Lyrics : “Somewhere Inbetween” – Frank Turner, 2024
Welcome to another – maybe by now almost regular – “Post Frank Turner gig introspection” posts. While I was – a bit aimlessly – strolling through Hamburg today, I spent a lot of time in my own head, but not in a bad way.
The gig last night was great, albeit a short one, just one hour long. But I expected that going in, as it was a two shows day for Frank. He played about half of the new album “Undefeated”, some rarer old ones and of course “the hits”. I had fun and it seemed so did Frank on stage.
I’m sure I have mentioned a few times before, that when I first started going to Frank gigs it took me a while to chat with the people around me. Once I started heading for the barrier and being in the queue early to be able to get to the barrier, of course I met some people over and over again. I also met other fans online and then at shows and all that. After over 10 years it’s safe to say that I know quite a few people by now and am known to probably even more. By face and/or online moniker at least. After the first tour in 2016 where I went to several gigs and first encountered the same people at the barrier night after night I at some point wrote that I hadn’t found my “people” yet. (Which isn’t true anymore, but that’s a different story). But most of those people who along with me were/are queueing early and hanging around for a while after to catch Frank, seem(ed) to be quite different from me. Listening to a variety of punk or rock music. Knowing so much more about it. Going to many more gigs of all kinds of bands. In short being the epitome of “dedicated punkrock music person”.
I am not that person. Frank is as punk as I can tolerate it and I know some might laugh now, because they don’t consider his music punk at all or not anymore. And I guess my line is not drawn as strict as that sounds. I like some punk bands as well. I’ll see Pet Needs in Cologne later this month! But I don’t listen to a vast array of new or old bands. These days I only occasionally go and see live music. Frank is the only one that makes me go as often and travel as far to gigs and that has a lot to with how much his music means to me. If I’m honest it all basically comes down to that. I have fun singing and dancing at the occasional gig of other bands / artists. But the experience of joining in with a crowd to sing those particular words which help(ed) me and speak to me on so many levels and to sing them back to the person who wrote those words, is the element of Frank gigs that feed my heart and soul.
That was an unexpected tangent.
Anyway, sometimes – like last night – when I’m in the queue or at the barrier listening to the people around me, chatting to the people around me (yes, I do that more easily by now) or hanging around outside the venue after the show, a nagging voice in my head likes to tell me that I don’t really belong there with these other “dedicated music people”. That I’m a fraud. Not worthy of a spot at the barrier or less worthy of a moment of Frank’s limited time after the show, because I don’t go to other gigs all the time and I don’t have encyclopaedic knowledge of other punk / rock music or bands. Years ago that voice would have managed to fuel my post-gig-blues and in the worst case sometimes even ruin my night. Three cheers for my round of therapy (I think), which by now enables me to recognize that voice for the lying, nasty, self-destructive goblin that she is. That enables me to just not believe her and mostly ignore her.
These days I also ponder where that goblin gets her nasty opinions from. Which sort of was why I spent so much time in my head today, trying to figure that out. I’m not sure I made all that much progress, at least not more than I did in therapy, but that’s fine as well. All in all the pondering today at least did refresh and consolidate all the things I learned in therapy.
I did call this post my “Post Frank Turner gig introspection” for a reason. At the “No Man’s Land” tour (on the Live from Newcastle album) Frank mentions that his songs are/were a form of “public therapy”. So are these posts for me in a way, I think. Be grateful that I won’t try to put those thoughts to music…
Tomorrow on the train ride home I’ll try to write some more about my short stay here in Hamburg. For now I’ll leave you with two photos taken a few minutes ago on the lovely roof terrace of the place I’m staying at.
