Playing gigs for a cause

Last week we were lucky enough to get invited to the Circa Waves sold out show at The Brixton Academy in London.
It was funny, managed to blag way into backstage VIP bar and bumped into bass player Sam on the stairs, pointed out that it must have been only a year since me and Niall were moshing down the front of their gig at The Lexington and now here they were headlining Brixton Academy. Circa Waves are definitely a band on our 'want to support' list and they also had a great line up with Clean Cut Kid opening and Rat Boy doing a cracking set in the middle. Since then we've been having a bit of banter with Clean Cut Kid on Twitter, very funny in typical scouse fashion.

For us the live shows Sisteray are playing are the best and most important thing at the moment, especially when we see more people at gigs and the same people keep coming back for more. This blog is our Road To Reading (2016) but if don't cut the mustard when we get there then it would all be a waste of time now, wouldn't it?

Away from the heights of The Brixton Academy, I'd like to tell you a story before I get to the point of this post and also to say our last couple of gigs (and next one) have been for charity or good cause events and everyone has been an absolute joy to play and work with and the gigs themselves have been mental. Anyway, back to the story....
A few weeks ago we played a 'named' club in London. The promoter/venue contacted us (not the other way round) - "we'd love Sisteray to play our club night". It fitted into our schedule (we like to keep a bit of space between London gigs) and immediately we checked we were all free and said 'yes'. To be honest, when you're a band in our position, trying to build an audience and get attention, if a gig seems right we'll do it, what we might get paid is down to the nature of the promoter. Anyways, once 'the deal' came through a couple of weeks later, it said we were part of a four band line-up and the financial deal was, it was a fiver to get in and we were informed that for everyone who came in specifically to see us over 30 people (to cover costs) - we would be paid a quid per person.

So we played this thing (quite a good gig from our point of view) and when push came to shove and time to settle at the end of the evening, the person looking after things had it all scribbled down - 44 people who came through the door were sober enough (we were on late) or could be bothered to say they had come to see us, 28 had come to see one of the other bands (so they got nothing for their trouble at the end of the evening) and one of the other bands were having a dispute about whether they had brought in 25 or 34 people (don't know the details). Now what usually happens is, after a gig (if you remember, or if our manager's there) you go and 'settle up' - so on this occasion they had our £14 waiting for us... a tenner and four pound coins for your trouble.
Remember - band one had 28 people - band two (let's go on their minimum = 26) and us 44 - makes a grand total of money taken on door (to cover expenses ) £490 - the fact that there's a BAR there and loads of people are buying drinks seems more often than not, to get lost in these equations. So the band trying to make a case for having brought 34 and get paid £4 against the promoter's rep who was insisting that they weren't due £4 - they made the proposal that as in that particular venue four quid wouldn't buy them a pint - perhaps they could have vouchers or something similar for a pint, or perish the thought two, instead - not going to finish the story you can use your moral compass to work out your own ending - it can't be more ridiculous than the truth!

Dan / Mike @ Hope Fest

Sisteray's main priority at the moment is to secure a good booking agent and promoter who will hopefully make things like this just that little bit easier. Roll on December 3rd @ The Black Heart, Camden. Anyway, you might be surprised to hear the point of this post is a positive one and to say on the other side of the coin, what a pleasure it has been to do the kind of gigs we have been doing recently which have been charity or 'cause' based, including the gig for Oxjam coming up on Saturday. Whereas you sometimes you feel as if you are doing a promoter a favour on normal gigs, some of which are virtually pay to play in disguise, when people are organising a gig for a good cause, they tend to have much more respect for the bands - not sure that we're even looking for respect but it's nice to get it. We played Hope Fest in Liverpool, where the whole event was geared up to helping Liverpool's homeless, Anna and the team running it were amazing, looked after us, gave us something to eat, a few beers, there was an up for it crowd, great reaction and we even got a thank you at the end.

Then a couple of weeks ago, we heard about the We Shall Overcome weekend - a weekend of live music and anti austerity events. We wanted to get involved as anyone knows us it's an issue close to our hearts so we asked the promoter of our gig that weekend and We Shall Overcome if we could be part of it, thank you very much. And you know what, it made the whole thing a much better experience - next year we will definitely be getting behind a planned We Shall Overcome and big shout out to the people behind it, you could feel the strength of feeling and involvement leading up to it.

And Saturday (17th Oct) Sisteray are proud to be part of Oxjam Islington again (we played last year and it was a blast), events going off all over the country for a very good cause indeed. Again, the build up is great, everyone getting along and the only expectations will be, everyone pulling together for a good cause, while we can still create malarky, palaver and mayhem at our gig - it's at The Library Bar on Upper Street in Islington by the way. We're on at 9.30pm and no doubt we'll knocking about round the other gigs during the day, especially The Hope And Anchor before ours. There's been a great reaction to our first mix of 'A Wise Man Said' so here's a chance to come and sing along.