The City of Vancouver is full of good musicians and good bands ! Yet, the live music scene is dying a fast and painful death. Gone are the glory days of live music, when you could play 3 nights a week and make $1,500.00 . ( Yes, in the 1980’s you could !) Today you can walk the streets of Vancouver and be hard pressed to find anywhere to listen to good live music.
Today’s musician is faced with a much different environment. Today’s musician is faced with the question “ Do I play for free or whatever can be collected at the door?” The answer is that the band really has no choice if it wants to play and get stage experience. Unless a musician is an established professional cover band, the paying gigs are just not there.
So this leaves the musician blaming the “greedy venue owner who does not want to pay for the musicians anymore”. Well, the venue owner’s are not to blame here, even though some of them could do abetter job at treating musician’s with respect.
“ Live Music “ in Vancouver is already on it’s last breath’s. Venue’s have been hit hard in the last decade with things that have really contributed to people not going out to see live music anymore. The internet ( You Tube) makes it easy to stay home and listen to/ or watch any of your favourite artists. Also, the ban on smoking in bars has kept away the smokers. Just recently, the tougher drinking and driving regulations has added another nail into the coffin of “live music”. The venues just do not have the crowds anymore to warrant paying bands to play in their establisments. That is why they are always insisting that the bands “draw a crowd”.
Yet how do the band develop a following without being able to play live ? This is the “catch 22”. The bands end up taking “showcase” gigs at downtown clubs on Tuesday’s , Wednesdays, and Thursdays. They bug their friends and families to come down to see them. They end up drawing 20-3p people if they are lucky and get virtually nothing in pay after the doorman is paid. They pack up their gig, get home at 2:00 am unload their gear and then go to sleep to get up and go to work the next morning.
Some of Vancouver’s musician’s think that bands who play showcases are hurting the industry by undercutting the professional bands who charge a fee. This is not the case. The truth is that the paying gigs just do not exist anymore. Live music venues are closing left and right. The few venues that can afford to pay bands hire the very best available.
Our experience as a band has been that we needed to play the showcases in order to gain some stage experience. Now that we have played close to 100 shows ( mostly paying but some showcases) we have decided that we are not going to play the showcases any more.
But we are not going to be critical of those who do play the showcases.
Our experience as a band has been that we needed to play the showcases in order to gain some stage experience. Now that we have played close to 100 shows ( mostly paying but some showcases) we have decided that we are not going to play the showcases any more.
But we are not going to be critical of those who do play the showcases.
Well said !
ReplyDeleteLet's not forget that the City of Vancouver has also done it's level best to destroy live music in town by closing venues that do manage to get going, restricting licensing and overcharging new venues on licenses. The 'entertainment district' is also one of the worst ideas ever conceived and implemented. Little or no live music and an environment built to cater to the lowest of the low. Not sure I can speak to other cities in Canada but I will say that Vancouver has virtually no live music scene left and considering the incredible wealth of talent in the city that is a crying shame.
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