I’ve never thought of myself as particularly vertically challenged. I can kiss a boy without standing on a phone book. I can see comfortably over the chip shop counter. And I can reach the top of the Christmas tree if I stand on tippy-toes. But there’s nothing like a live music experience to explode the truth bomb that, yes, I am actually quite short and no, I will never be able to fully see the band.
At 5ft 4in, it turns out that I am staggeringly below average gig-goer height, which makes watching performances a trial. If I’m lucky, I might get to see an arm. Or, if it’s Brian May, some hair. I once spent nearly two hours looking at Caribou’s right calf, such was my vantage point. Truthfully, 10 years into writing about music, I’ve seen more of other people’s armpits than I have of touring musicians.
There are plenty of nuisances at gigs: loud talkers, beer spillages, toilet queues, snogging couples, the endless congas of people trying to find their friends. But it’s amazing how quickly a show can turn into a joy sponge when you don’t have a view. Look around and you’ll find loads of us shorties adapting to new ways of watching live music, often by mangling ourselves into new yogic positions and straining from side to side like we desperately need the loo. If Finland’s “great gig or your money back” refund scheme extended to the UK, promoters would be overwhelmed by those who spent most of their night with their forehead pressed into a stranger’s back.
It’s not just that people are arseholes and need to learn gig etiquette but that the UK is low on purpose-built venues. Most of those remaining do not care for trivial things such as being able to see. Many are former theatres or cinemas, where people would previously have been seated – rigid in their corsets and breeches and not constantly going to the bar for another beer – meaning all could have a generous view of the stage. Not everywhere can be like Brixton Academy, helpfully sloped to offer more chance of eyeballing the acts. In today’s cattle-shed performance spaces, we are squished in under each other, balancing precariously like human Jenga, praying that no one farts.
Inexplicably, I always find myself wedged behind a man mountain with a neck the size of an elephant leg. This is not the mountain-in-question’s fault but, as any short person at a gig will tell you, he is always in the way. And if he’s not, you can guarantee that Lady With All The Hair is quick to take his place, her mane incessantly flicking across your face and occasionally landing in your mouth. No matter where you move, these people will find you and kill your vibe.
After one particularly trying gig at Oslo in Hackney, where I had to crane my neck like it was being stretched on a rack and still couldn’t catch a glimpse of anything, I took these frustrations to my Facebook page. “I know some might consider this a bit extreme, but if I was in charge everyone would be measured on the way into gigs then arranged in rows according to height,” replied one sage friend. Why not patent a gig Periscope, another – and I might add, tall – friend offered?
But the sad truth is that there isn’t an obvious way to counter the gig-height problem. You could get to the front, but it would mean ruining the nights of all the other tiny people, by shoving past then standing in front of them. You could “get festivally” and sit on someone’s shoulders (if you can find someone to do this all night you should never let them go, and potentially hire them out to others). You could look at Instagram and get a sense of the best moments. Or, my personal tip, simply situate yourself next to the tallest person, tug on their trouser leg, and ask them what they can see at five-minute intervals.
Until the UK’s gig venues pen all the beanpoles into a reverse golden circle at the back, at least there is the small mercy of the seated gig. When faced with the option of ‘boxed in like a cat in a washing machine’ or ‘that’s a nice view, how lovely it is to sit down and see’, the latter is the short person’s smart choice. I have, regrettably, become one of those people who thinks: “Ooh, a comfy chair at the Barbican!” instead of: “I can’t wait for someone to drop sweat on to my head at the Forum tonight.” Tall people of the world, you have driven me to this. I don’t want to sit – not really – I want to dance.
So, the next time you see a gnome-sized gig-goer tangled between your legs, elbowed into submission, trapped and mewing for mercy, don’t block their view like a boozy traffic bollard. Just move out of the bloody way or prepare to spend the next 90 minutes explaining exactly what Caribou’s other leg is doing.
