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Live!: Why We Go Out
'ABC', as perfect as anything I've ever witnessed up until that point in my tiny little life. Three minutes of divine delirium. In 1972, when Robert Elms was thirteen years old, he saw the Jackson 5 play live at the Empire Pool. At some point during the performance, he found himself in a state of otherworldly perfect synchronicity with everything happening around him. This single event would set him off on an endless pursuit for that same height of pleasure. Since then, Robert has lived his life through live music, from pub rock to jazz funk, punk to country, and everything in between. Each gig is memorable in its own way, and his snapshots of musicians past and present are both evocative and startlingly Tom Waits showboating with an umbrella, Grace Jones vogueing with a mannequin, Amy shimmying shamelessly like a little girl at a wedding, Gil Scott-Heron rapping with a conga drum. While in our changed times, Robert notes that we have found new ways of listening – of being part of something special by uniting fans with their favourite performers online – there is not, nor can there ever be, anything quite like the live experience. Live!: Why We Go Out is a memoir and a musing on why experiencing live music really matters.
- GenresMusic
288 pages, Hardcover
Published April 2, 2024
2 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
About the author
Robert Elms
14 books14 followersRobert Elms is a British writer and broadcaster. Elms was a writer for The Face magazine in the 1980s and is currently known for his long-running radio show on BBC London 94.9. His book 'The Way We Wore,' charts the changing fashions of his own youth, linking them with the social history of the times.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 29, 2025
Brilliant writing. Paints a vivid picture of the live music scene in London throughout the 70s up to now. Really enjoyable read.
January 19, 2024
I was given this for christmas. Helen bought it after we saw Robert at the literature festival. I chatted with Robert as we were both fans of Nick Lowe though I did not share his fondness for punks and the clash .It was signed and dedicated to me while I went to the loo. What a great book though he is a good writer and we obviously had many of the same tastes as we were at many of the same gigs and concerts in the 70's and 80's.His eclectic tastes are fascinating and when he likes a thing he goes full on and becomes obsessed.Well worth reading but probably one for the boys (anoraks at the ready)..?!
November 4, 2023
The first word in the title of Robert Elms’s excellent book – Live!:Why We Go Out — is interestingly ambiguous. 'Live!' can be taken as an exclamatory adjective describing the concert experience – in the flesh, immediate and happening - but it can also be read as an imperative verb. “Live!” says Elms, as if providing the answer to the rest of the book’s title. Why do we go out? We go out to live and to feel alive.
I once met Robert Elms at a gig. Given that I don’t get to many gigs, this is quite an achievement - on the other hand, given that Robert Elms clearly goes to nearly all of them, maybe it’s not. The gig in question was Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets at Shepherds Bush Empire in 2019 and I remember it well for several reasons. The first, of course, was bumping into Robert Elms. In our short conversation in the bar I told him how much I had enjoyed London Made Us – https://bernardokeeffe.com/review-of-... – and that I, like him, was a regular at QPR (Upper Loft Block L). The other reason I remember that evening is because it was when my wife revealed to me her hitherto concealed lifelong fear of masks. Given that Los Straitjackets, Nick Lowe’s band that night, perform in Mexican wrestling masks, this made for an interesting evening.
I have, without doubt, been to more of the same QPR games as Robert Elms than I have been to the same gigs. I was at Wembley Stadium in 1975 when the Beach Boys blew Elton John away. I was at the 1978 Anti Nazi League Rally to see The Clash. I may also have been at some of the same Tom Waits or Elvis Costello concerts, but that’s probably about it - when put beside Elms’s mightily impressive list I might as well not have been out at all. Having read this, though, I now feel as though I’ve been to millions, hearing all kinds of music – flamenco to punk, country to jazz – in all kinds of places.
Elms takes as his starting point the pandemic which drove him back into himself and back into his record collection, making him realise how much he missed the itch of going out, how he craved the community of crowds, how he yearned for gigs and games, how he longed for the live experience. What follows is a book about his experience of live music, but it ends up being so much more than that - memoir, confessional, cultural history and, it has to be said, a terrific read.
