I have been a live music fan and concert-goer for as long as I remember. I have also performed live music for nearly as long. I feel like I can give some advice for music fans looking for tips on how to interact with the D.I.Y musicians at venues. Independent bands and local shows give an audience an accessibility to the musicians they admire that mainstream artists can’t maintain.
Unless you have spent some time traveling unfamiliar high-ways in the back of a cargo van full of music gear, you might not have a lot of insight into what goes on before the door opens and you give the door-guy that bill for the cover. So, as a fan, this is a heads-up for fans. This is how to have the best interactions as possible with the people who make the music you enjoy. Most people don’t realize how boring it can be to be a paid musician, waiting around for the door to open and the show to start. As romantic as it may seem to the uninitiated, being on the road, or even one-off and local shows include a thousand small aggravations. Here’s some insight into that life, as well as practical advice on being a good concert-goer:
1. Use the guest-list sparingly.
Everybody knows, if you’ve been in the scene a while, there’s nothing better than bouncing past the door-guy because you’re on the guest-list. Usually, if you’re doing this, you know somebody playing, or, you’re friends with the promoter. If you write for media, or you are active in the scene, you might get on the guest list because have an in with the band you are going to see.
It’s a privilege, so don’t abuse it. I’ve been to club nights where a significant number of guests didn’t pay to get in. It can be cool –as a promoter– to have all your friends around and get them in free. Promoters do so at their own peril, because a night can only be successful if it’s making money. A gig can only be successful if the venue makes money, and bands/DJs get paid. As a DJ, I insist on buying the music I spin: I get paid to entertain others with music, and those musicians need to make money or they won’t produce music. In quite the same way, if you go to shows and don’t pay the door, and don’t buy merch, bands that make less money perform less often. It’s a very simple economic principle: supply and demand.
2. Tip your bartenders.
All live music shows, even club nights with DJs involve an unholy alliance between three parties: performers, promoters, and venues. In order for a night to be a success, all three need to get paid and have a good time. This is why, in one of my previous projects, our singer would always announce between songs “be sure to tip your bartenders.” I have always operated under the assumption, that if you don’t have money to tip, you don’t have money to drink. If you want good service at a bar, tip as generously as you can afford.
Bands that get booked a lot are the bands that get paid, in clubs that make money, with servers that do well in tips. So, take a universal approach in supporting the bands you are a fan of.
3. Talk to bands/band members when they are at the merch table.
On some more specific points about actually interacting with independent musicians. As I have already said, from my experience, much of the life of a working musician is generally more boring and aggravating than most people believe. On tour, a band will spend hours a day cramped in a bus or van to get to the next venue by load-in time. Once a band is at the venue, and the gear is set up on-stage or behind it. Then, musicians will mill around with nothing to do. Then they have to scramble frantically for about the hour before and after their set. Then mill around with nothing to do for hours. A bands’ night doesn’t end with the last song. There’s a lot of waiting for the club to close, and for the promoter to split the night’s earnings between the bar, sound-guy and performers.
When approaching your favorite independent musicians, bear this all in mind. A musician’s work day is long. It didn’t start when the door opened, and didn’t end when the door was locked. A big part of having a positive fan/musician reaction is having good timing. From the musician’s perspective, if you need to run to the bathroom, or, you need to get your gear to the van, etc., etc., you’re being interrupted, essentially, in your office (i.e.: a club) and at a time you have something else you need to be doing.
Imagine, I walked into your office, and interrupted you during the middle of a task, or, if I interrupted you on your break. Even if I were really complementary (“That spread-sheet you’re working on really kicks ass!”) you might be a bit annoyed. So it goes with working musicians. Since most fans don’t have a crystal ball to know when a musician walking through a club is busy with some other task, it can be hard to know when to interact. But there is one time when your interruption will always build a positive fan/musician interaction.
Even more important than the door money, that merch table you see is the bread and butter of how musicians make an income doing what they love. It’s the perfect fan opportunity. Most bands can’t always afford to bring a “merch-girl” on tour, to staff the table and sell albums, shirts, and thongs with the band’s logo. What this means for many working musicians, is that members of the band agree to share the responsibility of watching the merch-table and selling promotional items.
