Not doing a gig because of the venue

T

The Old Hyde

Guest
I was asked yesterday to fill in on drums for a friends band this Friday night. I said ok, and told my current band out of respect. The bass players dad has had nothing but bad things to say about the venue since I mentioned it. "coke bar" very seedy etc. I could care less and its actually good money. If the gig goes well, im going to try to book my band there! has anyone ever avoided doing a gig because of a venues bad reputation? they pay in advance so the reputation only reflects the patrons, not the owners or treatment of the band.
 
Wait....

They pay in advance?

That's insane!
 
I prefer some venues to others. If the management is OK and they pay then I'd likely play that gig.
 
Well at some point you do have to worry about your safety. And the safety of your drum set.

If I heard it was a really bad place, I would go to the venue to check it out.

Then you will know if you need to bring a body guard or not.
Or if you have to put up some chicken wire between you and the audience.

http://youtu.be/RdR6MN2jKYs

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Wait....

They pay in advance? That's insane!

Yeah Larry, they pay in advance probably because everyone including the management gets so wasted they can't count out the money at the end of the gig.

(Or maybe they get robbed so often there is usually no money left at the end of the gig. LOL )


But it's a nice place.


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I've only ever balked at playing in one local venue -- simply because the mgmt tried to short us at the end of the night one time. We had a weekly residency and always worked w/the venue during slow turn-outs/summer vacation time etc -- so it's not like we're all about the $$.

Typically we'd pack this hole out regularly -- one night (about 8 yrs ago) they want to short us some small amount of money when we had a nice crowd, played late by request etc... stopped the residency and none of us ever returned...

Lucky for us this was one of only a couple times anything like that has happened.
 
I usually try to book bars with bad reputations. Unless the reputation is that nobody shows up. Sometimes a nice fight fight in the crowd makes for a great show.

BTW, whats this pay in advance thing you speak of? Not sure I understand the concept.
 
I usually try to book bars with bad reputations. Unless the reputation is that nobody shows up. Sometimes a nice fight fight in the crowd makes for a great show.

BTW, whats this pay in advance thing you speak of? Not sure I understand the concept.

weird to me as well but they pay this band at the beginning of the night, not the end. not sure if that's true with all bands that play there but it goes for them.
 
I've never even heard of bars paying beforehand. Parties, yea, but never a bar. Sounds like a good guy with a bar that has questionable clientele.
 
There are definitely places I don't like to play. So, if given the offer to play said venue, I might pass. Our band has a TON of gear. Guitarist has three heads and four cabs of various dimension, and our bassist has two heads driving two cabs. I have my four piece JB sized kit. So loud out is something to consider.

One venue has basement parking that the homeless are fond of. The underground parking also serves as a urinal. Yay! There is a sketchy elevator that my bassist and I piled into with two fridge cabs. As soon as we got in, we smelled the dried urine and didn't let anything besides the casters touch the ground. Well we are standing there and the door took like a minute and a half to close. Then, it just sat there not moving for another minute. All the while we are inhaling a pleasant scent of bio-hazard. Finally, it begins to climb, but stops on the street level. We repeat the process to make it one more floor up to the gig. We would have just sucked it up and parked street level if there was anywhere left, and just suck it up and take the three flights of stairs. But we bought the ticket as Hunter S. Thompson would say, so we took the ride, like, ten more times...

We are a loud rock and roll band, so we roll with the punches, but it would have to be an AWESOME gig to want to go back to that dirty hole. Other places might suck because there is one way in and out for people and bands alike. When you play the middle set, you are competing with people loitering around in the walk ways. Sigh...

So for us, it can be more of a matter of practical convenience.
 
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The reputation of management to uphold their end of the bargain has always been far more important to me than the reputation of the venue itself.

I've played my share of less than reputable venues before and as long as I thought we'd be safe, the gear would be safe and whatever agreements we had would be honoured, then I'd never consider not playing. I've only ever been party to "boycotting" venues after the fact. Usually in response to being ripped off. In those cases it was management not being up front that prompted the call. The place being a dive had nothing to do with it.
 
I'll play almost anywhere, but there is one venue in town we won't play and that is because the company who handles all their booking has jerked us around so much we can't take it anymore.
 
Regular to the London circuit so I come across my fair share of venues/promoters who I wouldn't want to see again in a hurry.

There's only one venue I wouldn't play again and that's due to playing it several times with different promoters. It's aptly named after a type of vermin, which suits my feelings on it well.

