The recession is certainly hitting live music in London as well. Small venues are closing shop all over the capital.
Here’s what my band has been through:
- Lost our residency at The Dry Bar. Venue closed back in December 2008 as it wasn’t churning out enough profit to be sustainable.
- Luna Lounge in Leytonstone. A small local venue, which was only operating for about a year. Closed down last month. Talking about Leytonstone, The Loaded Dog was an old and established venue. That too was shut down 3 months ago.
- Bedford Park in Streatham. A total crime that this small metal and rock has shut shop. The venue is going to be turned into some sort of bistro. How sad.
On the one hand this seems like a slow decay of small scale rock ‘n roll but then again you could argue that the venues that are left will revive it.
But no doubt there are always new venues and promoters popping up, and you can always make the best of a bad situation.
On this note, I will highly recommend gigging with Crucial Music. We’ve gigged with them for over two years now; great promoter, great sound engineer and all round fun. They usually have backline at their central London venues.
Unlike some promoters they don’t ask you to bring a billion fans either. I could start a rant purely on the pressure to bring a billion fans, but I’ll save that for another post 🙂
Has your band suffered as well because of venues closing down? Do you know of other venues that have closed shop?
Leave a comment down here on your thoughts.
Rock Bands in London 