A couple of weeks ago I hosted a pal, let’s call her ‘Sally McDaid’, and her driver / soundman / manager ‘Morton Tesco’, for three nights during an Irish tour. Sal – a critically well-regarded singer/songwriter/guitarist living in ‘Devon’ – has been touring Ireland more or less annually for 15 or more years, along with extensive touring in the US, GB and northern Europe. Indeed, her first (pre-professional) album was released in the mid 90s in Ireland, where she lived for many years, about 10 years before her full-time music career proper began. I’ve seen her play to audiences of 6 to 200 at various places in Ireland over those years. Before Covid, it had been slowly but surely building. But Covid now seems like a merciless line in the sand. For various reasons – cost of living for punters, people getting out of the gig-going habit, Brexit costs for touring artists from the UK (Sally travelled in to Dublin), etc. – the always fragile pub-level touring game seems done for.

This time around, with 8 gigs booked, 4 were cancelled at the 11th hour while Sally and Morton were on the island, having invested time and money getting there » Continue Reading.