Much of the biography will be familiar to those who have read Elms’s previous works The Way We Wore and London Made Us: his willingness to embrace the latest thing (“I’ve been an honorary member of every passing trouser tribe, sported every silly haircut imaginable” ); his chameleon nature ( “for most of my formative years I had a split cultural personality. I also developed an adaptable accent to match. Grammar school lad and council-estate kid.”); his rise to media stardom (“I loved the idea of being part of the narrative; more than just a fan – a face”); his love of fashion and of London.
But what marks out his latest book is his love of music. “My taste is broad”, he writes, and so is his knowledge – broad, enthusiastic and enlightening. One of the book’s joys is that (much like his BBC Radio London show) it serves as a gateway to new music and artists. The range of reference is huge and, although every reader might not agree with his judgements, they will almost certainly find something that strikes a chord. Pun intended.
One of the most enjoyable things about Live!: Why We Go Out is Elms’s endearing honesty - he owns up to his blindspots, realises his past errors of judgement and even acknowledges his own questionable character traits (“It’s amazing how quickly you can become a complete twat!”, “I was now the supremely arrogant boy reporter”, “me- a prime bullshitter”) He also confesses to his own prejudices – theatre and outdoor music, for example, and, most memorably for this SW13 resident, Barnes, the “dreary” village by the river that was home to the Olympic Studios: “Barnes, a leafy London suburb stuck forever in 1956. Barnes with its common and its pond and its cosy pubs and a level crossing that looks like Miss Marple is about to appear”.
Throughout the book Elms acknowledges the difficulty (and rises to the challenge) of capturing the live experience, or more specifically the remembered live experience, in language. The book is as much about memory (its capacity to distort and intensify) as it is about music - “I can watch Bobby Zamora scoring in the ninetieth minute of the play-off final at Wembley on YouTube or else I can close my eyes and remember what it felt like falling through space into the arms of a demented stranger”
That's not the only reference to the team from W12 - QPR runs through the book like blue and white hoops through a stick of London rock. The final chapter begins ‘QPR are top of the league. This doesn't happen very often so it's worth noting’ (written, I assume, in October 2022), and ends with ‘QPR are seventeenth in the league’. (written merely months later). As I write this, QPR are 2-0 down away to Huddersfield after fifteen minutes and hurtling closer to relegation. Will this stop me going next season? Probably not. Will it stop Robert Elms going? Definitely not. He’ll be there in G block, just like he’ll be out at gigs, following his own imperative to “Live!”, providing an emphatic answer to Homer Simpson’s question - “What’s the point of going out when we’re just going to wind up back here anyway?”
I once met Robert Elms at a gig. Given that I don’t get to many gigs, this is quite an achievement - on the other hand, given that Robert Elms clearly goes to nearly all of them, maybe it’s not. The gig in question was Nick Lowe and Los Straitjackets at Shepherds Bush Empire in 2019 and I remember it well for several reasons. The first, of course, was bumping into Robert Elms. In our short conversation in the bar I told him how much I had enjoyed London Made Us – https://bernardokeeffe.com/review-of-... – and that I, like him, was a regular at QPR (Upper Loft Block L). The other reason I remember that evening is because it was when my wife revealed to me her hitherto concealed lifelong fear of masks. Given that Los Straitjackets, Nick Lowe’s band that night, perform in Mexican wrestling masks, this made for an interesting evening.
I have, without doubt, been to more of the same QPR games as Robert Elms than I have been to the same gigs. I was at Wembley Stadium in 1975 when the Beach Boys blew Elton John away. I was at the 1978 Anti Nazi League Rally to see The Clash. I may also have been at some of the same Tom Waits or Elvis Costello concerts, but that’s probably about it - when put beside Elms’s mightily impressive list I might as well not have been out at all. Having read this, though, I now feel as though I’ve been to millions, hearing all kinds of music – flamenco to punk, country to jazz – in all kinds of places.
