Bido Lito June 2021 Issue 114

“I’d convinced myself I would be as careful as
possible and still try to social distance, but the lure
of socialising won in the end,” says Ollie Adebsi who
attended the Friday event. “People were smiling and
talking about how lucky we all were to experience this.
It seemed like the drinks, the DJs, the venue, the confetti
were beautiful, but it all was unequivocal to the feeling of
all 3,000 of us being together without pandemic rules for
a few hours.”
The Circus event is a landmark moment for those
behind the decks as well as those partying on the other
side. Videos of an emotional Lauren Lo Sung as she
played the first record of the afternoon show just how
much music and its shared experience means. The hole
it’s left in people’s lives. It’s this feeling that perforates
so much of this evening’s somewhat surreal unification
of body, music and collective thought in a year where so
much has felt splintered and distant.
“From the moment I started to when I finished, I
wanted it to be emotionally charged. I wanted it to be a
release for me as well as the crowd,” says DJ and Circus
co-founder Yousef speaking the week after the back-toback
events at Bramley-Moore. “To be able to reconnect
with strangers and be in the company of others without
having to be told off – it was magical.”
Both the Bramley-Moore events and that at Sefton
Park share many similarities in their sense of making up for
lost time. People arrive early and stay late. Perhaps to soak
it all in. Maybe to hold on to a world of fewer restrictions
for as long as possible. But there’s a clear desire for people
to find themselves as a unified voice once again. Not
beholden to rules of six or police aggression when taking
necessary social action during lockdown.
“I’m excited to see Blossoms later, to be back at a
gig and screaming my heart out to some of my favourite
songs,” says Zuzu. “[Some of the younger people in the
crowd] have never had a chance to do this before. I think
it means a hell of a lot to a lot of people.”
This feeling courses through the expectant crowd
of the big top between sets.
Even the guitar tech receives a
roaring ovation as they come out
to tune up ahead of the bands.
For those behind the scenes in
the music industry, the past 14
months will have been some
of the hardest they’ve faced
in their professional careers.
One gig doesn’t make up for
the damage industry workers
have endured, but perhaps the
crowd’s excitable reaction shows
a new-found respect and value
for those stood to the side of the
stage and working across the festival site. It’s one that’ll
need to continue as gigs come back into full swing.
“The gig was everything I dreamed it could be.
A celebration of music, community and all that we’ve
been missing,” commented Bido Lito! photographer
Gary Lambert in the days after the event. “Nobody was
pretending that the last year hadn’t happened. Instead it
was a party for that moment.”
“I’d say this is the most important show I’ve ever
played,” says Zuzu, still coming down from the rush of
the set. It’s a feeling that’s reflected by Yousef. “My last
gig was to 25,000 people in Mexico City, which was the
best gig I’d done in my life. So, I was happy to have a
few months off – not knowing it was going to be 14.
But this has eclipsed it,” he says. “Not just that it was
an amazing gig, but the difficulty of getting to that
moment, putting that idea to the council, working so
hard to make it happen. It wasn’t just a gig, it was an
accumulation of effort.”
The journey to the two
test events in Liverpool
couldn’t have formed a
“It felt like we did
something that
was significant
for the city”
starker contrast to their
eventual happening. Just five
months prior the city was
battling its third wave of
Covid-19. Caseloads across
the city region pushed above
1,000 per 100,000 and
once again a lockdown was
introduced. It was a difficult
final chapter of a 2020 that
was just starting to offer
glimpses of optimism.
“In December there was a sense of achievement
as Liverpool emerged in Tier 2 after being the pilot city
for community testing,” says Mathew Flynn, lecturer
in music industry at the University Of Liverpool and
member of Liverpool City Region Music Board. “There
seemed to be a proactivity, but that was sort of ignorant
of the resurgence of the virus.”
Flynn outlines that, even with vaccine rollout clicking
into gear in January, there was a looming skepticism
that test events wouldn’t be able to take place until
28