Band Plus Acoustic

Band Plus Acoustic

As A Live Music Supporter There Is Nothing Better Than Seeing Your Favourite Band Live At A Gig, But Why Do Countless People Get Rebuked For Wanting To Experience Their Favourite Band On A Regular Basis?

As an enthusiastic music fan, I love nothing more than going to experience my favourite bands performing live. In the past few years I’ve travelled all over the UK to follow the bands that I am most passionate about, and have even headed over to Ireland and mainland Europe a few times. On quite a few occasions, I’ve actually booked tickets for a whole tour of about ten or twelve dates and had an amazing road trip with a friend to get to them all.

There are many people who suggest that doing such a thing is a bit odd, but I always ask them if they think it strange that someone would travel and follow a football team at every game they play, and as we all know, there are loads of people all over the world who do that. And only a handful of people ask why they do it! Anyway, I don’t much care what other people think about it. Countless people have hobbies that are of no interest to me, so why should I be criticised for doing something that I get so much pleasure from?

In any case, when my favourite artist releases some gigs, the first thing me and my friend do is to look at our diaries and check our bank balances. Cold hard cash is always the biggest obstacle, as a really good road trip isn’t just about the cost of tickets, but transport and hotel costs too. If the tour looks within our budget, then holiday from work needs to be booked. And we do figure that if we decide to go to a gig straight after finishing work and then travel back home afterwards, anything under two hours driving each way is quite acceptable.

After that it’s a day of finding hotels in whichever locations we need them, booking them online, looking at maps of the few venues that we haven’t been to before, and then we’re all set to to rock and roll – for real! As the countdown begins, the expectations rise.

I always have butterflies in my stomach before they walk on stage, and that feeling never lessens despite how many times I watch them. And without getting on my soapbox about manufactured pop music, it’s great going to see a proper band, folk who write all their own material, are all very accomplished musicians and sound great live. They don’t have any need to depend on choreographed dance steps, loads of lighting, Laser eye beam effects and firework displays – their music and their personalities are all they need to keep the fans happy.

But for these musicians, budgets are limited, so if we are able to make ourselves useful by doing things like staffing their merchandise sales or turning up with things we know they don’t have with them, it seems like we’re helping with their crusade. It’s nice to feel useful!

We’d really love for this band to be huge and for everyone to have heard of them, though worryingly they have a number of fans who would prefer them to remain a well kept secret so that they continue to play in intimate venues and can talk to fans after the show. But as I have explained to so many people, small venue gigs don’t pay the bills, fund decent transport, finance the Laser eye surgery and ankle operation that two of the guitarists need or most critically, give them any money to devote to promoting their music.

To get back to something I commented on earlier, the music business in 2011 is far more interested in making a quick return and has little interest in nurturing musicians with potential because they take a longer period of time to make a name for themselves. It’s really sad to think that many great musicians leave the industry because they can’t survive financially, whilst the music business throws ridiculous sums of money at the winners of television reality shows, spending millions on their ‘image’ – presumably cosmetic surgery, Laser eye treatment, hours with stylists, famous choreographers and almost inevitably the infamous autotune. But, of course, it’s all about the music!

I’m heading to Wembley Arena next week. But I’m going to watch the support act. I’ve paid nearly £30 just to watch forty minutes of great music. I really won’t bother to stay and see the main band, because I’ve endured them at a festival and they really weren’t very good. Taking into account the huge open spaces of Wembley, I expect I’ll wish I’d already had my Laser eye surgery operation as I know that my eyesight is quite bad, so in all likelihood the money I’ve spent will allow me a blurred view of some moving dots on stage, but it’s still important to me that I turn up and support the musicians I love.