RockScotland

Hi am sussing out if there would still be a rock crowd in the Hamilton area,at the moment just testing the water maybe start up a friday rock show with the strong backing of friends from 96.3rock radio..what do yous think,starting with just a good rock disco then maybe a good band once a month ,,,

rockdeejay wrote:Hi am sussing out if there would still be a rock crowd in the Hamilton area

There's always a rock crowd out there!

The problem has been well discussed in this forum - the problem is motivation and probably more so, the problem is also how much can any venue spend on promotion to generate enough people coming through the doors to cover the cost of the promotion.

rockdeejay wrote:starting with just a good rock disco then maybe a good band once a month ,,,

A "good rock disco"? Here's another thing that's always difficult - it's very difficult to please everyone and it has to be a compromise. The situation always develops where the ladies want to dance to the lightweight rock pop like Bon Jovi, Poison etc and the young kids want something a bit more extreme! Very, very difficult to achieve a decent balance and the DJ alone can put people off.

Possibly only a "celebrity" DJ (or someone from Rock Radio ) could generate actual custom but you're then back to the problem of expense.

"Good" bands are also very much a personal taste type of thing - you've got the choice of a "local" act where only the pals of the band are interested or an established act where expense rears it's head again. The attitude to live music has changed over the last 15 years or so and the days where a regular crowd would turn up and watch/listen to any band are long gone.

Location is also a major problem! I live in Hamilton and would certainly be able to make it but unfortunately everywhere in Lanarkshire is limited by transport problems and most people would have to drive to reach the venue, which isn't ideal. I know from experience that people are not going to use public transport (which stops too early anyway) to come to Lanarkshire.

Unfortunately, I think that you'd be limited to trying to attract a local crowd and again, unfortunately a decent sized (regular) Hamilton crowd has never materialised in the past.

Previous Hamilton gigs relied on well known established bands to bring in some people from elsewhere and there are quite a few recent examples of venues in Lanarkshire struggling despite quite a substantial sum invested in promotion.

It's definately a difficult situation and I hope that you succeed but it will definately be a struggle to maintain any momentum before you run out of funding for promotion.

Best of luck!

rock_bottom

rockdeejay wrote:starting with just a good rock disco then maybe a good band once a month

I for one would support any attempt to create some sort of new rock scene and would even travel from Bathgate into Lanarkshire to give that support.

Sadly, as pointed out in the previous post, there is momentum that needs to be maintained to keep any crowd entertained and "once a month" just won't cut it I'm afraid as any publicity gained would be lost in that time.

I also have to agree with RB in the post above, a "good rock disco" and a "good band" are very different things to different people and hitting an adequate compromise is very difficult.

Nowadays, people will only venture out to see specific bands - you can advertise a "local" band until you're blue in the face but the only people who will turn up are the band's girlfriends and a couple of their mates - it doesn't matter how good they are (or how good they think they are) people want to know what they're getting before putting in any effort. This is why some of the tribute bands do so well.

That has been recently proved with Zico's in Wishaw - crowds for cover and local bands just completely fell away and the first reasonable attendance in a long while was the La Paz gig, but only because it was advertised as a Deep Purple/Rainbow tribute featuring the vocalist from Yngwie Malmsteen and Rainbow.

Even No Dice, who are certainly one of the best rock covers bands around, are now finding it hard to maintain any sort of crowds, even on a Saturday night. Things aren't helped by the management at Zico's now insisting that the band plays earlier so that they can get the "dance music" DJ on and herd the teenagers in. A load of money was spent by Zico's on attempting to create a live venue and you can also see their point in giving up when there was no local support.

That might sound a touch negative but unfortunately that's just the way things are at the moment.

I'd love to be proved wrong and I'd love to see the same attitude for "rock nights" that people had 20 years ago - but without major funding and (as RB said) "celebrity" DJ's and "name" acts you will undoubtably struggle!

Heather

It all sounds so negative doesnt it?? But unfortunately both posts above are bang on the money and I can only agree 100%

Good Luck if you do go for it though!

heather wrote:you can advertise a "local" band until you're blue in the face but the only people who will turn up are the band's girlfriends and a couple of their mates - it doesn't matter how good they are (or how good they think they are)

This has always been the Lanarkshire way unfortunately!

Venues like the Heathery only survived because of the regular crowd - the majority of whom didn't care who was playing as it was a "social" thing back then and everybody went there on a Saturday night no matter what.

The Heathery's also one of those venues that seems to be looked back on with a very rose-tinted vision, but in reality most of the unknown bands either got a very hostile reception or were just ignored completely.

It was however the longest running Lanarkshire rock venue and it had no competition whatsoever!

big fergy

Agent Smith wrote:It all sounds so negative doesnt it?? But unfortunately both posts above are bang on the money and I can only agree 100%

Have to agree as well!

The days of the local rock night have sadly long gone.

Only the dodgy "sponsorship" from Tennent's and the like kept most of these things going.

Most of the kids nowadays feel that they have to travel into Glasgow or they're not actually part of the "real" rock scene - although as I'm sure most people are aware there's never been an actual rock scene on Glasgow since the days of Shadows, the Venue, the Doune, the Dial Inn and all the others.

The Cathouse and Rockers etc just don't have the staff or the facilities to compete (though who they're competing with I don't actually know) and they (especially the Cathouse) seem desperate to get you back out the door as soon as any bands etc are finished.

Sad but true!

rb