Does your band not fit in with "theme" of the gig?

[rimtism123]

For instance, my band is a pop-punk/pop-rock band. We sometimes get stuck on these metal gigs. Its kind of annoying to me sometimes. But at the same time, I feel silly playing them XD

Does your band ever get in these situations?

[Nashrakh]

I play in an acoustic cover band and it happened more than once that people were underwhelmed with what we do.

The reason? Horrible taste in music. Hard to describe, we call it 'Ballermann-Mucke' and it's basically the worst kind of 'music' ever to exist. And yeah, apparently people like it. Sells like hotcakes. Makes me lose faith in mankind sometimes.

Needless to say, our audience was only interested in listening to music you can get wasted to. Well, we still got paid, so I couldn't care less lol.

[ysand]

@rimtism123 So why do you play there?

[rimtism123]

Originally Posted by ysand

@rimtism123 So why do you play there?

Hey...if they're payin..we're playin...
but thats not the point.
Sometimes its just less stressful playing in gigs that are more relevant for pop punk...I just feel so "out of place" when playing at a metal gig.

[krovx]

Originally Posted by rimtism123

Hey...if they're payin..we're playin...
but thats not the point.
Sometimes its just less stressful playing in gigs that are more relevant for pop punk...I just feel so "out of place" when playing at a metal gig.

I feel you man. I was often on the other side of the spectrum, a metal band being booked at pop and punk shows. Not sure why promoters think it is so cool when the crowd is kind of like this

Getting paid brother! Plus you always meet a few people who are interested.

[skulletwhip]

my band barely ever fits in......

We get booked with a lot of ska bands.

www.myspace.com/boheraldmusic

[mboogiemanusa]

I was once playing in an instrumental surf band similar to Dick Dale. Heavy on the twangy reverbed Fender Jaguar guitar. We were requested to play a backyard wedding doing our surf instrumentals. We thought that the gig was odd but they kept insisted that they wanted us to play. Turned out that there were exactly 0 surf music fans and the step-father that insisted we play was totally against the marriage and was trying to sabotage it by hiring an inappropriate band for the reception. I have never played another wedding reception.

[mndean]

Try being in an all-original band whose leader decides to play parties. The last one we did, the new guitarist broke out with some covers and the energy of the crowd went up 1000%. I'd been telling the bandleader to do covers at parties since last year.

[Mudfuzz]

Originally Posted by rimtism123

Hey...if they're payin..we're playin...
but thats not the point.
Sometimes its just less stressful playing in gigs that are more relevant for pop punk...I just feel so "out of place" when playing at a metal gig.

Personally I think it is cool when that type of thing happens. I think people spend too much time on trying to fit in to a style or "fan-base". Mixing up bands and styles helps introduce listeners to new things and that is always good. You just have to give your all.

[HollowSound95]

Yeah totally know how you feel. my band is too metal for most punk or pop shows and too eclectic for most metal shows. half our songs have acoustic + screaming lol:
http://www.myspace.com/nihilistyouthsux
It's cool trying to win over an audience, but it's definitely awkward when you get asked to play a coffee shop and you're screaming obscenities while there are small children in the audience :/

[Dbd 113]

I totally know how you feel man.

I play in a band that is fairly pop-punk but we have the occasional breakdown. And most of the bands from our area are generic metal/hardcore. But we've slowly been making a name for ourselves.

All I can say is just keep playing those gigs and eventually another band like you will be at one and you can start supporting each other. That's what happened in our case.

[somegeezer]

Opposite for me. In a Metal band and get stuck with you whiny little Pop-Punk fellows. =P Nah, I love playing gigs like that. Gets a variety of styles for the audience.

[Jonyak]

I played in a full on jam band a coupel years ago and we got on the bill with a metal band once.

it didn't go well.

[FeuerFrei]

Yep, happened a couple of times, I just take it as a paid practice, do what I can, tear down and go home.

[jlane72t]

I used to be the singer/guitardist for a country-punk band. The songs were absolutely country (covers) but the sound was absolutely punk. We were asked to play an "Alt-Country" showcase by someone who must have read a review of us and misunderstood. When we showed up at the bar we discovered the room was about the size of a typical living room and every other band was acoustic-based. Even with the house Fender Twin on ZERO (no kidding) we blew the walls out of the place, and felt awful while we were doing it.

Something I learned from playing with a genre-mash band like that is that punk crowds are a lot more open-minded than pretty much anyone else.

[basskababble]

We're a punk band that plays in a Hialeah Florida metal scene pretty often. The kids all listen to White Chapel... while we're still talking about NOFX and covering Misfits. We're all about 5-10 years older than them (me being the youngest at 23, and the 'kids' being 16-20).

I think you stand out more to the people who were going to dig your sound in the first place. The problem is, there are less people there who are likely to dig your sound.

I've always wanted to have fun with it. Cover one of their songs as a punk song. Maybe move like them through one of our songs. Maybe play one of our songs in their style.

[ridgeback]

what happened to just playing music..??????

[rimtism123]

Originally Posted by ridgeback

what happened to just playing music..??????

Well..thats what we will do..but you would think that you would want the crowd to be into it as well.

Claps sound better than crickets.