Considering the ages of some folks I play for, I guess fewer people could an issue.
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What's wrong with 2023 audiences?
- Thread starter Lance Bunyon
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Wow. So what do you think of the nursing home gig circuit? I think it's my next step...Considering the ages of some folks I play for, I guess fewer people could an issue.
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That's not a truly representative group, but it was a fun little gazebo gig, something to do on a Monday.
I'm playing a show tomorrow night which is odd in my world. Then they do a duo show without me. Then it's live on Saturday. Then church choir. Busy azz weekend coming up!That's not a truly representative group, but it was a fun little gazebo gig, something to do on a Monday.
Ironically, I was waiting in line for 25 years to play in this room. Nothing to blame - they do outstanding business and crowd is walking in. Yesterday, I made my $3 in tips ($5 for a request.. at the end of the night we got a check, so I don't rely on these). Folks are just walking by. My mate initiated a nice conversation and I was just listening, trying to figure out how to please a person musically with certain song/style.
Eek 4 horns? I can hardly deal with one
4 horns? No way. That band is just bass, drums, and 7 horns!!!
As far as reimbursement or such, did anyone work out any details with the benefit host, such as food or drinks?
Interaction with the crowd starts with the band. If the crowd didn't come specifically to see the band, they won't automatically pay you any attention. Your frontman has got to work the crowd. I'm no frontman, but I desperately need to develop that skill. The band has got to have some sort of stage presence.
Last night was great.
We regularly play a bar on the state line with 3 professional volleyball courts. Leagues rent the courts and so the bar itself is almost a loss leader. Strangest bar business we've ever done business with. The sportsball people ignore us. And they have nice butts..
Drummer called a powwow before the show. My two bandmates had seen Oteil Burbridge the previous evening and Matt discussed professional dynamics.
I 100% took in what he was laying down.
We took an entirely JAZZ approach to our improvs. Took volumes and attacks down to 2.
Was one of the greatest performances no one ever paid attention to.
And as always, nice butts
We regularly play a bar on the state line with 3 professional volleyball courts. Leagues rent the courts and so the bar itself is almost a loss leader. Strangest bar business we've ever done business with. The sportsball people ignore us. And they have nice butts..
Drummer called a powwow before the show. My two bandmates had seen Oteil Burbridge the previous evening and Matt discussed professional dynamics.
I 100% took in what he was laying down.
We took an entirely JAZZ approach to our improvs. Took volumes and attacks down to 2.
Was one of the greatest performances no one ever paid attention to.
And as always, nice butts
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Unfortunately, audiences have been trained by the mass media to like cr@p. Decent cover bands find it a lot harder to gets gigs, yet the most popular music on television are shows like The Masked Singer and The Voice - basically cover juke boxes (with sanitized versions of songs). Original bands are finding it even harder to get gigs, while shows that had live music (Carson, Letterman, Sullivan, the other variety shows prevalent in the 69s-70s) are all but extinct.
I got 7 people to show up last night to a fairly regular house gig.
One of them was my wife.
"How do these businesses make money?" She asked.
"Well, they're also a brewery. If they sell enough beer wholesale I guess they might do ok".
I like when my kids get to see me in performance mode. It's a treat for all of us.
But the wife was right. It's only a matter of time before breweries like this stop hiring bands all together.
Crowds just don't go out the same way they did pre pandemic.
Anyways, I'm singing to an always full house this morning
In church!
One of them was my wife.
"How do these businesses make money?" She asked.
"Well, they're also a brewery. If they sell enough beer wholesale I guess they might do ok".
I like when my kids get to see me in performance mode. It's a treat for all of us.
But the wife was right. It's only a matter of time before breweries like this stop hiring bands all together.
Crowds just don't go out the same way they did pre pandemic.
Anyways, I'm singing to an always full house this morning
In church!
Since Lockdown, venues here are going at it and they use bands to pull people in.
Bands are not an afterthought, they are THE draw.
The main problem is there are bands that arent really upto it are getting gigs. Not at the better venues so much because they have a call list for the year of nigh on a 1000 bands and they know what works for them, but there are gigs..
Of course, they are watering down the circuit but generally if a venue knows what they are doing, they can weed these bands out.
But the fact they exist is because there are gigs.
Most music venue business models have food until the band comes on not during it although weekend days gigs might overlap.
They pay for music with alcohol sales.
The downside to the above is that the too fees are quite an equaliser.
A poor but popular band can be viable to the venue and an excellent band with top level local players can't really ask for much of a premium because neither the venue or audiences can recognise that premium for the most part.
Bands are not an afterthought, they are THE draw.
The main problem is there are bands that arent really upto it are getting gigs. Not at the better venues so much because they have a call list for the year of nigh on a 1000 bands and they know what works for them, but there are gigs..
Of course, they are watering down the circuit but generally if a venue knows what they are doing, they can weed these bands out.
But the fact they exist is because there are gigs.
Most music venue business models have food until the band comes on not during it although weekend days gigs might overlap.
They pay for music with alcohol sales.
The downside to the above is that the too fees are quite an equaliser.
A poor but popular band can be viable to the venue and an excellent band with top level local players can't really ask for much of a premium because neither the venue or audiences can recognise that premium for the most part.
Every one of the late night shows has a killer live band and feature live music almost every night and I don't think we've been "trained" by anybody regarding music. Decent cover bands and their fan bases are aging out. Original music in bars and clubs has always been a hard sell.
Here's my theory:
Younger people are now used to "perfect" music-- the backing tracks are "played" by machines and the human voice is Auto-tuned. So just the *sound* of people playing instruments live (with no backing tracks and/or a drummer with a click in his/her ear) is ancient. It would like a young Led Zeppelin fan in 1975 hearing Bing Crosby.
