[niccl]

I had a gig last night. Small local band with a bit of a following that hasn't performed for a few months. Audience of 120 or so. Great fun. My occasional hobby is lighting live music so I have to take what bands I can. Fortunately I really enjoy working with these people.

After the show two of the band (40 and 37 y.o.) were talking about what next. They realise that, sadly, they're probably not going to make it big, but aren't sure that the occasional local gig with audience of 120, or supporting someone bigger but where the audience don't care, is enough. What should they do? give up? change mental focus and do something completely different (one thought about being a counsellor, the other about going into visual art). I'm older, so they were asking whether I'd had similar thoughts. Sure have. I long ago realised I could never make a living lighting live music unless I moved to the US, or possibly europe. For reasons, neither were practical, so I consciously decided that desgining hardware, writing software, and doing the occasional hobby lighting gig were enough. But for those two? No idea.

Not really sure where this is going, but the tone of the article really resonated with the discussion with those two last night, and my tiredness this morning.

I still think live music beats the pants off recordings. And show in smaller venues where you can really see and interact with the band are _way_ better than big shows where you just have loud television

[garbawarb]

Maybe it's just optimism talking but I foresee a cultural shift towards favoring live performance. When people spend so much time looking at screens and being alone at home, they long to be immersed in a live sensoral experience.

[niccl]

I really, really, hope so. Local live music seems to be dying where I live.