We Love Playing There

[Bluewine]

Thought it might be interesting to flip my last thread.

Tell us a few stories about venues you and your band love to play and why.

Blue

[uk_lefty]

My singer is a pub landlord and he runs a music festival at the end of summer every year. We headline it and the last two years it's been the absolute highlight. It's a friendly crowd and that helps, everyone knows their local landlord but they also know he's a damn good singer. The entire village and most of the few villages around are there, there's a fancy dress theme and there's a LOT of beer and BBQ consumed. It's a great gig to play because the energy is there with everyone singing along and dancing. It's not the biggest or best paid, but it is the most fun.

[Bluewine]

My favorite place is a small bar called Aribas. Here's why;

1. It's a great sounding room. Low ceilings and carpeted flooring.

2. The bar is right next to the spot we play in, no stage.

3. The crowd is primarily made up of live music lovers. The average age is probably 65. These folks were probably Hippies back in the 60s and love the vintage 70s based blues & rock we play.

I love the place.

Blue

[FinnDave]

I'll be playing a favourite venue on Sunday. It's a festival held in the centre of a local small town between here and Swindon. Faringdon has held its annual 3 day Follyfest for some time, the Wirebirds will be making their sixth consecutive appearance there this Sunday, when we bring the festival to a close.

We don't get paid to do it, parking is a pain, but the audience is always great, and there's a good PA and a well organised team to run everything.

The summer wouldn't feel quite right without our annual pilgrimage to Faringdon.

[BrunoBass]

The Wine Vaults in Banbury.

It’s my local anyway (not so local now since I’ve moved out to the edge of town) but still my favourite pub. We play there regularly (we’ll play five times this year, plus their summer outdoor festival). 

Great team running it, they’re really into putting bands on, they promote everything well and really get behind it. It’s a big enough pub to get a good vibe going, small enough to be intimate. Always a great crowd, always a great gig. Love it.

[BrunoBass]

4 hours ago, FinnDave said:

I'll be playing a favourite venue on Sunday. It's a festival held in the centre of a local small town between here and Swindon. Faringdon has held its annual 3 day Follyfest for some time, the Wirebirds will be making their sixth consecutive appearance there this Sunday, when we bring the festival to a close.

We don't get paid to do it, parking is a pain, but the audience is always great, and there's a good PA and a well organised team to run everything.

The summer wouldn't feel quite right without our annual pilgrimage to Faringdon.

Nice one Dave, that’s what it’s all about!

[Grassie]

The Anchor, Cowes, Isle of Wight. Always busy, always a great crowd, always up for it.

And they pay better than most...😉

[Len_derby]

For me, it's the Ripley Music Festival in Derbyshire. We've done it for five years now.

It's a genuine charity event. No one gets paid and the money goes towards the survival of the local small hospital.  It takes place in a park in the middle of the town and has great support from the local community and crucially the local council.

The stage, sound and general facilities punch far above their weight and ii's always a joy to play there. If the weather is fair it's common to play to a thousand people. As you might expect from a town built on coal mines and heavy industry the people are warm and bullshine-free

[Raymondo]

Mine has to be a favourite place I used to play as I don't gig anymore.....

Rock City Nottingham... Iconic Rock venue, just about every famous Band you can mention has played there at some point.

The Stereophonics tribute band I was in has played the main stage there 5 times. It was an all day charity event ( I'm far from famous 😉) but the crowd loved us.

it was always a sell out (2450 capacity) raising thousands of pounds for the relevant charity but the best bit was the on stage sound.

There was a front of house soundman AND  at the side of the stage, a sound man that just gave you a monitor mix ...he was BRILLIANT ….anything you wanted in your monitor at sound check was delivered in seconds.

I know the combination of Tribute band and Charity gig is an anathema to many on here but they were the gigs of my life and I would do them again, at the drop of a hat , If only I was well enough. 

