Live Prog-rock is Dying

never

   This is a long rant, I make no apologies...

Playing live once was the life-blood of music. Now it is dying, and from the responses in this thread http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40091&PN=1 - now I see why

Playing live is where all lesser known bands make their money (the piffling trifle that it is). No one can make a living by just selling a few thousand CD’s on the internet (especially when a lot of their stuff is downloaded illegally) – bands have to tour, not just to promote their latest release, but to sell merchandise - that is also where they get their fan-base from, not from radio plays and chart positions, reviews on websites or articles in glossy magazines.

For unsigned acts MySpace is now such a gargantuan mess and over-run with signed and unsigned bands all vying for a small market share, so not even that is a valid means of self-promotion anymore. The situation for unsigned and self-financed acts is even worse – it is impossible to get a support slot on a major tour if you are unsigned – so they end up playing grotty little clubs and they rarely see anything from the door money (which generally is split between the club and the promoter to “cover costs”) – all they can hope for is to sell a few home-made demo CD’s and the occasional T-shirt then pray that a bigger promoter will see them and put them on a bigger bill, or perhaps some mythical A&R person will be in the audience and sign them up (that never happens).

The problem all live music faces is apathy – and I’ll put my hand up to this – I should have gone to see Tinyfish earlier this month, (http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=39752), but I didn’t want to drive the 25 miles into South London to get there – and in the cold light of day that is a pathetic excuse. I haven’t asked Chopper how many people were at the gig – but the Peel is a small venue – I doubt if more than 200 people were present, 100 makes it look full – I’ve been to gigs where 20 people bothered to turn up and that is a very sad state of affairs.

These lesser known bands are the big groups of tomorrow.

So get off your backsides and go see a band play live – buy their CD, buy their T-shirts and badges, keep the genre alive at the grass-roots – even if it’s only once a month – you never know perhaps you’ll discover the next Dream Theater, Yes, Gentle Giant or Tool playing in a small venue in your home town. back in the day that's were they all started.