Well, pulled out of a show for the first time...

zachoff · #1 02-21-2011, 11:31 PM

Started off as us headlining a show at a Denver bar & the promoter filling out the rest of the lineup. This was over a month ago. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago & we're replaced with as the headliner by an 80s cover band. Ok, whatever... Bar will probably do better with that than with our crowd so we're still in... On at 9 or so instead of 10:30. No big deal. Fast forward again to Friday. The headliner wants their friends to open (country band) and we're bumped to 12:30AM. We're not young and we're driving 40 miles to play the show. That'd put us at home around 3:30AM once we're done loading up and unloading... Screw that. I don't want to waste a weekend with my kids sleeping till noon. Anyway, we bailed on the show. First time ever. Blah.

On a positive note, we'll get to see Weedeater at another bar that night.

fenderhutz · #2 02-21-2011, 11:37 PM

Wow. I wake up at 7AM sharp after getting home at 3-330AM on gig nights. My 3 and 5 year old wouldn't have it any other way.

frozilla · #3 02-21-2011, 11:41 PM

I had the same thing happen to me this weekend. My band was supposed to fill in last second on a bar gig. We found out we weren't getting paid (it wasn't a benefit show), and we wouldn't go on until ten. The gig was an hour away, so all in all, it would have been a huge waste of a Friday night.

paganjack · #4 02-21-2011, 11:46 PM

Weedeater is a good second choice for the night!

zachoff · #5 02-21-2011, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fenderhutz

Wow. I wake up at 7AM sharp after getting home at 3-330AM on gig nights. My 3 and 5 year old wouldn't have it any other way.

Wow, man... The latest I've been home from a gig is 2:30 & I slept until 10:30 but didn't have my kids that weekend. I'm usually up around 8ish though. Waffles & bacon... The Saturday tradition!

zachoff · #6 02-21-2011, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paganjack

Weedeater is a good second choice for the night!

Yup, stoked.

fenderhutz · #7 02-21-2011, 11:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zachoff

Wow, man... The latest I've been home from a gig is 2:30 & I slept until 10:30 but didn't have my kids that weekend. I'm usually up around 8ish though. Waffles & bacon... The Saturday tradition!

I didn't say I enjoyed it.......

tycobb73 · #8 02-26-2011, 07:56 AM

You don't have kids and you have a problem with that schedule? It shouldn't be a problem. I gladly go on 4-5 hours of sleep to be in a band and get up with my kids.

bassplayer8953 · #9 02-26-2011, 08:04 AM

We won't play the graveyard slot either. Usually the venue empties after the headliner finishes & you wind up playing for crickets...then the owner or promoter wonders (to you) why you didn't bring anybody. GTFO, who is going to go out @ 1:00 or 2:00 am to go see a band, no matter how good they are?

We'll take an opener, usually for not much $$$, to get our foot in the door at a decent venue, so that people (and owners/managers of the venue)can hear us, and decide if they want to see us again. But nobody sees you in the graveyard slot...so what's the point?

Axtman · #10 02-26-2011, 11:00 AM

Another reason why not to play the late shift.....all the crazies come out!

walker rosewood · #11 02-27-2011, 07:47 PM

my band doesn't mind opening slots, we prefer them. Our fans have school or jobs to go to and will come out early way more often then late. We never have an issue getting an early slot either because apparently none of the other bands want to do it. Fine by us, will play for 150 people at 9pm and let the 'headliners' play for 20 at 1am. Plus by the last band the crowd is usually too drunk to appreciate good music.

Bailing is one thing and probably bad, but it seems like you got pushed out of the gig. I prolly would have done the same thing.

mcm · #12 02-27-2011, 07:52 PM

dont worry about it. they were dickin you around anyway

walterw · #13 02-27-2011, 08:01 PM

"graveyard shift" is a good name for it; i've always called it the "bitch" slot, but it's the same thing, going on after the main act.

unless there was real, guaranteed money involved, i would've bailed on it if the gig were 10 minutes from my house

(besides, unless you agreed to play that crappy slot, then backed out, you didn't "bail", you just said "no thanks".)

thombo · #14 02-27-2011, 08:25 PM

for a good lion's lair show, try to get a date and put the bill together yourself: they are pretty cool with that.

bassplayer8953 · #15 02-27-2011, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walterw

(besides, unless you agreed to play that crappy slot, then backed out, you didn't "bail", you just said "no thanks".)

(althought I agree 100% with you) Our band knows a promoter who, 2+ years later, will not book us, because we bowed out of a gig when he "re-arranged" things, and we got bumped to the 3rd slot... (he was informed of this 3 weeks before the gig, right after the revised line-up was dropped in our collective lap...so it's not like we left him hanging out to dry at the last minute)

People tend to think (because it suits them) that because they hire you, that they basically own you for that evening, and that you are at their beck & call. In the end, it's a business arrangement, and when they change the agreed-upon terms, the whole subject is re-opened to review and re-agreement...or not.

prd004 · #16 02-27-2011, 08:37 PM

I would have cancelled too, you can only be stroked around so much.

steveksux · #17 02-27-2011, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bassplayer8953

(althought I agree 100% with you) Our band knows a promoter who, 2+ years later, will not book us, because we bowed out of a gig when he "re-arranged" things, and we got bumped to the 3rd slot... (he was informed of this 3 weeks before the gig, right after the revised line-up was dropped in our collective lap...so it's not like we left him hanging out to dry at the last minute)

People tend to think (because it suits them) that because they hire you, that they basically own you for that evening, and that you are at their beck & call. In the end, it's a business arrangement, and when they change the agreed-upon terms, the whole subject is re-opened to review and re-agreement...or not.

That's how I look at it.

Put us on when we agreed to go on. He cancelled that gig and suggested another the same night, you declined the new gig.

Randy

AwkwardLoudness · #18 02-27-2011, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bassplayer8953

We won't play the graveyard slot either. Usually the venue empties after the headliner finishes & you wind up playing for crickets...then the owner or promoter wonders (to you) why you didn't bring anybody. GTFO, who is going to go out @ 1:00 or 2:00 am to go see a band, no matter how good they are?

At some venues around here, that's when the crowds start to pour in.

bassplayer8953 · #19 02-27-2011, 09:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwkwardLoudness

At some venues around here, that's when the crowds start to pour in.

...and I/we've done those kinds of gigs, the 4:00 bars that come alive when the majority of bars close down. (Usually on a Friday night, when I was up for my day job @ 5:00 am

) But usually bars that employ 3 bands in an evening are not those kinds of places. IME, bars that hire 3 (or more) bands a night have a problem with draw to begin with. So they rely on bands to bring the clientele. And, as stated earlier, really tough to get anybody to show up for a gig that late.

Yes there may be venues like the ones you described. Then it becomes a band decision on whether to accept the gig. Everyone knows there are no absolutes in this business.

walterw · #20 02-27-2011, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AwkwardLoudness

At some venues around here, that's when the crowds start to pour in [1:00, 2:00 am].

ha!

around here, last call is like 1:30, and bars close at 2.

we used to have a raging punk rock band around here (think stooges, not agent orange) that would book a show, pack the club, not bother to start until 1 am, play 5 songs then get in a drunken fistfight on stage, ending the show.

the crowd loved it.