Last night we opened for The Kush Groove Band in Brattleboro. In spite of only having 5 people turn out to see us and getting kicked off stage after only 20 minutes, it wasn't bad for a first gig. We had fun.
Attendance can always be a big challenge, especially for a new band. When an artist promotes for an gig, they can maybe expect around 10% of the people who even say they will be there to show up. Some will even argue that estimate to be a little generous.
It can be hard to find motivation to go see live music. A tough economy can often be blamed. People are broke or on budgets. Going to see a band half an hour or more from home can be out of the question for some. Expecting good attendance in the dead of winter is difficult too. People are cold, sick, tired and many just want to stay home and hibernate.
Having had better attendance might have helped, but who knows? The owners of the venue didn't dig our sound and in the end that was all that mattered. We were told that we were too loud and we were asked to turn down. Decibel-wise we weren't even close to the volume of the headliner. We do have a much heavier sound, but any metal-head will tell you we're not heavy enough to be metal. If we had been playing in Massachusetts, we might not have been heavy enough. The impression we got from talkng to audience members, was that Brattleboro, like Keene is a dead music scene where club owners who say they want 'live bands' really want live jukeboxes so that patrons can drink and dance to something safe and familiar. If you're bold enough to play original music in towns like these, then you'd better play folk. Maybe if we had done our acoustic set or if we had played nothing but classic rock covers, we would've been tolerated longer only at the cost of our own self-respect. It's like the scene from The Blues Brothers when Joliet Jake asks the club owner what kinds of music they have and she replies, "Oh, we have both kinds..."
One thing is for sure - if we had had more people out on that floor dancing and/or drinking, it wouldn't have mattered what we sounded like.
In spite of getting 'gonged' after only half our set, the 4 songs that we did play went great. We really put out our best for that room. The songs weren't without a few flubs, but they were as tight and as spot-on as they have been so far. We even got a decent recording of it, applause and all.
We stayed for The Kush Groove Band. They put on a great show as they always do and had people moving and grooving all night. At the end of the gig, Tom and I went with the guitarist and bass player from KGB to an after-party right around the corner from the venue. We made good use of the time. Tom connected with a bunch of locals who should've been in our audience that night. In his own words, he "...sold us hard."
Meanwhile I connected with the host and was able to press him for contacts and venues down in Massachusetts that he said could help get the ball rolling.
All-in-all we had a great night and really weren't soured by the fact that we got cut short. It made for a great first gig and a great story. We were laughing about it long before the night was over. We talked about how to plan our setlist more strategically for just such a scenario and we joked that next time we would try to get kicked off after only 2 songs.
Honestly, it was a great room to play in and we all agreed that we'd love to play there again. We just know that we'll have to play a lot of other places first. We need to grow our audience and make more of a name for ourselves if it's going to be worth any club owner's trouble.
So we hurt some feelings and pissed people off. It's rock music. We wouldn't be doing our job if we weren't pissing somebody off. Have you seen our band name?
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Last night was our debut acoustic performance. It went over relatively well, but it's not something we plan on revisiting too often. It will mostly be kept as an emergency backup for special occasions. We now have played out for 2 private parties and next weekend is our first public gig. We will be opening for The Kush Groove Band at The Beacon in Brattleboro.
We're looking everywhere for places to play now. We hope to be gigging quite a lot this year, especially in the summer.
We have loose plans to record again soon. We have more finished songs than when we recorded this summer and we feel there's better material to deliver a stronger demo now.
We also have hours of recorded jams full of good song material. There is great potential for growth and development in this coming year and we're already off to a satisfying start.
Reply
Yeehaw Jihad / Blog
Not the worst first gig
Last night we opened for The Kush Groove Band in Brattleboro. In spite of only having 5 people turn out to see us and getting kicked off stage after only 20 minutes, it wasn't bad for a first gig. We had fun. Attendance can always be a big challenge, especially for a new band. When an artist promotes for an gig, they can maybe expect around 10% of the people who even say they will be there to show up. Some will even argue that estimate to be a little generous. It can be hard to find motivation to go see live music. A tough economy can often be blamed. People are broke or on budgets. Going to see a band half an hour or more from home can be out of the question for some. Expecting good attendance in the dead of winter is difficult too. People are cold, sick, tired and many just want to stay home and hibernate. Having had better attendance might have helped, but who knows? The owners of the venue didn't dig our sound and in the end that was all that mattered. We were told that we were too loud and we were asked to turn down. Decibel-wise we weren't even close to the volume of the headliner. We do have a much heavier sound, but any metal-head will tell you we're not heavy enough to be metal. If we had been playing in Massachusetts, we might not have been heavy enough. The impression we got from talkng to audience members, was that Brattleboro, like Keene is a dead music scene where club owners who say they want 'live bands' really want live jukeboxes so that patrons can drink and dance to something safe and familiar. If you're bold enough to play original music in towns like these, then you'd better play folk. Maybe if we had done our acoustic set or if we had played nothing but classic rock covers, we would've been tolerated longer only at the cost of our own self-respect. It's like the scene from The Blues Brothers when Joliet Jake asks the club owner what kinds of music they have and she replies, "Oh, we have both kinds..." One thing is for sure - if we had had more people out on that floor dancing and/or drinking, it wouldn't have mattered what we sounded like. In spite of getting 'gonged' after only half our set, the 4 songs that we did play went great. We really put out our best for that room. The songs weren't without a few flubs, but they were as tight and as spot-on as they have been so far. We even got a decent recording of it, applause and all. We stayed for The Kush Groove Band. They put on a great show as they always do and had people moving and grooving all night. At the end of the gig, Tom and I went with the guitarist and bass player from KGB to an after-party right around the corner from the venue. We made good use of the time. Tom connected with a bunch of locals who should've been in our audience that night. In his own words, he "...sold us hard." Meanwhile I connected with the host and was able to press him for contacts and venues down in Massachusetts that he said could help get the ball rolling. All-in-all we had a great night and really weren't soured by the fact that we got cut short. It made for a great first gig and a great story. We were laughing about it long before the night was over. We talked about how to plan our setlist more strategically for just such a scenario and we joked that next time we would try to get kicked off after only 2 songs. Honestly, it was a great room to play in and we all agreed that we'd love to play there again. We just know that we'll have to play a lot of other places first. We need to grow our audience and make more of a name for ourselves if it's going to be worth any club owner's trouble. So we hurt some feelings and pissed people off. It's rock music. We wouldn't be doing our job if we weren't pissing somebody off. Have you seen our band name?
Reply
Getting the ball rolling in 2012
Last night was our debut acoustic performance. It went over relatively well, but it's not something we plan on revisiting too often. It will mostly be kept as an emergency backup for special occasions. We now have played out for 2 private parties and next weekend is our first public gig. We will be opening for The Kush Groove Band at The Beacon in Brattleboro. We're looking everywhere for places to play now. We hope to be gigging quite a lot this year, especially in the summer. We have loose plans to record again soon. We have more finished songs than when we recorded this summer and we feel there's better material to deliver a stronger demo now. We also have hours of recorded jams full of good song material. There is great potential for growth and development in this coming year and we're already off to a satisfying start.
Reply