Manchester music and Covid: 'A small silver lining on a very dark cloud'

Covid-19 has hit the music industry hard, and nowhere more so than in Manchester.

Hundreds of gigs have been cancelled, venues have closed and many people who have helped make the city's live music scene famous around the world have been forced to leave the industry - at least temporarily - in order to make ends meet.

For The Lottery Winners' lead singer Thom Rylance, the impact of the pandemic has been "massive".

"We released our debut album [in March] after 10 years; literally the week it came out was the week everything started to get locked down.

"As we went out to start the tour, we saw the [people] starting to vanish as things had been cancelled.

"I remember I was in TK Maxx trying to find something to wear for that night and it came up on my phone that Boris [Johnson] had said all gigs were off.

"I just cried my eyes out - I can't take a pandemic personally but it felt like we had built up our entire lives for that moment and then it had been taken away."

Rioghnach Connolly, named Folk Singer of the Year at the 2019 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, was also supposed to be on tour in March.

She says she felt a "slowly rolling panic" build as the lockdown took hold.

"I'd just won the award and I haven't been able to gig once; I haven't been able to do my kind of victory lap.

"I'm also in a band called The Breath - we were nominated for an award as well and we weren't able to do any of that tour to highlight the work we've done up until that point.

"The gigs from March have started to be pencilled in for next November, so that's a good 18 months of absolute tumbleweed.

"Musicians that are on a cycle of writing, recording, releasing... if you can't tour the album, then the album doesn't sell.

"We've had to start all over again with a new album and hope that we can release it at the right time to be able to promote it."

She says she knows of several musicians who have "really suffered and had to go into totally different sectors to make their rent".

"As a professional musician, my ego has taken a massive dent, because you're basically begging [when] you're asking for your community's help.

"The Manchester music scene has really suffered."

At Night and Day, one of Manchester's best-loved venues, the virus has had "a devastating effect", according to manager Jay Taylor.

"It stopped [all venues] doing the thing that they're supposed to be doing, which is putting on exciting things on a stage.

"Even when the opportunity to do those things in a limited way happened, it was still not happening in a way that would make this, and a lot of other venues, viable and so still essentially we've had a fallow year."

Sacha Lord, who runs the Warehouse Project club nights and Parklife festival, is also Greater Manchester's night-time economy advisor.

He says it has been difficult to deal with the day-to-day impact of Covid on the area's music scene.

"We need to remember that Greater Manchester has had the tightest restrictions for the longest period of time in the whole of the UK.

"So it's been absolutely devastating speaking to people who are at their wits' end and who, even if they could open again, wouldn't because they are mentally shot.

"They can't sustain the next few weeks, those venues just can't stay open, they have bills to pay."

As hard as 2020 has been though, he says there are reasons to be positive about 2021, as the "absolute desire to get back is phenomenal".

"I'm speaking to other festivals like Leeds, Creamfields and Reading, who have got tickets on sale for next year and they have got record ticket sales.

"People are desperate to go out; the second a nightclub can open, people are going to go to it.

"We are extremely confident about that."

He believes there will be changes to the way things work though.

"I think people will either need to show a vaccine passport on a phone or take a quick test on the door... and we're going to have to put hand sanitizer points everywhere.

"I also expect many places not to accept cash - I think the days of cash are perhaps finished."

Taylor agrees live music will look different post-Covid.

"We're not going to come back with the same cultural landscape we entered this with," he says.

"Some venues have been creative in amazing ways - those are going to be the ones that survive.

"If you're a music venue, you can't carry on not putting music on, because that's the core of what you do."

He says the "worst case scenario is we're left with a partial music scene", which would be far from ideal.

"I want to live in a Manchester where there's amazing, exciting things, forward-thinking creative and cultural things happening everywhere."

Connolly says it will "take a while to get back into the swing of things" once restrictions begin to be lifted, "but we're going to do it with gusto".

"I know that there are challenges ahead of us but I'm really looking forward to them now."

Rylance agrees the Covid restrictions have "impacted Manchester and everywhere else significantly [as] people don't understand just how many jobs there are in the music sector that have been affected", but adds that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

"Musicians, artists and creatives - they've had a lot of time to make things, so as soon as this Covid stuff is over, we're going to have the best music, the best books, best film and best poems.

"That could be a small silver lining on a very dark cloud.

"I think it will be absolutely bursting with energy, I think people need live music.

"One of my mottos going forward is going to be 'do not to miss an opportunity to see live music' because that's what's made me who I am."

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