Before I was born again I never would have gone to gigs on my own. I never used to go anywhere alone.
But apparently God has other ideas.
Last year my friend sent me the song “This little life” by Cordelia (you’ve probably heard the song, it got quite big in late 2023 on Tik Tok and instagram) and from time to time I have been listening to some of her other songs; especially her Caramel EP.
Anyway; so the other day I listened to some of her tracks for the first time in a while, and then I noticed that on Spotify it notifies you if an artist is playing near you and gives you a list of gig dates. (Though I’ve never seemed to take any notice of this before.) I noticed that Cordelia was playing nearby @thesocial; just up the road from where I’m staying in London, and so I thought:
“Oh that’s cool, but I probably definitely won’t go to that…”
Little did I know…
So then almost 2 weeks go by
And all sorts has happened since then
My friend’s wife sadly passed away
And my friend went to go support him
And I had been out doing street evangelism and all sorts
So I completely forget about the gig.
Like totally
It was at the absolute back of my mind.
And then the last two days I’ve just felt the grace for two days of kind of intense fasting and praying;
Which was unexpected, but it didn’t feel like a difficult thing to pray and fast so much during this time;
I basically just didn’t feel hungry. (which is definitely not like me). It’s not like I lost my appetite or felt sad or whatever, just that I felt the grace to fast and pray and to seek God for what on earth He is up to and what I am doing with my life at this point…
So the second day in to the fast, after all day of reading the word and worrying about not having enough money and what my future holds and what direction God is calling me into and me pouring my heart & complaint out before God…
I go into my friends kitchen and get down on my hands and knees and begin to pray (if you don’t pray in your kitchen you need to try this, there’s just something about it…)
After praying for 15/20 mins, I stop praying and look at the time, it was bang on 6 o’clock. So I just open up instagram, not thinking much about it. (I was aware this is not a good way to end an intense prayer session…)
Yet the wisdom of God is that He even used this to reveal His will to me.
So I open up instagram and the first post I see is a girl I used to work with who is a musician; and she has been doing write ups of gigs in Bristol, and about her favourite musicians etc.
Then immediately the Holy Spirit reminds me of the Cordelia gig again.
Like it just came to the front of my mind all of a sudden, I cannot explain it.
So there it was again, that nudge from the Holy Spirit to go to the gig.
I go to the event page and find out it is called February Communion (can’t make this up) at The Social London, which is linked to heavenly recordings (a record label which has signed bands such as The Orielles, Saint Etienne, (also some of my favourite artists when I was in the world).
I realise It’s now 6 o’clock and the thing starts in an hour…
I think: no way am I going to this God I was definitely not planning to go to this and I am definitely not in the mood to socialise today…
I reluctantly get changed and begin to tell my friend; I left the invitation open but I knew I had to go either way. I felt COMPELLED to go. But dramatic but have you ever had the feeling like when God tells you it’s important, that unless you do what God is saying you have no peace, because you know it is important and there is a blessing in it somewhere and it will probably change your life, or more importantly, someone else’s life… somehow?)
Well this was one of those moments.
So I reluctantly got changed (but rather beginning to get over any anxiety and come round to the idea, miraculously, by this point.
I made a cup of tea whilst trying to explain my predicament to my friend; I didn’t want to go, it wasn’t really my kind of music (dgm wrong Indie is alright… I just don’t go to worldly gigs) and this all started because my friend told me about this musician last year.
So I felt like I would have kicked myself if I didn’t go next time I saw her.
So I jump on the tube (only 3 stops away)
And walk 5 mins around the corner to the social.
This was all by faith as my bank account is over the overdraft limit; I couldn’t even draw a tenner out. I was thinking “God I have been praying to you for finances all day and trying to figure out what to do with my life and how to follow your will, but all you start talking to me is about this gig, this is what you’ve come up with?!”
I’ve been praying to God for finances
And he leads me to a gig which I saw the ticket price online was £12 (and by this point sold out) and let’s not even get started on the prices of drinks in London…
And yet.
I knew
That I knew
That God was telling me to go.
So this was all by faith
So I arrive around 6:50pm (a miracle as I took my time with that cup of tea before leaving) and there are some people on the door but they don’t seemed to be bothered by me; I walk through to the bar area thinking, maybe they aren’t checking tickets yet and maybe once you walk through to the main stage area downstairs you have to pay.
So I order a Guinness (alcohol free I know, with all that fasting recently a full strength it would probably knock my head off and I had a conviction from God to not drink for this one)
However when it comes to pay… it says insufficient funds. This has never happened to me like this before…)
What happens when you max out your overdraft…
I could have taken this bit out but I just want to be honest before everyone here about what it’s like to really live by faith. God is perfect but if we don’t trust Him or it can get tough sometimes…
I tell her I don’t have any cash on me either, she doesn’t know what to do and I say neither do I; she asks her manager and they let me have the alcohol free Guinness for free. I think thank God for His favour because I do not deserve that and I had no way to pay in that situation. I would not have got the drink if I had known… yet somehow my card for the tube journey home still worked…
So I feel somewhat strengthened by this maybe slightly more convinced that God has a purpose and plan for me being there, and I’m not just a mad Christian backsliding via the indie rock scene.
In the bar area I’m still pretty concerned, as all the tickets were sold out online and, was hoping you could pay on the door, but now realising I had absolutely no way of paying on the door anymore so I’m running on total faith now and thinking, “well I better just drink my free pint and to witness to somebody before I get chucked out then.”
I talk to two guys in the corridor who work for a film and media company, one of them tells me he is Jewish and then the conversation ends kind of abruptly before I could even witness for some reason. (Maybe he could tell I was about to sneak in to the conversation about the Jewish Messiah.) Nevertheless, since the doors had now opened, I decided to go downstairs and see if my card would get declined for the tickets so I could just walk home and explain to my friend I was wrong after all and just be thankful to God at least for the free pint.
