This ‘Middle 8’ in the History of Live Music trilogy was first published in 2019 and its paperback edition was released in September 2020 just as the final instalment (covering 1985–2015) was also being published. The research originated from the AHRC project which spawned the Live Music Exchange hub (http://livemusicexchange.org/), a thriving knowledge exchange amidst the challenges of a pandemic-muted arena.

The ‘age of rock’, the chosen historical segment, saw an ‘intense commercialisation of music making’ (p. 7) both in production and live performance, so it is a pertinent way to cut open and examine this historical slice. As with the previous volume, the four academic musketeers have coherently and effortlessly divvied the work between themselves, and sculpted it together without continuity errors, to produce a mighty testament to the nuanced interrelationships and contextual complexities of live music and its ancillary industries. What is particularly beautifully crafted, reinforcing the ethos of the first volume, are the interviews overlaying the research terrain. The consideration of the relationship between legal restrictions and socio-cultural and economic imperatives is done in a way that is easily accessible to multiple audiences. Also like the previous volume, the authors demonstrate that, whilst there is no coherent historical strategy of music policy but more a collision of ‘reactions and initiatives’ (p. 80), these historical shifts are best understood at both a national and local level. An approach which this immense piece of research goes on to deliver engagingly.

Reviewing the text in lockdown, when attending live music in person is a nostalgic sofa-based activity, throws up pangs of the past but reminds us that whilst some things may never return post-pandemic, live music surely must. Indeed, one of the authors themselves said something similar in these very pages only a few issues ago, when reviewing another book about live music (Cloonan Reference Cloonan, Mazierska, Gillon and Rigg2020). We are reminded that historically and across the volumes, there never has been one ‘model’ of live experience that fits all, and the richness evolves from understanding the contextual influences of music-making. Whilst the spotlight is on the era of major labels and the start of larger extravagant shows, the authors demonstrate that independents venues have always been an alternative nutritional lifeblood of live music. The Bristol, Glasgow and Sheffield city-based examples, as in the first volume, are illuminating, offering a rich insight within the bigger landscape. The depth of the presentation lies in the resonance of combining interviews, participant observation and a thorough survey of both academic literature and contemporary materials of the time. Whilst the format will feel comfortable to those who are familiar with the 1950–1967 text (volume 1), it can also be understood and enjoyed in its own right.

It was particularly delightful to read about the important role of universities as venues (p. 35) and the role of the Student Unions (p. 53) within part of a wider music ‘ecology’, with an especially pertinent reminder that my own current institution, the University of Brighton, had Harvey Goldsmith as its Social Secretary in the mid 1960s. Also, whilst digging back further, and whilst it was some 15 years after The Who's Live at Leeds Refectory concert (p. 63), the same setting was a key backdrop for my own undergraduate life in Leeds, and so the reference made me wonder what the collective academic music community contribution to the live music scene has been. Certainly, for myself, it was a combination of putting up rigging for the Entertainment Society, feeling connected to albeit servicing the touring bands of all sizes, and writing up the live shows for the student press, that contributed to a professional life firstly in the music press, and teaching and researching in the field. My own involvement to just two of those aspects of the wider music industries the text explores. The authors remind us that “[m]usic making doesn't just speak for itself. It has to be explained” (p. 112), and how fortunate we are to be part of the wider ecology, whatever our relationship to the live experience is.

That is where this text took me… a nostalgic reminder of the importance of live music for amateur and professional contributions as such life-changing experiences. It is gratifying to have unpacked the connections that instigated seismic shifts in various music scenes, whether that be cultural, socio-economic, legal, political or a combination. Indeed, live music's very absence at the time of writing reminds us that there is no substitute for the ‘authentic ambience’ that somewhere like Glasgow's Apollo Centre (p. 103) or Bristol's renamed Beacon (p. 43) can offer. It couldn't have come at a more apposite time to reiterate to us why we all do what we do, and why the live experience has value way beyond its ticket price. The teasers for the next volume (Frith et al., Reference Frith, Brennan, Cloonan and Webster2021), covering the period 1985–2015, worked well, and I've already delved straight into the denouement with a promise to myself that post-lockdown, a live show is where I'll be heading.