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Gigs in the towns near aberdeen?


Revel78

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Ok, I am not actually from Aberdeen but have lived here ten years. I know a little about some of the towns near here, but not in terms of live music scene. Is it worth trying to gig in any of the following places, and if so, could anyone tell me the best places? We are a band that does our own material, so not really suitable for places that want a singalong covers band.

Stoney

Ellon

Portlethan

Peterhead

Inverurie

Keith

Huntly

Montrose

Forfar

Arbroath

Dundee

Perth.

Thanks, Paul.

REBELROULETTE

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Guest idol_wild
At the risk of being a touch negative, you can pretty much forget Stonehaven and Montrose (apart from the Music Festival) unless you play covers or happen to be a painting by numbers indie band, and you can pretty much forget Portlethen altogether.....

I once considered putting a gig on at the Jubilee Hall in Portlethen but I knew it'd be a bad idea. Too many little cunts would turn up and cause trouble. Not much different from most of my gigs, you may argue, but at least they weren't little Portlethen cunts.

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We've run a number of shows in Peterhead over the last year under the 'Shmeet the Beat' banner, relatively sucessfully as well, with Minnaars (Leicester band played Reading and Leeds last year) headlining our last club night last month. Our next event will be the May Day Super SUnday, have 12 acts appearing in an all-day event in Mambos.

I'm sure those who have played will testify that its a well run event with a fairly good vibe and decent turnout as well. Local acts who have appeared include: Stanley, Cast of the Capital, Steve Milne, In Atlanta, Free Korps, Velvet Audio.

Shmeet Myspace

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The only 'music scene' in Inverurie is the covers band circuit!

The Black Bull pub do music nights where people play their own stuff, however its always shite! I hear it from my bedroom actually, it's usually all shite! The punters come outside with the "party" when that happens actually! Aye dead scene actually!

4 X actually + 2 x shite = Don't bother

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Guest Gladstone

I'm pretty sure that I (and another guy from New Deer) will be putting on gigs now and again in New Deer (a mile from the Wizard Festival site). I put on a fundraiser at the public hall last year, and it was a great success - we sold 180ish tickets at 8 a go for a 200 capacity venue. It was a cracking night all round.

I'm not stupid enough to think we could do that regularly, and especially if it wasn't for charity - we had an army of playgroup mums selling tickets!!

We're probably putting a blues night on in June, with a couple of local blues acts semi-confirmed for it. We'll see how that goes, but I think the plan will be every 2/3 months to put a gig on - I'll be in charge of indie / rock type gigs, and the other guy in charge of blues nights.

There's absolutely fuck all else to do in New Deer ever, so I think we could make it relatively successful!

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Unless you play in a standard pub cover band. I think it will be the same deal for Stonehaven and it's surrounding towns & villages.

Yeah, pretty much this: the yokels tend to enjoy getting pished in the local hotel listening to a live band running through 'TEH CHEEZIEST PARTAAY ALBHUM IVIR' in full than your experimental post-ambient-noise-drone outfit, such is life.

Worst one I ever saw was in the Cutty Sark about two years ago, they were absolutely ding, and their (badly out of tune) take on Teenage Kicks still gives me nightmares....

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Ellon has NO music scene... the most that goes on here is the local music lesson placey puts on a monthly show in the station hotel to give kids their first chance to play live for friends and family.

Man, things have well changed then.

I think if the gigs are well enough advertised locally (bit of fly posting etc) then people will turn up no matter what.

If you're worried about the type of person attending the gigs then you may need to examine whether you feel your ends justify your means. Small towns generally nearly always have the local gang wandering about terrorizing the local 14-30 year old male populations. They will turn up to your gig and, depending whether or not they like you they may or may not cause trouble.

That said, I played a good few gigs in Ellon back in the day - all were pretty well attended and we never had a problem from the Young Ellon Mentals (probably revealing my age there) who were invariably there too.

