Column: Two encores, three standing ovations, one mesmerising show - perfect return to live music

So spoke Nick Cave as he returned to the stage of the Playhouse Theatre on Monday night.

Three standing ovations, two encores and a night of mesmerising music were powerful reminders of how much we have missed live music since lockdown began - and how badly we needed it back.

The facemasks we had to wear to comply with regulations were neither here nor there - a piece of cloth over my coupon is a small price to pay for a night as incredible as this.

I hope it is the first of many.

I’ve been going to gigs since I was a teenager, and 18 months without a ticket stub being torn, a tour-t-shirt being bought or a programme added to the collection was ‘way too long.

I’m the saddo who gets there early and watches as the venue fills up, drinking in the hubbub as it grows by the minute, and then those signs it’s almost time - lighting crew teams climbing up the gantry, the stage suddenly emptying of roadies and techies, and the background music cranking up a few decibels.

If 2020 was the year the music stopped., then 2021 was the year it was rescheduled, changed again, and cancelled as several false starts left everyone wondering just if all we’d be left with were the memories of great gigs past.

And there so many.

Charlotte Church leading her remarkable band through a gobsmacking set at Summerhall until something like 3:00am; sweat dripped from the ceiling.

Bruce Springsteen transforming Wembley Arena into a village hall on the Pete Seeger tour and having to be hauled off stage as his audience did eightsome reels.

Paul Simon at Hyde Park delivering the whole of the Graceland album with the original musicians, and finishing with 'You Can Call Me Al' which prompted 45,000 of us to dance in utter joy.

Watching Damien Rice grin as half his audience piled on stage to become backing singers at the Usher Hall, and Ray Lamontagne on the same stage, the most awkward, fidgety front man ever and yet, when he sang, simply breath-taking

Drinking in the sheer scale and spectacle of Les Miserable, and the Lion King, and falling asleep at some late night Radio4 jazz shindig at the Fringe, only to be awoken by a singer shrieking like wounded hyena.

And festivals packed with incredible moments, many of them on the smaller stages and marquees - from Butefest in Rothesay to Festival No6 in Portmeirion.

The rollcall of memories runs long into the night, starting with my first ever gig in 1979 - Nazareth at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh - to my last before lockdown, Cash Back In Fife where we joined Rab Noakes, Ian Rankin, Dean Owens, and Fay Fife at the Woodside Hotel in Aberdour for a celebration of Johnny Cash's links to Fife.

And now, at last, the first in a new beginning. I cannot recall a gig where I was so engrossed from start to finish.

We need more nights like that. Many more - because life without live music is the greyest of existences.

Finally, we’re learning to be an audience again. We’re learning to be a band again.

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