picture above does not represent the only audience who should heed this message.
Howdy,
With #Occupy [insert city here] being all the rage recently, an interesting image came across my path, one both lampooning the #Occupy craze and also bringing up an important point:
People need to go to local shows more often. No, seriously.
I've been fortunate to see/hear a couple live acts in the past 2 months, such as Mojo Kick, The Brinks, Like Beasts, Comrades, World In Arms, 3MF and others. For what I paid to get into these shows, I got a lot more than what I paid for. CDs, merch, experiences, new friends, great photos (another story for another time), all things I left with.
And I left with one more thought on those nights: Shows like these deserve more attention.
While many don't attend to varying reasons (lack of interest/time conflicts/the band sucks), and some of them are with merit, let's kick the ballistics here: time after time, you're at home, doing nothing, wondering "man, i'm bored." Let's look at it further: you want to go out, get away from home for a night, be social and all that...and yet you have no initiative.
How do you fix this? You get edgy. You do some digging, realize friends are playing a show at a local bar, take those 10 dollars you would've spent on something lesser (beer/cigs/chips/some bad movie/"adult entertainment") and hand them to the guy at the door looking for ID.
I can't stress how awesome and how much fun you can have by being in the live show scene, especially the local ones near you. You meet people, see bands you would never imagine, hear songs you normally don't hear, get music you never would've been exposed to, and did I mention meet people in bands?
It's happened. I've met quite a few talented band members, such as the lead vocalist of Static Electric, all of Mojo Kick, some of the musicians in Like Beasts, World In Arms and others. That's another reason why the local scene is awesome beyond belief: everyone's down to earth and approachable. No one's got the ego that makes the big guys so uncool to hang with, because they too work the 9-5 jobs, go to the same schools, ride the same trains...wait a minute.
In a way, these musicians and others like them are just as similar as the fans themselves, they were fans who got their flames sparked by seeing/hearing live music, among other things and they chased it. What's my point?
Well, go to a live show and see. You never know, chasing a dream you have may start with one experience at a small local gig, whether it's in a small basement somewhere in the city, a converted VFW hall, a church on loan for the night, or a local bar.
Just give it a chance. That's all they want, give it to them.
This was the Ill Opinion. Stay gold.