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The only 'music scene' in Inverurie is the covers band circuit!

The Black Bull pub do music nights where people play their own stuff, however its always shite! I hear it from my bedroom actually, it's usually all shite! The punters come outside with the "party" when that happens actually! Aye dead scene actually!

4 X actually + 2 x shite = Don't bother

Can you actually write a sentence without using the word actually? Actually.

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Man, things have well changed then.

I think if the gigs are well enough advertised locally (bit of fly posting etc) then people will turn up no matter what.

If you're worried about the type of person attending the gigs then you may need to examine whether you feel your ends justify your means. Small towns generally nearly always have the local gang wandering about terrorizing the local 14-30 year old male populations. They will turn up to your gig and, depending whether or not they like you they may or may not cause trouble.

That said, I played a good few gigs in Ellon back in the day - all were pretty well attended and we never had a problem from the Young Ellon Mentals (probably revealing my age there) who were invariably there too.

Do you really think people would turn up no matter what?

If i booked a venue and put on...lets take this recent gig I played in drummonds: min diesel, iname and y change costume do you think the locals will be interested?

No.

A few people from town will get the bus out, but other than that the locals would prefer to get pissed in the local ned pub (the new inn by the way, which is essentially a public toilet with a bar installed in one end).

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Thanks guys, you have saved me alot of time. I thought alot of these places might be as you described, but I didn't want to make any rash assumptions. I guess its a population thing. Only a small percentage of any town seek out new live music, so a small population can't support gigging bands. I guess its a shame for people who live there that would like to see something different.

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Do you really think people would turn up no matter what?

If i booked a venue and put on...lets take this recent gig I played in drummonds: min diesel, iname and y change costume do you think the locals will be interested?

No.

A few people from town will get the bus out, but other than that the locals would prefer to get pissed in the local ned pub (the new inn by the way, which is essentially a public toilet with a bar installed in one end).

Yes, you're pretty much spot on with your New Inn assessment.

Just out of interest how busy was the Drummonds gig?

As I said in my original post about a bit of fly-posting, if the promotion side was done properly then yeah, it would as curiosity is a powerful thing, even if just for one gig. If they thought you were gash, they probably wouldn't turn up to the next one (if you so desired to put on another one) but you'll have at least tried and possibly even made some cash for the coffers once the PA and engineer are paid for.

You're also neglecting the fact that small towns like Ellon, Peterhead, Aboyne, Kemnay, etc have the local academy with herds of kids who can't get into pubs and only get into Aberdeen at weekends but probably listen to music obsessively. If a gig was run as an over-14's, then they might just appreciate somebody taking the time to come out their neck of the woods.

It'd be a pain the tits to organise but let's face it, audiences are hard as fuck to find these days and normal gigging strategies don't work for most bands in my opinion; first few gigs great, then once excitement is over you hit a wall of steadily diminishing attendance.

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I think it depends on what kind of band you are. Were from keith so we play alot of gigs around the smaller towns, weve managed to make a bit of a reputation so people do come see us, although it is true you do have to play alot more covers but when we shove our own stuff inbetween it still seems to go down well enough. The money is good too, getting paid around 200 a gig. If your a metal band though, I just wouldnt bother playing the smaller towns. I wont name them, but a seemingly well respected and popular metal band from aberdeen played in keith last year, they cleared the place out.

All that said there is a bit of a music scene in the elgin/lossiemouth area. Theres a promotions company in elgin thats brought some big-ish names in (some ex stone roses guy or something really) but its really all indie stuff. We also played a gig in lossie town hall a few weeks ago, there were four bands and it was really well promoted, so about 200 people showed up, so aye, i dont think playing the cities is the be all and end all, there are decent places inbetween too.

Edit: The afore mentioned metal band was not enrapture, who also played keith and apparantly went down really well, I didnt go though.

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Yes, you're pretty much spot on with your New Inn assessment.

Just out of interest how busy was the Drummonds gig?

