Independent venue week 2021 is returning for an eighth year, beginning on the 25th of January, 2021, and will host live music performances by artists, and bands online due to the current pandemic. 

Independent venue week, usually a chain of live music performances, hosted in independent venues all across the UK, to showcase everything from conversations with artists, album listening parties with fans, to livestreams, this year will move to online platforms to stay in line with the pandemic guidelines, but will nonetheless provide entertainment, a sense of community and togetherness to musicians, and their fans, which is needed now more than ever.

Independent venue week 2021 have also appointed ambassadors for each home nation, with Arlo Parks, representing England, Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys representing Wales, Amy MacDonald representing Scotland and Jordan Adetunji representing Northern Ireland.

In a candid interview with NME, each IVW 2021 ambassador opened up about their experience, and shared their story about playing their first gig at an independent venue. 

Arlo Parks’s story.

“My first gig was at the Basement Door in Richmond. I think I was around 16 years old. I’d spent a year making beats in my bedroom and putting songs on Soundcloud and the venue was almost a rite of passage for teenagers making music in south-west London. I dragged all my mates from school down on a Friday evening and they were all having a little boogie in the front row.”

Parks went on to say that there was an innocence in her first ever live performance; there was no sound-check, no guitar pedals and she sang songs about parties she’d been to, and her GCSE results. Parks also covered ‘Youth’ by Glass Animals and ‘102’ by The 1975.

Gruff Rhys’s story.

“I started playing gigs when I was about 13 as a drummer in the ‘80s. They were mostly in public and subsidised buildings and schools. A lot of the early gigs would be organised by political activists like the Welsh Language Society, playing benefits for the miners’ strike and those kinds of gigs. A lot of the organisers and bands were doing it voluntarily. A lot of people involved in music are doing it purely for the love of music, culture and their communities. Music communities evolve around small and independent venues. From there, seeds can grow and affect culture generally.

Rhys also said that through all the performances, he continued to learn more and more about stagecraft and how crowds could be better managed, engaged.

Rhys, a staunch supporter of independent venues voiced his support for them by saying how he believed that the big venues could never exist without the “grassroots spaces”, that the pandemic would be brining along a state of crisis for the venues, alongside the commercialisation of them, turning them into flats. Rhys said, “Venues need our love and support to survive, so I’m proud to fly the flag for them.”

Amy MacDonald’s story.

“The first gig I ever played in a real venue would have been one of the open mic nights I did in local pubs. I had to do a lot of sneaking about because I was only 15 at the time. I got such a buzz from being surrounded by live music and new artists and actually having a stage.

I remember one gig at a bar called Brunswick Cellars in Glasgow and the Scotland national football team had been playing at Hampden that day. They’d beaten The Netherlands, which was quite a big achievement. All the fans started to come in afterwards, so I thought, ‘Right, I’m going to cash in here’ and played ‘O Flower Of Scotland’. That was my first experience of having a whole crowd singing back to me.”

MacDonald further said that her confidence in playing live on big stages stemmed from her days of performing in smaller venues, where she learned about crowds, and to better engage with them.

Jordan Adetunji’s story.

“My first performance in an independent venue was unforgettable. It was opening for Coolio at The Empire in Belfast. It was such a great start for me. Coolio seeing my performance and bigging me up was crazy, then there was the way the crowd were matching my energy. It was such a good vibe. It’s such an iconic venue that hasn’t really changed over the years so it’s such a special memory.

That night really shaped me. It taught me that it doesn’t matter how big or small a venue is, but you as an artist create what’s going on in there. The independent venues support you like no one else. They’ve got your back and really make it a collaborative experience. Playing in places like this really brought music to life for me. These venues, especially in Northern Ireland, they put in a lot of hard work to get gigs together as well as to keep things running. We need the opportunities they provide.”

Adetunji said, further on that his first “real headline” show was in an independent venue called “The Black Box” in Belfast, where he waited to see if people would turn up solely for him and his music. Adetunji said the love he received from his fans that night accounted to be a big moment for him. Voicing his support for independent venues, Adetunji said that the spaces they provide are essential not only for the fans and the artists but also the daily lives of people, to help them keep their mental health in check.

Independent venue week 2021 will begin from the 25th of January, 2021 and stretch out to the 31st of January, 2021. Visit IVW UK’s website for more details and information.