Multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Glasson offers Ropetackle livestream

It will Charlotte’s first live gig since August – and she can’t wait. It will be a break from home-schooling her seven-year-old.

“Home-schooling is fine. It is about rewards and getting him to concentrate, but everything else gets pushed to the background. You do realise that this isn’t going to last forever, but it will be great to get back to thinking about music. The last gig I did was at the Brighton Open Air Theatre in the middle of August. It’s been really upsetting not to be able to play, but I totally understand why, of course. But you just take music for granted and think that you will always be able to play with other people. It’s just something that you get used to. But I have started doing more teaching because I needed the income. Most of my income has come from playing live. But I miss most of all the connection that you have with the audience and with your fellow musicians, especially playing something in the moment, something like jazz where you are improvising and you know that it is different every time, just not something that you can recreate.

“And also just to be in the same space as someone else is great… to be with the audience, to be with the other musicians. I just love performing and that connection with the crowd and the feedback you get from the crowd. It always feels very warm.”

The Ropetackle gig comes pretty much exactly a year after their last Ropetackle gig: “We will be doing some of the old favourites and I will write some new tunes as well.”

The band features Charlotte (saxes, flutes, violin, whistles and musical saw), Chris Spedding (guitar and vocals), Mark Bassey (trombone), Terry Pack (bass) and Sam Glasson (drums/percussion).

“The couple of times we have played Ropetackle we have not had Chris Spedding because he has been on tour with Bryan Ferry, but this time he can do the gig.

“We will actually be at the Ropetackle (with no audience). I don’t know whether we will be up on the stage or in the auditorium with lighting, but we will be socially distanced, and as far as I know we will be able to read the comments (that come up on the screen during the livestream) so we will at least have that kind of connection. I think there will be six other people operating the cameras and doing the lights, but they will all be socially distanced as well. It should be really nice. Hopefully we can do it in the round so that we can get to really connect with each other. Usually you have the drums at the back and the bass player just behind you to one side, but I hope we can all sit in a circle and see each other.

“I am hoping we can get together there slightly earlier in the day just to get used to playing together again. To be honest, there is nowhere open that we can rehearse as far as I know. But hopefully we can get together earlier in the day and the rehearsal will be all part of the soundcheck.

“It will be emotional. It will be special. It will be intimate and it will be just amazing to be there counting down and everybody starting to play a tune together. This will be the first time that the Ropetackle has done this kind of thing – and they are hoping to be able to offer it to other artists if it goes well. We are the guinea pigs.

“But it will be great. Just by putting it out on social media, I know that we are going to be getting people from all over the world tuning in, and I think there will also be other parents tuning in. I do think this is going to open things up. There is going to be a new normal, and I do hope that this kind of thing is going to be part of it.”