Each time we have been there we have been messed around. Seems like they get the pushy promoters in there who just short change people in certain situations for fun. It's a tiny little venue, can barely swing a cat around the room but their big claim to fame is that some famous people have played there over the ages.

Once I turned up there and they had overbooked the amount of acts, despite confirming the show weeks before with the band I was in at the time (who had two members who travelled around 200miles to do it). We were told that we could play if 30 followers of the band showed up, if they didn't we wouldn't get our slot. They tried selling it to us on the basis that we'd get a quick 15minute slot.

We didn't hang around and my mum wouldn't be pleased with me on what responded with to the promoter.

Avoid
 
Never avoided a gig because of the venue itself, or the people. Maybe the diciest gig I've ever done was for an L.A. area biker club at their clubhouse, but Crash - the sergeant at arms - made sure nobody got out of hand with us.

And while it's rare, it's not unheard of for a band to be paid before they start. One of my bands gets a check up front, and it's just a bar gig, although in an upscale area and with solid business.

I've also never turned down a gig based on musical preferences, although I recently did stop/reduce the number of days I'll play a well-known casino with well-known miserable v-drums. Got some serious Roland Elbow on that kit, and really began to resent almost every aspect of the gig. I just hated hating it and felt it was best to walk away.

Bermuda
 
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My one and only rule for venues:

I will never play anywhere that has a salad bar in the same room.
....again.


haha im stealing this!

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And while it's rare, it's not unheard of for a band to be paid before they start. One of my bands get's a check up front, and it's just a bar gig, although in an upscale area and with solid business.

I've also never turned down a gig based on musical preferences
Bermuda

its a first for me being paid up front. this music isn't completely my style. some of the songs I know and my band does as well, but the Elvis medley they do will be interesting.
 
My one and only rule for venues:

I will never play anywhere that has a salad bar in the same room.
....again.

My imagination is conjuring a scene where people were throwing salad at your band. I hope it didn't go down like that lol.

I walked out of a gig before even setting up once. The guy who hired me is a real jerk type of guy. It was an empty Italian restaurant and the owner wanted the whole band to set up on a 4' x 4' stairway landing. Since that was impossible, the owner joked that one guy could be on this stairway, and one guy could be on another stairway and another guy on the 2nd level. So as the owner was smiling about this, I too smiled and chuckled along with him and I said yea I'm outta here and walked out. As I walked by the guy that hired me I said to him, "you drug me all the way out here for this? Don't ever call me anymore."

The remaining 2 guys did it as a keyboard/guitar duo and when they were done they ended up getting stiffed by the owner, so I made the right move. Plus the guy that hired me...I really don't like this man at all, he's rude and not like-able in any way. Plus he lives like a slob, I've been to his house. Oh and he smells.
 
Regular to the London circuit so I come across my fair share of venues/promoters who I wouldn't want to see again in a hurry.

There's only one venue I wouldn't play again and that's due to playing it several times with different promoters. It's aptly named after a type of vermin, which suits my feelings on it well.

Each time we have been there we have been messed around. Seems like they get the pushy promoters in there who just short change people in certain situations for fun. It's a tiny little venue, can barely swing a cat around the room but their big claim to fame is that some famous people have played there over the ages.

Once I turned up there and they had overbooked the amount of acts, despite confirming the show weeks before with the band I was in at the time (who had two members who travelled around 200miles to do it). We were told that we could play if 30 followers of the band showed up, if they didn't we wouldn't get our slot. They tried selling it to us on the basis that we'd get a quick 15minute slot.

We didn't hang around and my mum wouldn't be pleased with me on what responded with to the promoter.

Avoid

What venue was this do you mind me asking?
 
What venue was this do you mind me asking?

Sounds like the Water Rats to me.

EDIT: Damn, beaten to it.

Had a very bad experience a couple of years ago at a reasonably famous gig venue in Kentish Town named after a farmyard animal that has since closed down. Decent hall, good bar, decent sound system but the sound engineer got absolutely hammered half way into the set and we ended up waiting between songs whilst he *%&^ed around on the desk trying to get rid of vocal monitor feedback that he'd started in the first place. I would play the venue again but never with that sound man present.

I'm very sad that a great local venue to me is having problems. The Tap and Tin in Chatham, Kent was a fantastic place for years but has sadly had a lot of financial issues of late. Saw a couple of very decent bands there.
 
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