Ryan's Gig Guide - June 2018

Balaban & The Bald Illeagles @The Cavendish Arms, London 18th May Did anyone invite Fido to the Facebook event? An insight into seeing a local band playing London. By Fat BlokeWith No Tattoos Question: "If I managed to swing a LONDON gig, you reckon you'd come?" ..."I have to be able to guarantee I could sell at least 15 tickets before they'll book us" Normally, my response to such a question would involve sucking air in through my teeth before be- moaning a lack of funds for a trip to London that, due to an irrational fear of driving to places I don't know, would involve an expensive train journey and an overnight stay. But that question had been posed by Ross Hadlington, singer & guitarist of local three-piece Balaban &The Bald Illeagles (or BATBI for lazy typists) a band whose music I'd fallen in love with in the past couple of years since their formation.The demise of Ross's former band, the raucous Miss Haliwell, saw BATBI emerge with an "indie-gloom" sound ...is that a genre? ...it is now, which, I've previously compared to QOTSA & Joy Division, so as a fan and someone who has been lucky enough to be on the same bill as BATBI, I was eager to commit to supporting this proposition. A gig was confirmed, taking place in May at The Cavendish Arms - dubbed "The Cav Club", a pub just south of the river inVauxhall.The promoter was Ab- sent Kelly. "Woahhhhh, it's a scam!", I imagine the band members among you cry.The practices of some gig promoters are often questioned when bands are asked to commit to a minimum ticket sale, with phrases like "don't pay to play" often mentioned. I'm not interested in demonising anyone. I'll leave that up to the keyboard warriors & outspoken commentators.As far as I'm concerned, if a band with a small, but loyal, following, wants a London gig and is happy with the terms of- fered, then why the hell not have a go? I took the day off work so I could travel down during the day, thus avoiding the mentalness of catching rush hour trains into, then out of BirminghamThe line-up saw my beloved BATBI opening proceedings, followed by a Norwegian band, a Suffolk band, another from Miami then the headliners who also turned out to be a Birmingham band. Getting people to come to even local gigs these days is like pulling teeth but BATBI had managed to fulfill their ticket obligations though I did begin to wonder whether a line-up of such mixed ori- gins, would be able to pull enough people in to fill the room. BATBI performed fantastically & it was possibly the best performance that I & their following have seen from them so far - they really did their bit. The sound in the small room was superbly setup for all the bands.The BATBI following had a great time, wit- nessed their band reach another level in performance and hopefully impress some new people. Bands/people are different, they have different expecta- tions of how they should be treated but if these kind of gigs meet a bands' realistic expectations, as this one did, then great. If not, then it's up to you to learn what you can from them. As for the promoters, it seems that there had been no local push to advertise the gig, nobody saw any posters in the local area, not even a sign on the street outside the pub to catch any passing trade and seemingly only token social-media sharing by the promoter, it really was an audience of whoever these out of town (and country!) bands, brought with them.After the fact, looking up what 'Absent Kelly Presents' 'present' about themselves, the write-up on their Facebook page says: "Playing local up and coming unsigned act from the London area to 3 men and a dog.. Luckly the dog was very popular and soon all Fido's friend started to come to see the bands" ...I do wonder if nowadays they are taking both audiences and bands for granted and forgot to invite Fido and his mates. www.ryansgigguide.com rgg June 2018 21