There’s been an interesting discussion on anorak over the last few days about the Pop Recession, and why there appears to be less standalone gigs, and more in the way of popfests, all-dayers and the like.
Pete offered up the opinion that it might have something to do with the real, actual recession going on out there, or the fact that promoters think, “Sod it, if I have the stress of three bands, I might as well have the stress of ten.”
Both perhaps contain a grain of truth.
Later on, the thread turned to the usual groans about venues (or the lack of them), and how students don’t seem to go to gigs these days. That was a massive generalisation by me, of course, but again - I think there’s a grain of truth in there.
But perhaps the most important point about the whole conversation was the need to keep on keeping on with gigs. Sure, a lot of people are doing the work of two people during their mundane, everyday working lives at the moment, and have neither the time nor the energy to go out at night.
Marianthi and Carys point out, though, that the state of Life in General at the moment is what makes going out to see pop bands even more vital, and it’s hard to argue with that. Of course, that’s a lot easier when you live in London than it is when you live in Sheffield or Nottingham or wherever, but at the end of a week like this one, I would've killed to be able to thrown my homework onto the fire and go out and see Evans the Death , like what those lucky ducks in that London did, at the beginning of the weekend.
The constant depressing drip of the cuts to public services and jobs makes throwing caution to the wind and spending £30 on a night out difficult these days. The Tories and Labour (cos let’s not kid ourselves things would be much better had they won the Election) are to blame for this.
But wait! As much as anyone, it’s up to us to show them that we won’t be crushed, and in our own small, insignifcant way, we’ll put up a fight by organising, playing at, and attending gigs when we want to - not when they tell us we can. Viva la pop boom!
That’s if we can be arsed, like...
2 comments:
Let's hope we can continue to put on pop shows. I veer wildly from pessimism and optimism in the week leading up to the shows. I am sure I will keep on trying, but it's not easy. And the show on Friday was great (but stressful) - with one band nearly barred from playing for appearing to be under 18..... Eeeek.
Damn straight!
If a popshow makes one person's week more bearable, that's a successful night. Let's never give up.
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