I’m sifting my gig memories, in order to share them, but in the mean time, to add to what James said: you can’t have missed the fact that music is becoming more and more corporate - its the HMV Forum now, not the Forum (not even the Town and County Club, for those even longer in the tooth), the various O2 Academies and so on (disclaimer: I sometimes write copy for gigs at those various venues.)

And while it was ever thus, it seems a shame that the only things we remember should be those are those memories that are officially industry-sanctioned - I mean, have you been to the British Music Experience?

Exactly.

And, while there has been a burgeoning amount of popular music given (subjected to?) the heritage treatment, it does always seem to fit into a narrative - top-down, big acts, change the world, shift lots of units blah blah blah - which doesn’t bear any resemblance to the way that you or I might have remembered that act, heard that singer.

In the rush to make sure that the music industry has a viable future, we’re forgetting what it is that will ensure that it has a viable future.

Us.

The fans. The punters. The hardbeat kids, the indie snobs, the glam girls and raggamuffins, the blissed-out elders, the bugged-out wannabes. The makers and the shakers don’t actually matter. It’s those of us who believe in this stuff, this wonderous, unlikely, indefatigable collection of vibrating atoms played by chance, with precision, with intent, with delight. The people who queue in the rain for a glimpse of the hands that strummed the opening chord on the piece of vinyl that you played to her one Saturday afternoon that made her think, yeah, maybe it’s you.

So think of this tumblelog not just as a place to add your voice to make sure that London doesn’t lose another live music venue. Think of it also as a place where you can claim your memory of the music you love back from those you would tell you your stories in a way that you don’t remember.

These are your bands. These are your songs. These are your nights.