Elles Bailey offers Americana Nights in Crawley and Southampton

Bristol-based singer songwriter Elles Bailey is thrilled to be offering an Americana Night at the Hawth, Crawley on Sunday, October 25 at 7.45pm – her first gig since lockdown.
Elles BaileyElles Bailey
Elles Bailey

Her second will be the day afterwards (October 26, 1865, Southampton).

“It all just seems like a living dream,” she admits. “Every now and again I think ‘Am I going to wake up in the Premier Inn in Hull?’ which was where I was for my last tour date and wake up and discover that it was all a really, really bad dream?’ And then I pinch myself and realise that it is all real.”

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Elles has found ways to cope: “I got really stuck into the whole live-streaming thing. It was really great during the real lockdown period. It was such a good way to connect with people, and I really got into the technology behind it. I was making it as good as I possibly could.

“But I have not performed in front of a live audience since March 16. My first gig back is going to be in Crawley. I suppose it was just that the opportunity didn’t come up. I carry a big band and I have to pay everybody. It has got to be financially viable. There have been opportunities to perform, but they weren’t financially viable, and I just can’t afford to take the hit. And that just about sums up the music industry. Live shows have been allowed to go ahead since the end of August, but hardly any of them are happening.

“In my head all I have ever wanted, the thing that got me through was the idea that my first gig back would be a full-band show. It had to be the full-on live experience. I was not going to take anything less. I wanted to be able to bring people together and to be able to bring them together in a safe way.

“I know I have missed my audiences, but I imagine I will walk onto the stage and bawl my eyes out! Just thinking about it now I have tears in my eyes. I was speaking to my bassist and he told me that he dreamt he had a gig and he cried in his dream. He said he was definitely going to cry when it happens!”

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The emotion will be intense. Until now, Elles has coped by trying to distance herself a little from it all: “I have spent my life touring. I am very good at not thinking about home when I am on tour. If I think about home, I will miss all the creature comforts and I will miss family. Now I have kind of done it the other way round, just trying to separate myself from everything that is going on.

“It has been so strange because in this business it takes months and months to put on shows. Some of the shows we booked in November 2019 or maybe September 2019 for shows that were happening in the autumn 2020. But now I announced a show that was happening in three weeks’ time in Kent and it sold out in 24 hours. That would never have happened.”

The time scale has been compressed.

“And with live streaming, you don’t have to have a big lead-up. You can just put out a message that you are live streaming tonight and people will come along because they have got nothing else to do. Touring in a normal world if you are in a big city means that you are up against maybe 20 other bands that same night in a big town. It is just so different now.”

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• Talk is increasing of further lockdowns in the UK. What do you think of the situation? Join the Big Conversation and have your say on everything from healthcare to how the pandemic has affected you personally and how we make our communities stronger: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/bc-worthing