And, as Herbie Hancock observed, popular music today revolves around celebrity more than music. Fans are interested in *celebrity* singers' lives, and interested in watching how the *celebrity* judges on "The Voice" react to the contestants. So, going to the local bar to hear some cool guitar solos will lose out to spending that time using your phone to investigate whether or not Taylor Swift attended that Chiefs game.
Finally, as others have said, the setlists matter. How many folks younger than 60 will get excited by "Brown-Eyed Girl"?
Younger people are now used to "perfect" music-- the backing tracks are "played" by machines and the human voice is Auto-tuned. So just the *sound* of people playing instruments live (with no backing tracks and/or a drummer with a click in his/her ear) is ancient. It would like a young Led Zeppelin fan in 1975 hearing Bing Crosby.
And, as Herbie Hancock observed, popular music today revolves around celebrity more than music. Fans are interested in *celebrity* singers' lives, and interested in watching how the *celebrity* judges on "The Voice" react to the contestants. So, going to the local bar to hear some cool guitar solos will lose out to spending that time using your phone to investigate whether or not Taylor Swift attended that Chiefs game.
Finally, as others have said, the setlists matter. How many folks younger than 60 will get excited by "Brown-Eyed Girl"?
It’s shocking now to think about but the first time I ever heard a live band in a bar I was already 20 years old. I remember the disorientating effect it had on me. Instruments seemed to be coming from everywhere at once at times popping out of the mix in jarring ways. There was so much contrast, texture and messiness. It was mesmerizing. And all the while I could feel the music pressuring the room, moving the air around, traveling through me. I walked out of there changed. The next morning I had to reassess everything I thought to be true up to that point. I had the realization that people made that music. Imperfect human beings in imperfect circumstances, in sweaty rooms, affected by the audience, the environment, the temperature….everything was variable. I had only heard music out of speakers, mixed, mastered, perfection. I returned to hear more live music and sort of educated myself on what live music really was. Most people don’t take that time anymore. The order of the day is content, consumption and convenience. There’s a video going around now of a woman singing Whitney at a wedding and absolutely crushing it while people sit at their tables with uncomfortable blank expressions. It reminds me that music is also very intimate, both performer and audience are quite vulnerable in the exchange. People are less comfortable with that kind of intimacy.
Someone made a good suggestion earlier about narrowing down the style, instead of "something for everyone." It seems counterintuitive; however, things are siloed these days. People have the option of listening only to streaming music which has been curated for their specific tastes, via algorithms. Maybe that's why cheesy tribute bands do so well-- a Pink Floyd fan at a Pink Floyd tribute band concert absolutely knows that the blissful experience won't be interrupted by anything non-Floyd.
And the days of massive culturally shared experiences are over. We've all heard about (or lived through) the stories about the month or so after "Sergeant Pepper" was released-- how you could walk down the street and hear it coming out of every window and doorway. These days, Beyonce and Taylor Swift might be the biggest musicians, but even so, you *do* need to seek out their music to hear it.
In other words, not everyone at a bar will recognize a Beyonce song when a cover band plays it, if their personalized streaming "channels" don't feature her.
Just my 2 cents...
And the days of massive culturally shared experiences are over. We've all heard about (or lived through) the stories about the month or so after "Sergeant Pepper" was released-- how you could walk down the street and hear it coming out of every window and doorway. These days, Beyonce and Taylor Swift might be the biggest musicians, but even so, you *do* need to seek out their music to hear it.
In other words, not everyone at a bar will recognize a Beyonce song when a cover band plays it, if their personalized streaming "channels" don't feature her.
Just my 2 cents...
Very true. Pop music doesn't drive the culture like it used to. If you pulled random people off the street and asked them to name or identify a Beyonce or Taylor Swift song, most of them couldn't do it. And those are the 2 biggest artists I can think of. There's very little point in cover bands trying to play that type of material unless they're a tribute to that artist.
We do a bar band version of Halo. It's very bass and drums oriented.
Because, frankly, my BL is no Beyonce.
(Bland general statement.) Time changes everything. Culture, music, art, movies, behavior.
As a kid (late 50s) I could not stand hearing my dad play WWII big band music which was still available on radio. My parents couldn't stand hearing The Beatles and other British Invasion bands. By the late 60s, only baby boomers listened to current rock and hard rock music.
Today in 2023, say The Beatles, Elvis, Chuck Berry and the young kids are clueless.
Back in the 60s and 70s, everyone had a home stereo system. Today, everybody seems happy to listen to music on the phone or streamed in the car.
Taylor Swift pulls in billions of dollars performing songs about her personal life's ups and down with an audience that is 80% female and under 20 years old.
Awesome Americana bands play in clubs with barely 100 in attendance. (The real music!)
It's a strange period of time that we live in today!
This image is for both genders.
As a kid (late 50s) I could not stand hearing my dad play WWII big band music which was still available on radio. My parents couldn't stand hearing The Beatles and other British Invasion bands. By the late 60s, only baby boomers listened to current rock and hard rock music.
Today in 2023, say The Beatles, Elvis, Chuck Berry and the young kids are clueless.
Back in the 60s and 70s, everyone had a home stereo system. Today, everybody seems happy to listen to music on the phone or streamed in the car.
Taylor Swift pulls in billions of dollars performing songs about her personal life's ups and down with an audience that is 80% female and under 20 years old.
Awesome Americana bands play in clubs with barely 100 in attendance. (The real music!)
It's a strange period of time that we live in today!
This image is for both genders.
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