Live music is a night-time pursuit, maybe outdoors on a hot summer evening at a push. It feels a bit odd to watch a band early, knowing you have to get on with the rest of your day, rather than tottering home a bit tipsy with that eardrum buzz (or in more recent years jumping in a taxi home to relieve the babysitter)

Still, I have had a few amazing live music experiences in the middle of the day, and in no particular order, here are my top 5.

Public Domain — Reading Festival

Festivals are the most common way to experience daytime music. English festivals in particular tend to start very early, often around midday (or even earlier in the case of Glastonbury — I have vague memories of watching The Darkness at around 10.30am one year). I think this is due to our noise restriction laws. European festivals tend to start at a more civilised hour, running from about 6pm to 6am, at least in my limited experience.

I used to really enjoy the experience of wandering off by myself early in the day at festivals and watching the first bands before my friends had even emerged from their tents. I still remember the first band at my first Reading Festival being Downset and my first band at my first Glastonbury being, of all bands, Mark & Lard’s spoof indie band The Shirehorses.

Weirdly though, the one band I remember above any other, of the many festival bands I have seen at lunchtime, are Public Domain. If you don’t remember them, that’s understandable. They were mainly known for their novelty hit ‘Bass In The Place London’, and this was a phase where the Reading Festival used to put on a random pop act on early in the day, with the aim of provoking laughter, derision or worse from the crowd. In retrospect this seems pretty mean spirited, but I must admit that was my aim too.

As it turned out, I really enjoyed their set, dancing away down the front for the entirety. Judging by the reaction of the rest of the early crowd, I was not the only one enjoying it more than I expected. Public Domain, you may have rapidly disappeared from public view, but you made a small lunchtime festival crowd of hungover rockers very happy.

LCD Soundsystem -Piccadilly Records

When I lived in Manchester I had access to one of the best record shops in the country, Piccadilly Records. As well as a fantastic selection of vinyl and CDs, they put on some wonderful in-store shows. There was always a relaxed, intimate atmosphere at these gigs, a friendliness between the artists and the fans crammed in between the record racks.

They were often on weekends, occasionally on weekdays after work, but my very favourite was on a Monday lunchtime. Somehow they had convinced LCD Soundsystem to come and play in the shop. Now, they weren’t quite the huge band that they would later become, but they were already popular enough to know that I would never see them in a venue anywhere approaching this size again. A friend who had become a music teacher after University also understood what a big deal this was and bought her entire class along.

LCD Soundsystem were also one of the best live acts on the planet at the time, full of intense pounding rhythms that built and built to ecstasy (not literally, not on a Monday lunchtime) and it was an absolute thrill to see them so close up, then stagger out buzzing into a grey Manchester afternoon.

Jeffrey Lewis — Freebutt (Brighton)

Jeffrey Lewis is one of my very favourite musicians, and he tours a lot, so I’ve seen him more times than anyone else I can think of. I’ve seen him at festivals, at pubs, and at a kind of supper club in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia. He’s also not afraid to put on an afternoon matinee if he sells out a venue on a evening. Which was handy for my wife and I, when his evening show at the (long gone sadly) Freebutt in Brighton sold out before we got tickets, we were able to get tickets for the matinee show instead. It was excellent as usual, and when he announced that there were a few tickets returned for the later show, and he was going to play an entirely different set, we thought, why not? Hence he became not only one of the best artists I’ve ever seen at lunchtime, but the only one I’ve seen twice in the same day

I vor Neame Quartet — Clothworkers Centenary Hall, University of Leeds.

I work at the University of Leeds, and one of the many benefits of working there is that during term time the School of Music puts on free concerts on Friday lunchtimes. These are sometimes by students, but more often a wide range of touring artists. It can be anything from classical to experimental music, pianos to gamelans, but my favourite has been the Ivor Neame quartet, a jazz group who I likely would never have seen otherwise, but were absolutely wonderful. If I ever get frustrated with my job, I ask myself what other job could I get where I could listen to such great live music on my lunch break even if it was a bit of a comedown to go back to my desk after the show.

Astrofaun/Misfortune Cookie/Nervous Twitch — Wharf Chambers, Leeds

Now, I’m cheating a bit here, because this is technically three bands, but I recently paid my first visit to Youth Anthems, a family friendly gig held every three months on a Sunday afternoon in Leeds. And when I say family friendly, I don’t mean that the songs are aimed at kids. These are real bands, playing everything from electro pop to ska-punk to acoustic ballads. It has everything you want from a local DIY gig (and probably with a bigger crowd than average) but also big vegan doughnuts and ear defenders and a nice little outdoor area for the kids to chill out between bands. The forty-something former indie kids of Leeds (including me) are very grateful to see some real live music without needing to find a babysitter or worrying about having to get up early the next morning. The kids love it too, in the main, and you’re all done and dusted and home for teatime. What more could you want?