Europe vs. America

[mcnach]

No I'm not upset, just frustrated by the constant labeling and / or generalisation that everyone in Europe is the same.
Precisely my point, everyone on earth isn't the same.
Your from Scotland, why does Scotland want independence ? to be European ? No it's to fully to control its own affairs, both nationally and internationally and that's the point I'm making.

What I don't get is why so many people attribute excessive pride and importance to the anecdote that is your place of birth. It is not something you had a say about.

I of course am interested in my heritage, where I come from, family... and that does play a part in who I am, as a person. But I am a lot more than that.

Living in Scotland I hear a lot of pro and anti independence talk, and even some anti-English talk sometimes. It tires me.
I am not Scottish. I come from Spain. We have similar regional issues in Spain too. It's a pity to waste so much energy and money on that.

I like my "Spanishness", just like you do your "Englishness". And that is cool. It is interesting and it has its importance. I would never like to lose that aspect. I think regional identity is a good thing. But I often see it turning into an obstacle when certain people just use it as a political tool. That disgusts me, annoys me, and sometimes amuses me in a sad manner.

I agree entirely: not all Europe is the same. Not all England is the same, even. I cherish those differences, actually. But regional politics have been abused and it seems that regular people always get screwed.

When I hear the (in my opinion) nonsense arguments about being Scottish and not British, or Basque (where I was born) and not Spanish, etc... it triggers something in me. So I had to reply to your post, even as a small silly remark.

I hope you now understand better where I come from with my comments.

 

[Tituscrow]

No I'm not upset, just frustrated by the constant labeling and / or generalisation that everyone in Europe is the same.
Precisely my point, everyone on earth isn't the same.
Your from Scotland, why does Scotland want independence ? to be European ? No it's to fully to control its own affairs, both nationally and internationally and that's the point I'm making.

Guess we'll have to wait for the referendum in 2014 to see if your last assertion carries any weight

 

[mcnach]

Guess we'll have to wait for the referendum in 2014 to see if your last assertion carries any weight

Yeah. Colour me sceptical too.

 

[DaDrew2112]

So the general consensus is that both my friend and I are wrong? America and Europe are both so diverse that there is absolutely no way to gauge the amount of people who go to concerts/support live music?

 

[mcnach]

So the general consensus is that both my friend and I are wrong? America and Europe are both so diverse that there is absolutely no way to gauge the amount of people who go to concerts/support live music?

No, I think it probably depends not so much on the country but on the size and relative "importance" of the city you live in, plus distance to other cities.
I live in Edinburgh, which is a...500k city or so. Not exactly huge. Glasgow is bigger and only 40miles away. Around the two cities, there isn't much else. So we have a decent choice.
If you live in a 500k city in the middle of America... that's going to be tougher.
The UK has a generally busier (and better?) live music scene than Spain or Italy, for example. So there are differences between countries. But I think they are secondary to population size and distances one is expected to drive for entertainment.

 

[pklima]

Eastern Europe is a little different. In general nostalgia isn't as big here as in America (I lived in Texas for 17 years), and nostalgia for foreign music stops at 1989 with a few exceptions. The sort of Western music one could hear before 1989 was very much limited and controlled by the government; state radio would play an entire Pink Floyd album and pause a few minutes in the middle so you would have time to switch sides on your tape deck and record the whole thing, but no one's heard of "Mustang Sally". Weird, huh? This leads to a disconnect where a lot of musicians get into Western classic rock and R&B which nobody else knows or cares about. I guess that's also true everywhere else - musicians tend to like older stuff or newish music that sounds very retro - but here it's an even bigger gap.

Dance clubs are definitely more popular than places with live music. I live in a city of about a million people and most of the clubs that want live music are in adapted medieval basements and hold less than 100 people when fully packed (and often no more than 30 people in the room that the band is actually in). There are only a few larger clubs with live bands.

Most of the money to be made from live music is from weddings, and even city folk tend to get married in some nearby village because renting a restaurant or hall for a wedding in the city is prohibitively expensive, so small-town and rural bands make more money than city bands, but they only work from April until November. There are practically no non-wedding gigs outside of big cities.

 

[krstko]

I can say this about middle Europe .. people go to lots of cocerts, but only for big bands. If you are not best you won't get a single gig .. also you don't get much money from playing, maybe 100bucks per gig ..