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Culture Clinic at Kings Place: What it was like to go to a one-on-one post-lockdown gig

The jazz pianist will see you now... Elliot Galvin during one of his Culture Clinic performances (Monika S. Jakubowska/Kings Place)
The jazz pianist will see you now... Elliot Galvin during one of his Culture Clinic performances (Monika S. Jakubowska/Kings Place)

“So, how’s your lockdown been?” It’s hardly “Hello Wembley!” but here, at what is effectively my first live gig for almost five months, I’ll take it. I’m sitting in a darkened concert hall at Kings Place in King’s Cross and jazz pianist Elliot Galvin is asking me about how it’s all been going during the pandemic. Six chairs are sparsely placed on the floor and up on stage, accompanying Galvin, there’s a grand piano.

We’re here for the Culture Clinic, a new series of 10-minute, one-to-one, Covid-secure sessions designed to usher us back into the world of live music after what feels like a lifetime away. The concept is simple, but unlike anything I’ve ever been part of: an artist chats to the audience member about their Covid experience — whether that’s the dullness of self-isolation or the pain of loss — and then prescribes a fitting piece of music in response.

The idea came to Kings Place programme director Helen Wallace after watching the live-streamed gigs that sprang up during lockdown, where artists would perform at home and broadcast it online. It was a “great way of keeping in touch”, Wallace says, but those on-screen pixels and tinny laptop speakers were no replacement for the real thing.

“I was desperate to get back to a situation where a real person could be with another real person in a room,” she says. “The physicality of musical performance was just missing so much from the online experience. The extraordinary beauty of a real human voice, or a real violin, or somebody playing a really beautiful piano — that's what was missing.”

I know exactly what Wallace means from the very first note of Galvin’s improvised piece. I’ve just told him that my lockdown has had its ups and downs, but that the whole thing has been characterised by an anxiety constantly bubbling away beneath the surface. He takes a minute to think, and asks what kind of music I’d like to hear. All I can think to say is “something emotive”.

Hands hovering above the keys, he pauses for another second of consideration. Then he begins to craft something extraordinary. The music moves at a gentle, melancholic pace but it’s transfixing. As I listen, the music takes me back across all those undulating emotions of the past few months. I feel the pain of the bad times, like when my first trip to a pasta-less supermarket seemed like the end of days, or when I’d worry about my elderly relatives, shielded from all other life, and hope they weren’t feeling too lonely. But it also lets me reflect on the good times. I think about how, amid all this, my girlfriend and I moved into our first place together, something we’d been dreaming about for ages, and which now feels like our own cocoon within this strange new world.

The sublime sound of a real-life piano pulls me back down to reality, and the unexpected twinkling of some uneasy high notes brings things to a perfectly off-kilter end. We sit in silence, seemingly both wondering how to fill the space that would usually be taken up by instinctive applause from the crowd.

After a few seconds, I tell him that was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to hear, and I mean it. I expected good things from Galvin (his band Dinosaur got a Mercury Prize nomination back in 2017) but I didn’t predict quite how faithfully his music would mirror my own inner thoughts. I thank him for the piece, and he says thank you back, admitting that it was actually rather emotional for him too. It’s understandable — Galvin, like so many other musicians, has been bereft of gigging opportunities since March, and this Culture Clinic is his first time back on stage.

Scottish folk musician Ewan McLennanMonika S. Jakubowska/Kings Place
Scottish folk musician Ewan McLennanMonika S. Jakubowska/Kings Place

Speaking earlier in the week, he tells me the loss of live performance led to something of an identity crisis. “That was such a core part of how you define yourself as a human being in the world,” he says. “At the beginning, it was like, how do I exist? What’s the point of me now?”

Taking part in these Culture Clinic gigs is like “getting a part of yourself back again”, he says — and he’s not the only one rediscovering it. After our session, I sit in on another performance, this time given by Scottish folk artist Ewan McLennan, playing to a woman who says she’s been furloughed since March. Instead of improvising something on the spot, McLennan delves into his repertoire of songs to pick out pieces that chime with these times. First he plays A Man’s A Man for A’ That, with words written in the 18th century by Robbie Burns, explaining a person’s worth is in the goodness of their character, not their social standing, then Bob Dylan’s tale of two separated lovers in Boots of Spanish Leather. He finishes with an instrumental piece he’s been particularly drawn to during lockdown, often playing it on the street outside his house. Delivered with McLennan’s deep, textured vocals, it’s another moving experience.

The final session is with classical duo Elena Urioste and Tom Poster, who give a brilliantly vigorous performance of DvoÅ™ák’s Songs My Mother Taught Me, followed by a medley of old-school Disney songs. This time, in the venue’s largest concert hall, there are four audience members, which makes for something of a crowd — and some actual clapping. “It’s so nice to hear applause again,” says a beaming Urioste.

There are more Culture Clinics to come later this month — the tiny audience size, with a household of six people the absolute maximum, means the performances are exempt from the current ban on indoor gigs — and Wallace says they might be “weaved into” the venue’s autumn programme. As it stands, they’re a “prelude” to the fuller, socially distanced gigs that are scheduled to return to Kings Place in September. For now, these performances feel like rare, special opportunities to be savoured.

Culture Clinic returns to `Kings Place on August 22 and 29. Tickets are free but donations are encouraged, kingsplace.co.uk