As I said in my original post about a bit of fly-posting, if the promotion side was done properly then yeah, it would as curiosity is a powerful thing, even if just for one gig. If they thought you were gash, they probably wouldn't turn up to the next one (if you so desired to put on another one) but you'll have at least tried and possibly even made some cash for the coffers once the PA and engineer are paid for.

You're also neglecting the fact that small towns like Ellon, Peterhead, Aboyne, Kemnay, etc have the local academy with herds of kids who can't get into pubs and only get into Aberdeen at weekends but probably listen to music obsessively. If a gig was run as an over-14's, then they might just appreciate somebody taking the time to come out their neck of the woods.

It'd be a pain the tits to organise but let's face it, audiences are hard as fuck to find these days and normal gigging strategies don't work for most bands in my opinion; first few gigs great, then once excitement is over you hit a wall of steadily diminishing attendance.

that drummonds gig with that line up was fairly busy.

the school kids point is a good one...but I think they'd mainly be inclined to see punk, indie that kind of thing. Don't get me wrong, not all school kids listen to the kaiser cheifs and kids in glass houses, but there wouldn't be enough secondary school kids interested in seeing some post-rock and alternative bands to merit putting on a gig.

cool thread though, interesting discussion :)

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The tolbooth in ellon used to do a band night on a tuesday, just a couple of young bands on a sortof rotation... they played a mixture of covers and their own stuff... it was free, and very poorly attended besides a handfull of friends and family members. Advertisement was perhaps not the best, just posters up in the pub.

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The tolbooth in ellon used to do a band night on a tuesday, just a couple of young bands on a sortof rotation... they played a mixture of covers and their own stuff... it was free, and very poorly attended besides a handfull of friends and family members. Advertisement was perhaps not the best, just posters up in the pub.

It was well intentioned, but logistically it wasn't going to work. Mainly because the old people and bar staff moaned about volume. If it isn't loud enough though, its shite.

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Lots of good musicians come straight outta Stoney but as far as a music scene goes, it's pretty much a write-off. Folks have tried though, and whenever shows happen at the town hall, they're packed, but they just happen so rarely. There are no real pub bands, it's mostly original material, which is pretty good.

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It was well intentioned, but logistically it wasn't going to work. Mainly because the old people and bar staff moaned about volume. If it isn't loud enough though, its shite.

Oddly enough I think the response to a band from within Ellon would be more muted than to a bunch of out-of-towners for some reason.

That said I played in a few places in Ellon now I think about it and somehow managed to avoid all the town's pubs. The BB hall (how they talked the BB people into that I'll never know for the gig was carnage), the Canteen in Ellon Academy, some place up the back of McDonald golf club that used to be a nightclub but now sells alarms. It was called Shuffles; wasn't long before some wag re-christened it Scuffles.

Also played Hatton hall, Pitmedden Hall. Basically a wee tour of village halls! All in 3 or 4 band bills and pretty well attended.

Think Euan's point about the rarity of these things is worth expanding on - I think if you have something like this once in a blue moon then you'll get the people down. Run them all the time then people'll get fed up pretty quickly, no matter how good you are.

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Good thread.

Having lived in and around Inverurie for quite some time now I've always wished that someone would make an effort to put on a regular bands night in the town. I always recognise faces when you go to see a mainstream band `in town` so maybe these folks would make an effort on their doorstep I don't know.

I saw AKA Ska and 16 Again at Premnay Village Hall, the place was packed and I think it was 6 a ticket? Really good night but with a (mainly local) audience that probably didn't expect the first bands set to send with a Dead Kennedys song. :woohoo:

Anyway, I got into looking at venues in Inverurie just after that but it just seemed like so much hassle needing equipment for the pubs, the town hall was FAR too dear, and the local village halls needed licenses for drink, door security, just everything.

Shame, as I'd really have liked to `do something` in Inverurie, even if it was just the once.

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