Elms takes as his starting point the pandemic which drove him back into himself and back into his record collection, making him realise how much he missed the itch of going out, how he craved the community of crowds, how he yearned for gigs and games, how he longed for the live experience. What follows is a book about his experience of live music, but it ends up being so much more than that - memoir, confessional, cultural history and, it has to be said, a terrific read.
Much of the biography will be familiar to those who have read Elms’s previous works The Way We Wore and London Made Us: his willingness to embrace the latest thing (“I’ve been an honorary member of every passing trouser tribe, sported every silly haircut imaginable” ); his chameleon nature ( “for most of my formative years I had a split cultural personality. I also developed an adaptable accent to match. Grammar school lad and council-estate kid.”); his rise to media stardom (“I loved the idea of being part of the narrative; more than just a fan – a face”); his love of fashion and of London.
But what marks out his latest book is his love of music. “My taste is broad”, he writes, and so is his knowledge – broad, enthusiastic and enlightening. One of the book’s joys is that (much like his BBC Radio London show) it serves as a gateway to new music and artists. The range of reference is huge and, although every reader might not agree with his judgements, they will almost certainly find something that strikes a chord. Pun intended.
One of the most enjoyable things about Live!: Why We Go Out is Elms’s endearing honesty - he owns up to his blindspots, realises his past errors of judgement and even acknowledges his own questionable character traits (“It’s amazing how quickly you can become a complete twat!”, “I was now the supremely arrogant boy reporter”, “me- a prime bullshitter”) He also confesses to his own prejudices – theatre and outdoor music, for example, and, most memorably for this SW13 resident, Barnes, the “dreary” village by the river that was home to the Olympic Studios: “Barnes, a leafy London suburb stuck forever in 1956. Barnes with its common and its pond and its cosy pubs and a level crossing that looks like Miss Marple is about to appear”.
Throughout the book Elms acknowledges the difficulty (and rises to the challenge) of capturing the live experience, or more specifically the remembered live experience, in language. The book is as much about memory (its capacity to distort and intensify) as it is about music - “I can watch Bobby Zamora scoring in the ninetieth minute of the play-off final at Wembley on YouTube or else I can close my eyes and remember what it felt like falling through space into the arms of a demented stranger”
That's not the only reference to the team from W12 - QPR runs through the book like blue and white hoops through a stick of London rock. The final chapter begins ‘QPR are top of the league. This doesn't happen very often so it's worth noting’ (written, I assume, in October 2022), and ends with ‘QPR are seventeenth in the league’. (written merely months later). As I write this, QPR are 2-0 down away to Huddersfield after fifteen minutes and hurtling closer to relegation. Will this stop me going next season? Probably not. Will it stop Robert Elms going? Definitely not. He’ll be there in G block, just like he’ll be out at gigs, following his own imperative to “Live!”, providing an emphatic answer to Homer Simpson’s question - “What’s the point of going out when we’re just going to wind up back here anyway?”
June 6, 2024
This was an exceptional read. The author is a music writer and radio presenter who lived through much of the music he focuses on in this book. And, as such, he is very opinionated about music. I found while I often agreed with his high-level ideas about music, I just as often disagreed with his specific opinions about musicians. To focus on that, would largely be besides the point. This is a book written by someone who can write. For a person who sort of fell backwards into music journalism, Elms can craft a sentence with the best of them. Read this if only to experience some of the most finely crafted turns of phrase ever put to the page. The writer uses this incredible language to wax poetic about the experience of live music. And he does so to a wonderfully rich degree. If you are a music fan, you will delight in all the stories of being there and hearing examples of musical transcendence. If you're not really into music, read to get a glimpse into what we think all the fuss is about. This book is a great example of a very personal meditation on the author's own experiences becoming a universal declaration in the telling. Recommended.
June 4, 2024
A love of live music writ large.
I don't always agree with Robert's choices and loves but respect every word. He clearly is an obsessive and I respect that. I no longer live where I can have a new gig every night and miss that. He writes so well.
I don't always agree with Robert's choices and loves but respect every word. He clearly is an obsessive and I respect that. I no longer live where I can have a new gig every night and miss that. He writes so well.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews