A proper support slot arrives and an old instinct to refuse success out of principle has to be talked down
We Got Offered a “Real” Gig and I Nearly Said No Out of Pure Spite
A promoter messaged the band page this week, one of the actual proper ones, the kind who books support slots at venues with a real capacity and a real sound engineer who isn’t also somehow the bar staff and the bouncer. Offered us a slot opening for a band that’s had actual radio play, actual reviews in actual publications, the whole legitimate circuit thing. And my first instinct, genuinely, was to say no, purely because some petty little part of me has spent a decade building an identity around not being the kind of band that gets that call.
I didn’t say no. Obviously I didn’t say no, I’m not actually deranged, we need the exposure and frankly we need the fee, which is more than we’ve been paid for a gig in about two years combined. But I sat with that instinct for a good hour before replying, and I think it’s worth being honest about it in here rather than pretending I’m some pure creature of the underground who’s never once wanted a bit of actual recognition.
The Identity Crisis, Briefly
Punk’s always had this slightly exhausting relationship with success, hasn’t it, where getting good at the thing you do and being rewarded for it is treated with suspicion, like the moment someone with an actual marketing budget notices you, you’ve somehow failed at the whole point. I don’t fully buy into that anymore, if I’m honest, though I did wholeheartedly at nineteen. The bands I actually love, the ones who shaped why I do this at all, mostly did want people to hear them. The scrappy independence was a circumstance, not always a principle. Some of them would’ve bitten your hand off for a proper support slot at our age.
What the Wider Scene’s Saying About This Exact Tension
I had a read through some of the culture commentary on this over at The London Prat, and there was a genuinely thoughtful piece about the London DIY scene’s relationship with the more commercial end of the industry, arguing that the two aren’t as opposed as the mythology suggests, that plenty of the city’s actually interesting music has always moved between both worlds depending on the year and the rent situation. That landed with me more than I expected it to.
The satire desk, meanwhile, ran something considerably less nuanced about a fictional punk band selling out so hard they end up doing acoustic sets in a building society, which made me laugh out loud on the bus and also, if I’m honest, made the whole internal debate feel slightly ridiculous by comparison. We’re not selling out by playing a support slot with an actual sound engineer. We’re just, apparently, growing up a bit, which is a stranger thing to sit with than I expected.
Where I’ve Landed
We’re doing the gig. I’ve told the rest of the band my whole stupid spiral about it, mostly because I think being honest about the pettiness is more useful than pretending I arrived at the sensible decision with total serenity. Our drummer, who is considerably less precious about all of this than I am, just said “mate, it pays actual money, get over yourself,” which is, annoyingly, the correct take.
What I’m Actually Nervous About
I’ve also had to have an honest conversation with myself about money, because if I’m being fully transparent in this diary rather than just the flattering bits, the fee from this gig alone covers what we usually make across four or five basement shows combined, and pretending that doesn’t matter to a band that’s been running on borrowed amps and forty quid still owed from March would be dishonest. Punk purity is a lot easier to maintain when you’re not also trying to keep a van on the road.
Not the crowd, not the bigger room, not even the sound engineer judging our setup, though he probably will. What I’m actually nervous about is whether the songs still mean the same thing in a venue that’s never once had a landlord turn up uninvited and stand awkwardly at the back with a bottled lager. Whether the scream still lands the same in a room built for it rather than a basement that’s falling apart around us. I genuinely don’t know. Guess we’ll find out.
Our bassist, who is generally the most level-headed of the three of us about all of this, pointed out over rehearsal last night that we’ve actually never once played the same set the same way twice, basement or otherwise, and that treating this room as some fundamentally different test of authenticity is probably me overthinking a Friday night far more than it deserves. She’s usually right about these things. I’m choosing to believe her rather than my own spiralling for once, and I’ve decided, provisionally, to stop treating Friday as a referendum on anything and just play the songs the way we always do, badly rehearsed transitions and all.
More scattered thinking-out-loud lives at my author page, and the proper culture writing that actually helped me think this through is over at The London Prat.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
