I apologise in advance for this being a long post, but please stick with me here...
I'm in my 50s, and have a grown-up job that pays pretty well. I did the full-on music thing in my teens and 20s but for the last 35-odd years music has been more for fun that profit. Sometimes, due to jobs that involved a lot of travel, I didn't play with other people for a couple of years at a time. Sometimes, though working a regular job, I still had a couple of music projects on the go and jammed, rehearsed and gigged several times a week. But I have long since given up the dream that I'm going to become a full time rock star. These days I have a regular covers band that gigs locally and I make enough money from it to cover my expenses and give me some extra pocket money to spend on my hobbies, but it's not paying the mortgages, keeping the lights on or putting food on the table (OK, maybe the odd late Saturday night takeaway). I do it because I love to play. Because if I stopped playing it would feel like a close friend had died. Because, while noodling away in my spare room is fun, the real buzz comes from creating something with other people. The reason I say all this is to make it clear where I am in my life. You are probably in a very different place and have very different musical aspirations, but this is me.
Now, in addition to my regular project, once a year I get together with one of my old bands from the 80s. Four of the guys are in the medical field and we get together for a variety show that raises money for children's medical charities. We all live in different cities now, so I fly down on Friday after work. Other than clothes and toiletries I just take my bass and a few cables, one multi effect pedal and my DI box. We all get together and go out and have dinner and catch up with what we've been doing for the last year. I stay with one of the guys who has a spare room. Saturday morning we usually go out for a surf or a bike ride. Saturday afternoon we rehearse for a few hours at the local university where our keyboard player is on staff and books us a room with all the gear we need. Saturday night we play, then go out for a drink and laugh about how seriously we took ourselves in the old days. Sunday morning we have brunch. Sunday afternoon I fly home. With flights, rental car hire, food, etc. I'm several hundred dollars out of pocket by the end of it, all to play a 15 minute gig - just three songs. And not only do we not get paid, but as it's for charity, even the performers pay to get in!
So here's my point. Why do you play? Does it always have to be about the money? I accept that we all do this at different levels, for different reasons. I may be in a financial position where I can better afford to do this than some other people. But I play because I love to play. Most of the time I'm lucky enough to make a bit of money from it. But I don't look at the charity show as a gig that loses me a lot of money. I look at it as a great weekend away; a few days holiday with old friends. I get to support a good cause, and it's all made even better by the fact that I get to play music with other people, which is about the most fun thing in the world (my world) that there is to do. I'm not saying that if we're offered no-pay gigs, we stop critically analysing whether we should do them. We all know there are rip-off merchants looking to take advantage of performers with pay-to-play gigs, etc. I don't really want to be part of that. But (and this is the TLDR) sometimes I think we should just ask ourselves "Does this sound like it could be fun?" If the answer is "Yes", then why not?
