From dave@daveoakley.plus.com Fri Sep 07 05:20:14 2012
Subject:Re: Ages and Area

Yep, agree pretty much with all of that Simon. I'm in a band called The Fliks, and we are a tribute to the 60's girl acts, 3 girl singers with backing band covering mostly Tamla, Northern Soul, 60's pop.. Lulu, Dusty etc. etc.. We easily gig 6 or 7 times a month, pubs, clubs, festivals, scooter rallies and also do the odd corporate or wedding (for the money). In fact in one week back in July we had 5 gigs in 7 days, so it can get busy, especially during the summer.
The real problem is for bands that play all original material, there is very few places for new "original" bands to showcase their talent. This isn't driven by lack of venues, it's driven by lack of interest. Original bands no longer bring a crowd, unless they are super well known (e.g.: major label). Its common in the UK to see original bands acting as support for tribute bands and doing it for no pay, simply for an opportunity to play in front of a decent sized audience. I feel that live music as i know and love it (being of a certain age), is actually an anachronism, musicians that embrace this reality and play a "retro" style (and lob in plenty of covers) or perform as a tribute still draw a decent audience but bands with that want to showcase radically new ideas are mostly gonna go hungry... the ground breaking 'musicians' in the UK these days are DJ's (in some form or other..).
UKDave