Mixed musicalism
5 March 2006 01:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glenatronThere are two sides to playing in a band. Friday night was the first: The 12 Bar club is a very odd shaped space, a low ceilinged room with a tall but tiny stage that actually reaches up to an upper floor so that for the people downstairs it was like the amazing performing legs and the people upstairs could only really make out my head and shoulders as the other guys were all sat down. In spite of that, we had our largest ever London audience (each time we play there we seem to be bringing in more people, which seems like a good sign to me) and there was a real buzz to the night- the small room meant that everyone was close together and there was a chance for real rapport between us and the crowd. It even looked like a crowd. People enjoyed it and we sold most ever copies of the album at any show.
This evening was the flipside of that, we were playing a double set, in a bar, to a bunch of extremely drunk people who really didn't care whether we were there or not. Because we were playing longer than usual and because we're being paid as entertainment, we played a couple of covers as well, which is sometimes fun, but once you've played one the drunken idiots smell weakness and start requesting Mustang Sally or other songs by bands that you've played one song by. The sound was absolutely awful, I don't think the person engineering had ever seen a sound desk before and all she wanted to do was turn up the bass, which mean't I was constantly having to try to restore the balance by turning my amplifier down. It didn't stop her though, she was clearly caught in the entirely understandable idea that none of the vocals, keyboards or other instruments are remotely as important as incredibly loud bass. Consequently we sounded awful. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter how good a band is, if they're playing to a bunch of people who aren't interested in listening to a band they are unlikely to win those people over and in the end our being there tonight did nothing to make the audience happy as we just got in the way of their conversations and did nothing to make us happy as we sounded terrible and couldn't hear what we were doing.
I'm glad I still have the warm glow of Friday's gig as the one I'm just back from was enough to make me want to burn my instruments and never play music again.
Coming home absolutely stinking from both reinforced my view that they really can't ban smoking in pubs soon enough.
This evening was the flipside of that, we were playing a double set, in a bar, to a bunch of extremely drunk people who really didn't care whether we were there or not. Because we were playing longer than usual and because we're being paid as entertainment, we played a couple of covers as well, which is sometimes fun, but once you've played one the drunken idiots smell weakness and start requesting Mustang Sally or other songs by bands that you've played one song by. The sound was absolutely awful, I don't think the person engineering had ever seen a sound desk before and all she wanted to do was turn up the bass, which mean't I was constantly having to try to restore the balance by turning my amplifier down. It didn't stop her though, she was clearly caught in the entirely understandable idea that none of the vocals, keyboards or other instruments are remotely as important as incredibly loud bass. Consequently we sounded awful. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter how good a band is, if they're playing to a bunch of people who aren't interested in listening to a band they are unlikely to win those people over and in the end our being there tonight did nothing to make the audience happy as we just got in the way of their conversations and did nothing to make us happy as we sounded terrible and couldn't hear what we were doing.
I'm glad I still have the warm glow of Friday's gig as the one I'm just back from was enough to make me want to burn my instruments and never play music again.
Coming home absolutely stinking from both reinforced my view that they really can't ban smoking in pubs soon enough.
