autopsy of a gig

the gig came and went way too fast and i have left it for a few days, as usual, to comment on it. i hate to write anything about what went down straight away. i’m usually too caught up in the emotion and adrenaline of the night to be coherent. i also don’t want to do an autopsy, as the title suggests, because it’s not particularly constructive to obsess over what could have been or should have been.

i’m happy about what we did and i think everyone who made it had fun and that’s what counts.

which brings me to my gripe…

why so few people ? our lovely friends and fans, who wade through hell and high water to get to many of our gigs (if not all, amazingly enough), are fabulous. i am still amazed by the strength of their support and i thank you for making it all worth it. other people had very good reasons why they couldn’t make it. and this rant is not about them.

what i am utterly pissed off about is that not one person came to after dark on the off chance of seeing a good band. i know we were competing against european music day (free concerts in virtually every main square in town) and it’s june and people are almost pathological about going inside in the summer but really…

is it too much to ask for a venue to actually advertise bands ? i don’t just mean us. i mean send out listings to magazines/newspapers/online. when i was touring years ago, our publicity department (one person) used to send out the press release and venues themselves would flood the city with advertising. isn’t it in the interests of the venue to get punters in? we do a pretty good job of selling ourselves about the place but i strongly believe that the reason why good bands fail here is because they are totally unsupported. venues judge you on who you can personally drag into your gig. i felt like saturday was a prime example. we were (probably) invited because it was a difficult night. if we’d got a big crowd there, we might have been given more saturdays in the future. right now, i think it’s more a case of “well, you didn’t get people there last time, so why should i put you on again. i’ll give you wednesday (a notoriously slow night).

i’m not asking for anything than i would expect any business person to do. it’s not like many venues are thriving! there are hardly any left.

but i don’t want to feel used. to fill in for your popular cover bands. or to bring in a few punters on a difficult night. or to be blamed for not succeeding, having worked hard to get a gig together.

i know we’re not cool. we’re not the next big five minute wonder. our music demands a little work on your part. you can’t just come to our gigs and have a few drinks, nod your head and feel like you had a brilliant night. we want to make you think. to listen to the words. to feel those moments when it feels like you’re going to fall off a cliff but somehow you don’t. but if you do, it’s into a thrilling freefall. our music is not for kids… or sheep.

having said that, we know how to have a fucking great time.

rant over for now.

we have to come up with new strategies. obviously free porn wasn’t enough to get people through the door… 😀