But, amazingly, that is not what happened.
I get to the stairs where you enter to go down to the gig bit in the basement.
There’s people there with stamps giving out wristbands, stamping the dude in front of me and everything, there’s three people in the narrow stairway corridor a guy and two girls checking tickets. I wait for the guy they are stamping to get done, ready for them to ask me if I have a ticket; thinking O Lord here we go, time to turn around…
But something strange happens, there’s this peace suddenly there, and they are all looking at me as if they knew me already, and they wave me down the stairs as if I have been down there and already paid, everybody was super friendly to me. So I get to the bar area already with a drink in hand thinking: “😚no way did I get this far??” “This has to be you Lord!”
I’m amazed so I just hang around and sit down for a bit. I see a dude stood on his own so I go talk to him. He’s from Peterborough waiting for his friend to arrive, where they have both travelled down from after work just to see Cordelia. He says he’s done a bit of boxing instructing but got injured and doesn’t really want to carry on doing that, I told him about my (brief) missionary travels and shared a bit about the bible with him. He told me his friend would be interested in talking about that. It was kind of a tough conversation but I told him God has a plan for his life and he needs a saviour, even if he doesn’t think he has done much wrong in his life. It was hard going but as the first artist @mo was getting on stage I moved to the front.
He’s a great keyboard player and has a great voice. His style is more deep and melodic, thought provoking music with lyrics that cut to the heart of current issues and even songs that made me think of past heartbreaks. Overall it was a good way to warm up the evening, and mo has a funny and lighthearted stage presence; it was the perfect first act of the night.
After @mos set I thought I would talk to the people immediately next to me a guy and a girl on my right and they were exchange students from Massachusetts, I shared a little about my faith but then headed to the toilets. In the queue I was in front of an Asian girl, I asked her what she thought of Cordelia’s set, she said she enjoyed it and so did I, little did I know that was Cordelia’s housemate who she mentioned during her set. So we talked about that.
After leaving the toilet I wonder what on earth I’m going to do next, but seeing a bloke stood on his own near the bar and being the ever so polite and friendly English gent I am (still to be confirmed) I ask him what he thought of Cordelia’s set, his girlfriend comes over shortly after that and it turns out that we are all a similar age, and they happen to be friends with Cordelia from back home in Stroud, Gloucestershire.
I share my experience of walking the Camino with them and they had friends who did it also; my new friend offers to buy me a drink which is very kind of him, so the total now is two alcohol free Guinesses; God is really amazing me now (maybe it doesn’t take much but I know none of this is my wit or charm!)
Then Cordelia arrives and they introduce me; I’m just realising it’s definitely the best way to meet someone – being introduced by their long term school friends.
So we talk about her set and I ask them how they know one another etc, but it was genuinely nice to meet her even if I got a bit nervous. I did not witness to her but maybe I will see her again and get the chance to share the gospel with her.
I go back to the stage but again and as I am waiting near the front (Cordelia is there talking to a group of girls but I am just stood around on my own next to some lads dressed in leather jackets and they look a bit like they are in a band for a few minutes. Anyway after a while two French girls come up to them all and ask them if they are in a band. They reply yes, they are and with the lead guitarist from the next band on stage. The girls ask them for their instagram etc because they are starting a platform for emerging musicians and artists to help them get off the ground, get paid for streams etc. I ask if I can give them my friends info as he is a musician and they say yes. Just as they are about to go I tell one of them that Jesus loves her. She says thank you and I don’t remember exactly what she said but she asks me why I said that; I began to share my testimony with her; how I encountered The Lord 4 years ago in my bedroom after I had begun a gender transition from MtF. I told her how when I encountered the love of God it totally changed my life; and I realised I no longer needed to change my body with hormones or makeup in order to be happy. She was touched by that and told me she had not experienced or heard a story like that before, she said: “wow thank you for sharing this, it is so touching to hear something so genuine, especially here (meaning in the middle of an indie gig).”
She asked me if I had shared this publicly or on social media or if it was something I preferred to keep to myself. I explained I needed to share my story on social media and she said maybe it would be possible to share it on their platform as she realised it could be really empowering. (I’m not holding out for that promise but I said I would be up for doing a short feature as it may help people who need to hear it.) she graciously took my social media handle, I told her there is a God who loves her and we parted ways.
The next band @KEO was an upbeat rock/indie Nirvana type vibe. The lead singer had a t shirt on with a medium sized cross in the middle of it. Some of the crowd was the group of friends of the rowdy boys and they were trying to start a mosh pit. It was definitely mosh pit type music (meaning upbeat and you could dance to) without being too thrash metal. All my prayers to stop the mosh pit paid off and it was a good time.
After that I headed outside as I was planning on going as I thought that all the acts were over. I’m not sure if I missed the final act but I was spoke to the drummer of KEO and some of their friends who came to support too in the smoking area. I thought this was the perfect place to witness and I began to ask people questions about what happens after death with Mo and the tallest guy. They were like woah that’s deep, but I went straight for the jugular; I wasn’t there to mess around, I probably wouldn’t see these people again in my life so I wanted them to hear the gospel
I’m experiencing what Jesus meant when He said:
“Who The Son sets free is free indeed.”
Even though i felt way out of my comfort zone here; and felt like this was not the place for a born again Christian; yet God gave me so much grace to reach these people
I was experiencing what it’s like to be set free and live in true freedom in Christ; to go to the dark places and let our light shine before others. Even in places we feel like we might not fit in. But true faith in God is to go to these unteaches highways and byways, and meet people where they are at. They might not listen to street preachers… but they may listen to a radical Christian at an indie gig.
I Am Free Indeed Blog 
Leave a comment