And Another One
Good gigs seem to be coming one after another at the moment. In this case from an unexpected place. Whenever we get offered a one-off gig at a bar as a “trial”, I always get a slight feeling of depression. Usually because you know the pay is going to be rubbish. A lot of these trial gigs never amount to much. It’s as if the venue are desperate for a band to fill a slot but don’t have the budget.
When I got a call saying we’re playing at Primo bar in the centre of London, I felt a double dose of misery. Not only for the above reasons, but because travelling into London as a band is always a massive pain. It takes ages to get there, there’s nowhere to park for unloading, there’s nowhere to park during the gig, it takes another year to get out of the place after the performance and then two weeks later you get a letter for some sort of traffic violation, usually costing most of the gig fee.
Because our drummer on this gig doesn’t live in England, it meant we had to take a car in to the city to transport the drum kit. And as our singer’s car had a flat tire that meant I was the one to have to do it. After a three and a half hour drive down from the North on the same day.
The trip was eventful as I nearly had multiple accidents (none of which were my fault!), including running over an Asian tourist on the Abbey road crossing, and nearly killing a couple that decided to walk over a crossing when their light was on red. But I’ll be damned if I’m stopping in a box for anyone.
I know musicians in general are quite stingy because most are constantly broke. When doing gigs in London, I’ve never understood why people want to drive around for an age around back streets, looking for free parking. Before we took the gig, we’d heard from others that had played here before that logistically, Primo bar is a nightmare. Only it doesn’t have to be if you’re prepared to spend £8. After unloading outside the venue, I parked the car at Westminster Q Park. They’re normally expensive but I like them as they’re secure and 24 hours. Night parking from 6pm until 2am cost £8 and is a ten to fifteen minute walk back to any venue around the area. I recommend everyone to do this as it’s cheap and so much less stressful.
As for the venue itself, it’s a typical hotel bar with a stage. Nice enough though. We were given drinks vouchers on arrival, two soft and two alcoholic drinks each. Food was also included although because it was a Saturday, bands aren’t served in the restaurant since it’s busy. The contract said food would be served at the bar but as it turned out, it was literally just served there. We had to collect our food and go on a five minute walk into the bowels of the building to the staff canteen. A bit weird. And the food wasn’t great, dry chicken breast and chips with a pokey salad and some sauces. But still, it’s better than a lot of venues.
Not great. However it did do a good job of stopping the free beers going straight to my head.
As well as hearing how bad the venue is to get gear to, we had also been told the gig itself was not great. That it was always quiet and that the audience never really get into it. This always annoys me a bit. Too many musicians always blame the venue if it’s not what they were expecting. I’ve been on many gigs where the crowd isn’t in to it. Sometimes it is the audience’s fault if they are utterly dull people but more often than not, it’s the bands problem. The musicians who had mentioned these things to us were quite heavily into jazz so that explained it. We had a great gig that night with the whole room being full, staying through all three 40 minute sets and asking for requests that were actually good! All the staff were great and it turned out to be one of the more enjoyable gigs I’ve ever done. Totally not what I expected.
So if you get offered a gig here, should you take it? In my opinion it’s an easy yes. Use the Q Park to avoid stress, make use of the drinks vouchers and if it’s a Saturday night, there should be a decent crowd. Now I’m just hoping this was an actual trial gig as not only did the management seem to really like us, I wouldn’t mind going back there regularly.
If any of the above was helpful in anyway, feel free to repay me by visiting my Clickasnap page here! Look at as many of my photos as possible as I get a very, very small cut of the ad revenue per view that’s longer than 5 seconds. Then maybe next time I don’t have to rely on free drinks tokens and can have an extra beer.
