Seeing small bands in a small venue can be fun if it's cheap and a regular thing. Each month you go out, see three bands, and if they suck they suck but every now and again there'll be one that's...
Seeing small bands in a small venue can be fun if it's cheap and a regular thing. Each month you go out, see three bands, and if they suck they suck but every now and again there'll be one that's great and you've got another band that you enjoy listening to. If you're with a bunch of friends you can commiserate about the terrible support act, or friendly-argue about that band sucks / no they're great you just don't know good music.
And then, a few years later, some of these bands become big and you get to say "I saw them in a small venue and boy they sucked then and I think they still suck" or "I saw them and they were great".
A short digression about a Gloucestershire band
You may have heard the song Unbelievable, by EMF. Before they were EMF they were a band called Apple Mosaic playing fairly standard late 80's indie pop. Anyway, I saw them a bunch as Apple Mosaic, and then a bunch as EMF, and it was weird seeing EMF become a pretty big thing in the UK.
One of the problems for the bands though is that often they lose money. The fees for playing can be tiny, and often not nearly enough to cover costs (eg, fuel costs of driving a van to the venue) let alone make any money. Today there are different ways to push your music out to an audience that are not as painful as driving three hours to a tiny venue to rush a soundcheck and play to a tiny unappreciative audience.
And this style of live music has essentially collapsed. In my town there were at least 5 venues doing live indie / rock music, but that's collapsed to one venue sort of doing it, but not very well.
In the area I live in, there are two issues with trying to support smaller local bands: Essentially no advertisement when there will be live music. We have the market area where there will...
In the area I live in, there are two issues with trying to support smaller local bands:
Essentially no advertisement when there will be live music. We have the market area where there will occasionally be some higher-profile concerts, but the small local groups are playing in bars that don't even have a Facebook page.
An overwhelming portion of them are modern Country groups (yay southeastern US), which is not a genre I enjoy.
I have managed to find one group I enjoy and can support, but that's mostly because I work with the lead guitarist's father.
Seeing small bands in a small venue can be fun if it's cheap and a regular thing. Each month you go out, see three bands, and if they suck they suck but every now and again there'll be one that's great and you've got another band that you enjoy listening to. If you're with a bunch of friends you can commiserate about the terrible support act, or friendly-argue about that band sucks / no they're great you just don't know good music.
And then, a few years later, some of these bands become big and you get to say "I saw them in a small venue and boy they sucked then and I think they still suck" or "I saw them and they were great".
A short digression about a Gloucestershire band
You may have heard the song Unbelievable, by EMF. Before they were EMF they were a band called Apple Mosaic playing fairly standard late 80's indie pop. Anyway, I saw them a bunch as Apple Mosaic, and then a bunch as EMF, and it was weird seeing EMF become a pretty big thing in the UK.
One of the problems for the bands though is that often they lose money. The fees for playing can be tiny, and often not nearly enough to cover costs (eg, fuel costs of driving a van to the venue) let alone make any money. Today there are different ways to push your music out to an audience that are not as painful as driving three hours to a tiny venue to rush a soundcheck and play to a tiny unappreciative audience.
And this style of live music has essentially collapsed. In my town there were at least 5 venues doing live indie / rock music, but that's collapsed to one venue sort of doing it, but not very well.
In the area I live in, there are two issues with trying to support smaller local bands:
I have managed to find one group I enjoy and can support, but that's mostly because I work with the lead guitarist's father.