for coming.” It felt so inadequate.
And then the audience jumped to their feet for a bout of sustained, heartfelt applause. It was life-affirming, humbling and deeply emotional. The emotion of the past 18 months just seemed to crash upon us all at once. The words were out before I knew it: “We love you,” I told the audience. “and thank you, so much.”
I have said those words on earlier teenage dates when I actually meant to say, “Do you want crisps?” I have then woken up thinking “oh please tell me I didn’t say that!” This was not one of those times.
Audiences are the lifeblood of performance. You pitch little things from the stage hoping it will find some resonance. And when it does, it is like nothing else on earth. It’s been a long 18 months.