Watching the merch table can really suck. While everybody else is hanging out at the bar or socializing, you might be sitting there alone. So, it is the ideal time to approach a musician. If you planned ahead to buy merch at the show, even better. In all my years of going to shows, I’ve never found musicians unwilling to engage a fan after said fan plunks a few dollars on the table in front of them and shows an interest in their work. Not only did you make buying breakfast the next morning, or putting gas in the van a little easier, but in a musician’s mind, you just demonstrated your not a “casual fan,” but that you’re willing to support the band financially. You just upped your importance for that musician. Most musicians realize the need to do their own PR, it’s a part of the job. That may sound superficial, but a musician in a club is working. For as much as fans would like to believe that the bands they love “aren’t in it for the money,” (which is especially true for musicians in a niche genre, we’re not rolling in dough) you can’t maintain a band, tour and release albums for long when you’re funding the project out-of-pocket. Fans can cry all they want how musicians should make music for the “love” of it, in the end we need to get paid too. No one, unless they’re independently wealthy will continue throwing money away with no reward, no matter how enthusiastically they love what they do.
4. Let you favorite musicians have a bad day.
Have you ever had a bad day, when all sorts of things went wrong, and you ended up lashing out at your girlfriend, kid, friend or coworker? You probably realized later you got angry with somebody over a mild irritation, and the real thing bothering you had nothing to do with them. You’ll probably apologized for it later. The problem with being a musician, -as far as your fans are concerned– is that by the time that realization hits, you are probably in a different city.
I have some insight for music fans that have told me stories of how some musician they admire was rude or just blew them off. In an ideal world, musicians would always have a few moments for being genuinely appreciative and engaging in small talk with fans. The likely reality is that that musician you met has been eating crappy food, sleeping little in a bus or van, and staying up each night until the club closes –to get paid and drive to the next venue. In the course of a day, a million things can go wrong: vans break down, promoters argue with musicians and back out of scheduled gigs, and band members squabble with each other. Also, bear in mind that touring musicians deal with all the regular annoyances you do, except that they are hundreds of miles or more from their homes, families and friends –all the comforts you can take for granted on a bad day. In my experience, the vast majority of working musicians care about their fans, value and appreciate them. Musicians maybe egoists, but the ratio is probably ten-to-one that if you have had a interaction with a musician where you felt slighted, you probably dealt with somebody that had a bad day, and not somebody that is just a insufferable person in general.
Imagine you walked into your office and your boss came in. Then your boss started to try to argue you into a lower salary, told you he was going to change your work hours, and that your desk is being moved to another building. That’s what happens with live music continually. Working in music is very free, but as a result, it’s also not nearly so stable. As romantic and cool as it sounds to be a live musician, if you’re an independent artist, you’re working conditions are continuously subject to change. In your day-to-day, you deal with the different personalities of club owners, promoters and other bands you’ll be sharing the stage with. Your boss, your co-workers, and the money you make are all subject to change at a moment’s notice.
In the end, musicians have bad days too. The perception is that if you’re making a living off music, you shouldn’t have bad days. A musician’s job is so much cooler than the 9-5, and what could a working musician have to complain about? As I have pointed out, the reality is a little more grueling, even for musicians that would rather be doing nothing else.
5. Be accepting of people’s limitations
Most people don’t become musicians because they are social butterflies that thrive off interacting in large groups of people. Most people who become musicians do so because being alone for hours, creating art, is appealing to them. If we all had really fantastic people skills, we’d be working in a corner office or something like that.
A person I have recently become close to originally met me at an out-of-town gig. I remembered the meeting, and appreciated the compliment. However, the most conversation that I managed at that point was a “thanks,” and “nice to meet you” before I wandered off to do whatever I was doing. I bring up this point because it’s intensely gratifying when fans compliment your set, like your album, and spend their money to buy your music and your merch. As I have said already, most musicians absolutely do appreciate their fans and don’t take them for granted. So, even if a musician you talk to comes off as aloof, don’t assume too much.
But most important: enjoy the show, keep coming out, and keep supporting live music.
Rahb Eleven (Rob Eaton) is a live musician, a free-lance writer, and music fan. He also reviews music for internet media and is an Industrial and EBM DJ from Albany, NY.