Edited July 28, 2018 by Raymondo

[Muzz]

The Flying Horse in Rochdale is one of my favourite gigs: it's the last pub open in Rochdale town centre of an evening, so we don't go on till half ten or so, and don't finish till oneish. Always lairy (there's three bouncers, and it's kicked off to some extent I think every time we've played there, usually catfights), always lively, and they love a live band and a sing-song. Great fun...

Edited July 28, 2018 by Muzz

[Bilbo]

I run my own Jazz gig in Felixstowe so get to play with Gods. 

 

 

[Dad3353]

3 hours ago, Bilbo said:

I run my own Jazz gig in Felixstowe so get to play with Gods. 

... and you're worth it. 

[bassace]

The Rose and Crown, North Parade, Oxford. Jazz in the courtyard right through the year. When it’s wet or cold they roll out an awning and light patio heaters. Great cosmopolitan crowd. Best pub in GB, Andrew, the owner/landlord likes his jazz, free beer and bangers and chips at the end of the gig.

Always a gig to look forward to.

[Passinwind]

I used to play this winery right above the Columbia River (http://www.maryhillwinery.com/) a few times a month for several years. It was perfect for my jazz trio and the owners and staff were super nice to us. Their wine is first class too, so for years I had a really nice stash at home. And we got to do tasting room pre-show stints before Bob Dylan and ZZ Top, with a few thousand people coming through before they made their into the adjacent 3000 seat amphitheater. This gig paid OK but not great (regular local scale plus a few bottles each, and pretty good tips), but it was one case where exposure really did pay off. All I had to do was tell other venues that we played Maryhill and that was typically enough to get the gig if the style match was workable. Good hours too, usually 1-5 PM, w/ four45 minute sets.

 

 

The place next door wasn't too shabby either (http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/) :

 

 

View from back:

 

 

Mostly we played arts festivals there, out on the lawn with a great family atmosphere, cool food booths, numerous juried art vendors, and good advertising in the big city markets like Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver. If your band made the promo poster as a featured artist you could leverage a ton of mileage out of that. I think we managed that three years in a row.

 

 

Edited July 28, 2018 by Passinwind

[Dad3353]

13 minutes ago, Passinwind said:

I used to play this winery right above the Columbia River...

[Reggaebass]

18 minutes ago, Passinwind said:

I used to play this winery right above the Columbia River (http://www.maryhillwinery.com/) a few times a month for several years. It was perfect for my jazz trio and the owners and staff were super nice to us. Their wine is first class too, so for years I had a really nice stash at home. And we got to do tasting room pre-show stints before Bob Dylan and ZZ Top, with a few thousand people coming through before they made their into the adjacent 3000 seat amphitheater. This gig paid OK but not great (regular local scale plus a few bottles each, and pretty good tips), but it was one case where exposure really did pay off. All I had to do was tell other venues that we played Maryhill and that was typically enough to get the gig if the style match was workable. Good hours too, usually 1-5 PM, w/ four45 minute sets.

 

 

The place next door wasn't too shabby either (http://www.maryhillmuseum.org/) :

 

 

View from back:

 

 

Mostly we played arts festivals there, out on the lawn with a great family atmosphere, cool food booths, numerous juried art vendors, and good advertising in the big city markets like Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver. If your band made the promo poster as a featured artist you could leverage a ton of mileage out of that. I think we managed that three years in a row.

 

 

That’s Impressive   I think that beats my back street reggae clubs 😀

[Passinwind]

2 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

There are quite a few other really nice ones around here (Washington red wines are a thing these days), plus a couple of dozen small breweries. But driving along the river on a weekend morning on my way to those gigs was always a pretty special feeling. And the owners made it even more special with personal tastings back in the special reserve tanks and the like.

