As I’m sure you are all aware, it’s Independent Venue Week. What, you missed the extensive press coverage on this annual event? Well, ok, it’s not as if it’s Record Store Day.
Except it is. Vinyl may be swapped for sticky floorboards, but it’s an attempt to gather together en-masse all members of a very underground movement, in the hope that will garner press coverage impossible on their own. A bit like Sugababes, only in plaid shirts.
But unlike RSD, which sees pretty much every shop in the country jump on the bandwagon to pimp releases by the biggest and frankly least ‘independent’ acts, IVW seems to be lacking big names. Wolf Alice are the ‘ambassadors’ for the event – a good choice in that they’re fairly grass roots compared to, say, vinyl re-release perennials REM. However, the London alt.rock quartet aren’t exactly going to get coverage in the Daily Mail.
But why should Independent Venue Week matter anyway? Well, put simply, your big bands weren’t always big bands. The way it works (unless a Simon Cowell shortcut is employed) – bands play wee venues, make mistakes, lose money, and those not cut adrift on a sea of bodily
fluids (tears and sweat,
mostly) come out the other end a better, if slightly battered, musical being. Everyone from Ed Sheeran to Annie Lennox has paid their dues or paid to play (although Adele, having studied at the Brit School, got a note excusing her from gigging at Deptford Abyss, while The Feeling hid in the stationery cupboard).
Even your more bog-standard formerly-indie bands like Coldplay and U2 came through what we not-so affectionately call the toilet circuit – those slightly dodgy pubs and clubs that form the backbone of the scene, offering comradely support and six cans of
lager to bands big or small.
However, there are some notable omissions from the list of participating venues. Maybe it’s a fear of overkill. After all, we seem to have a day and a week for everything. Breakfast week. Hug a Ginger Day. Cassette Store Day’s in October, and Record Store Day’s in April. National 8-track Month is just before the MiniDisc Weekender.
It may simply be that IVW is taking time to bed in – there are only nine venues in Scotland taking part, with a solitary one in Ulster. There are 30 in London, which sounds a lot, but London’s a big place. And quite who is on the list is another matter – Earls Court and Wembley seem to be missing. But there are between 50 and 100 smallish venues in the capital.
However, London has, we’re told, lost 30 per cent of its live music venues in the past eight years. That is also a lot.
But venues around the country vanish every week, without even a blue plaque to mark their passing. The few that last more than a couple of decades have a rich history with world-famous acts striding their stages long before stardom beckoned.
The Hare and Hounds in Birmingham staged the first UB40 show, Sheffield’s Leadmill was a stage for Pulp and Arctic Monkeys. London’s Dublin Castle spawned Madness, while the 100 Club in London hosted early shows by The Clash and Sex Pistols – who also pitched up at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall, a decade after ‘Judas’ Dylan went electric there. All are still open (at time of writing).
Of course, by the time you read this, Independent Venue Week will be over for another year, with punters going back to their Jessie J downloads and watching The Voice.
Apart from those hardy veterans who fight for their right to wade through rivers of flat lager and watch their heroes up close and personal.
For them, every week is Indie Venue Week.
