Small time gigs

lloyd

Great gig tonight at the Night and Day.

One band weren't great -but the other 2 were really good, talented musicians and songwriters (I'll not comment on us but we played well).

It's a shame that the place was fairly empty, which is often the case at originals band gigs I know, and the time of year/weekday doesn't help either.

I try to get out once or twice a month to check out unsigned small bands but wondering if that's a dying hobby?

People seem up for "live music" from established acts but not so much throwing a punt on an evening of unsigned stuff, was it much different 20/30 years ago?

lloyd

Moved

gusman2x

Yeah, weekdays at night and day can be pretty quiet, and they don't even move the tables off the floor. It's lie being in a jazz bar. But with out of tune guitars and cans of lager.

I'll check out your band when I'm not at work. We're currently starting out in the originals scene. Had two gigs so far. We managed to get a few to the second. I'd still rather play my own songs to five people, than covers to a hundred.

lloyd

Cheers mate, this is not a whinge about audience number though!! More a question whether things were different years ago or if many people on here have a punt on some unsigned bands? There's talent out there to enjoy.

drwiddly

I was in an originals band in the 70's and, even before we were signed, we could pull 200 - 300 people on a week night. There were many more venues in those days and there always seemed to be good crowds. The venues paid pretty badly so they were raking in money from the popular bands. When we graduated to the college circuit, our earnings multiplied by about 10 times!

I pretty much retired from playing live in the 80's and early 90's but went back to playing in cover bands in the mid 90's. The scene had changed completely during that time. It was nearly impossible to get a gig doing original material. It was all tribute or cover bands. Venues were booking up to a year in advance so, if you put a band together in January, you would struggle to get gigs until the autumn when all the venues did their bookings for the year.

All in all the live music scene was a lot healthier in the 70's and a decent band could get work, gain a following and at least have a chance of making it. Things are very different now.

Deijavoo

I can only comment on 17 years ago....it was better then than it was 3 or 4 years ago but I actually find it better now. I stopped gigging regularly about 3 or 4 years ago and I now have a band that is just about ready to get out again. We'll kill it off again for sure this time!

lloyd

Wow @drwiddly times really have changed....at least there is venues to play at nowadays-in Manchester at least-no money to be had though! 

gusman2x

I think the trick might be to only play out once every other month, and put on a night with 4 other bands. That way you're not having to drag everyone you know out every other week to hear the same 5 songs.

lloyd

The originals scene tends to always be a few bands playing on any one night-which ensures that there is a few people there, even if it's just the bands themselves! 

Generally if each band bring their partner you can have 30 people there which is ok. Then you can always blag a few mates to go every once in a while which ups the numbers.

We have a couple of 'friendly bands' that will come and support us and vice versa when time permits which is a good idea for upping the numbers.

Teetonetal

I gave up on the music scene in SE England (Kent) - there were places to play but only if you were in an orignals ska/punk or hard rock/metal band , with more options if you were in a covers band.

Trying to get gigs in London was a nightmare and loads of places demanded you bring x number of people with you or you paid a depot to "cover costs" Actually finding a place with it's own crowd was really hard. Saying that there were a couple of local promotors in Ashford and Canterburry who really tried to supoprt local live original music and for a while they had good success, but the audiance was always so young and it was alwas Ska/Punk/Metal/Hard Rock

My mates and used to see as much live music as possible, I lost count of the number of bands I saw where the only people watching was my group, 1 by 1 all the venues closed, leaving only a handful.

I grew out of the ska punk scene, wanted to write more variety of music and promtly discovered there was little opportunity to play. That was 1999 - 2005.. slowly became very depressed and disillusioned with music and pretty much gave up till last year.

Can't really comment on UK now as I am based in Switzerland - but I see that a few old venues have come back to life and one place that was particularly good (the Red Lion in northfleet) appears to be thriving, my mates tell me that live music is starting to grow again.

In Switzerland when you do manage to get a gig (which is hard as there are too many bands for the number of venues), there is normally no need to "bring people" Restaurants are happy to have originals bands and peope are more likely to listen, also the crowd is older, so doing the folk - blues thing I do now is actually fun

Fez

There's no denying things are different now to 30 years ago. Better or worse depends on what kind of band your in what age you are. I think it is easier to find people with the same interests/influences because of the internet. Unfortunately the "Pub" is under severe pressure and having to compete against things that just didn't exist in the 70's - Games consoles, on demand films, cheap booze in supermarkets.

Things go around though. Karaoke seems like a good idea to some landlords, cheap to do and fun (I guess) but how many times can punters laugh at Wonderwall being murdered.

In Sussex we have had some venues start having bands and some stop I think it's important that they try different things but I like to think that if the pub has the room they should put some gigs on. There are too many tellies in pubs  these days, back in the day we used to go to the pub to get away from the TV.

In my band our target is a gig a month and we play mostly covers.