[Reggaebass]

And doing something you really enjoy 

[Passinwind]

1 minute ago, Reggaebass said:

That’s Impressive   I think that beats my back street reggae clubs 😀

I thought about posting a few of my favorite dive bars too, actually. There used to be one within easy walking distance that somehow conned world class bands into playing a 100 seat venue in a tiny logging town on a regular basis. I worked sound there for those shows a lot too. But the main attraction was a clientele that genuinely appreciated weird original music, and an owner who was on that plan as well, and knew how to make it work.

[Dad3353]

11 minutes ago, Passinwind said:

There are quite a few other really nice ones around here (Washington red wines are a thing these days), plus a couple of dozen small breweries. But driving along the river on a weekend morning on my way to those gigs was always a pretty special feeling. And the owners made it even more special with personal tastings back in the special reserve tanks and the like.

T'wasn't the booze so much (my tipple is Earl Grey tea, with a twist of lemon...), it was the regular, quality gigs I was appreciating..! Cheers, though; here's to you and yours. 

[EliasMooseblaster]

11 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

T'wasn't the booze so much (my tipple is Earl Grey tea, with a twist of lemon...), it was the regular, quality gigs I was appreciating..! Cheers, though; here's to you and yours. 

As someone else who also appreciates a good cup of the Earl, next time you cross la manche, I would recommend tracking down a bottle of Marble Brewery's Earl Grey IPA. It has saved several evenings when I've been caught in the dilemma of whether to have another beer, or a cup of tea!

[Passinwind]

5 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

T'wasn't the booze so much (my tipple is Earl Grey tea, with a twist of lemon...), it was the regular, quality gigs I was appreciating..! Cheers, though; here's to you and yours. 

The booze was actually a bit of a problem as time went on, that venue and many others expected the band members to have a full glass of something upscale in plain sight (on their nickel of course), and to be conversant in the whole culture. We would often see bikers loading multiple cases of wine into their saddle bags or trailers, and a pretty crazy amount of consumption on site. My wife watched them ring $14K in under an hour on just one cash register at one show. But in any case, having regular block bookings like that is especially hard to come by for old school jazz groups in a non-urban market out here. And as so often happens, it was all about who I knew, not how great the band was or wasn't. Although holding a gig like that is a lot different from getting it in the first place.

[HazBeen]

Wembley Stadium, love playing there...... now just to make it happen

 

[cheddatom]

On 28/07/2018 at 12:02, Raymondo said:

Mine has to be a favourite place I used to play as I don't gig anymore.....

Rock City Nottingham... Iconic Rock venue, just about every famous Band you can mention has played there at some point.

The Stereophonics tribute band I was in has played the main stage there 5 times. It was an all day charity event ( I'm far from famous 😉) but the crowd loved us.

it was always a sell out (2450 capacity) raising thousands of pounds for the relevant charity but the best bit was the on stage sound.

There was a front of house soundman AND  at the side of the stage, a sound man that just gave you a monitor mix ...he was BRILLIANT ….anything you wanted in your monitor at sound check was delivered in seconds.

I know the combination of Tribute band and Charity gig is an anathema to many on here but they were the gigs of my life and I would do them again, at the drop of a hat , If only I was well enough. 

We did Rock City once, supporting Buzzcocks, definitely a highlight for me, I've seen so many huge bands play there, it was quite a honour to be on the stage. I love that venue!!

[colleya]

On 28/07/2018 at 12:18, Muzz said:

The Flying Horse in Rochdale is one of my favourite gigs.

Keep trying to snag a gig there, spoken to Ben many times but just can't get us in the door. Last time I played there was as a 16 year old in the upstairs function room, pretty sure it kicked off then too....

 

Our favourites are the Bowling Green in Horwich, Steamhouse in Sale (a 1 minute drive home always helps) and the brilliantly named Polished Knob in Todmorden. All 3 are favourites for the same reason - the folk there love a live band and aren't shy to sing & dance along from the start. Makes it so much easier to get into the gig when there's a bit of feedback from the punters.

Edited July 30, 2018 by colleya