I recently went to a live music venue to watch a band play. An unsigned band. Manchester has pretty much always been about up and coming acts and it is a great city in the fact that there are so many live venues for artists to perform in any day of the week.
Although lately, the past 3 years or so, as much as I hate saying this, it seems to be that less and less people are actually watching live musicians. In some cases, it is almost as if people are waiting for the live bands to finish before they even want to enter the building and then they will just end up dancing and cavorting to whatever music might be playing. Not that there is anything wrong with dancing and cavorting, but why go to a live music place and then not see the musicians that are playing??
I understand when you go to see signed musicians and how frustrating it can be when you really want a ticket only to find that they have been sold out when you know that there are a lot of touts who buy as many tickets as they can and then sell them on to the real fans for a profit. Having worked at a major gig venue myself, I already know that there is nothing you can do to stop this. It is such a shame. It is like if you finally get signed as a musician and get a massive fan base, it is really difficult to be able to play for them all. And from the fans' point of view, you have to fork out a small fortune to people who do not even care about the music industry to watch a band you like. Although I do like watching live music, these are some things that I really don't like.
One thing that I really hate is when people join bands because they think it's cool. People that have no passion and no soul whatsoever. It is just a thing that really annoys me. If you happen to look cool whilst you are doing your thing then fair enough, but people who actually pick up an instrument and then suddenly think that they are Gods gift to the universe is just pathetic. What makes it worse is that their "groupies" (these are people that just follow certain bands around and basically just need to get a life) also think that whoever they are following are Gods gift too and think that they themselves are cool because they can sing along to the songs when in reality they are all just losers. This can make the performers so arrogant. It isn't good to watch and I find it quite off putting.
Whilst I was in college, I went to the theatre countless times and watched tons of performances. Apart from college shows, I also found that a lot of actors I saw would also generally be really snooty and up themselves. Whether their acting was good or not, they for some reason thought that they were some kind of wonderful breed of people that seemed to know everything. Plus there is so much bitchiness in the acting world. I remember going for a part once and got talking to some guy who lived in Manchester like I do. It took me 2 hours on the train to arrive at the destination for the audition and as this guy drove, he offered me a lift back. Anyway, we did our pieces and mine happened to be a lot better than his. He ended up storming off and I never did get the lift home he offered. Ironically, I didn't even get the part. But then neither did the overweight idiot.
Not to stereotype everyone (I know what it is like to be stereotyped believe me and it just goes to show how idiotic and narrow minded people are), I also found that theatre goers can be quite snooty too. Now I really don't know why this is the case as I cannot understand it. It is a strange thought that people who watch the theatre can be up themselves. I feel like i need to reiterate that I am not talking about everyone who go to the theatre, I am just talking about the majority of people who I have come across whilst in the past going to the theatre.
It gets really weird when I think about going to the theatre now-although I haven't been in ages, as a person who did Drama for 5 years, I still would have an interest in going but do think about what the people on stage would be like and what the audience would be like too. As for going to watch a band, the environment can be really strange. The last one I went to was an indie place where nearly all the guys were wearing ties (they were trying to be cool) and all the girls looked the same (fake tan, hair extensions and general grossness). Most of these people actually came in the building after the bands had finished playing and there was nothing unique about anyone. I also found that I was being given strange looks by a good few people. Why?? I don't know-I think it was because I didn't have a tie on-ironically whilst I was in college, I did go through a stage where I wore ties a lot. I would get weird looks for doing that. So I wear a tie, I get weird looks, I don't wear a tie and I still get weird looks. Pretty much a no win situation.
So what puts me off performing?? Well, it is admittedly nerve racking performing songs that I have written myself, imagine being in an environment where you are performing to a load of idiots in ties and to a load of girls who look like cheap prostitutes?? But i am a bit of a hypocrite as I always go on about how you have to win people over if you are a live musician and not play for whoever would like your type of music-I actually honestly don't even know if anyone would like the songs I play. As for acting-I really do feel that I would now prefer to be on stage as myself rather than someone else. Unfortunately, in the environments that I am currently in-I feel like nobody knows anything about me at all.
