Keep your ears Peeled at The Magnet, Liverpool on
Tuesday 19th February 2008
Lineup: KillaFlaw, Tom Young, Esa Shields, The Mong Club, The Shabangs and The Bards of New Brighton
KillaFlaw Myspace Page
Tom Young Myspace Page
Esa Shields Myspace Page
The Mong Club Myspace Page
The Shabangs Myspace Page
Having settled into the delights of Wirral, I was keen to do a night in Liverpool.
I'd joined a local poetry group, and one of the guys did a Shakespeare night in a venue called The Magnet. There wasn't much of a crowd though his promotion had mainly been through flyers on the bar, and it was a nice venue with a capacity of 300.
I spoke to the guy who runs promotions there and the hire fee was reasonable. Definitely a possibility for launching the night in Liverpool.
I decided to book it, but couldn't get hold of the guy who booked for the place (I think he was on holiday), in the meantime I found another venue in hope street between the 2 cathedrals called RoadKill which was a bit funkier and supposedly quite a busy venue with passing trade - which didn't surprise me as there is a halls of residence not too far away.
I booked Roadkill, and then the guy from the Magnet came back to me - I was going to tell him I'd already booked The Magnet, but two things had happened that day: Firstly I was having difficulty narrowing down my shortlist of bands to fit in one night, and secondly my old boss gave me the go ahead on a project that we'd been talking about for months, so I decided to do two nights.
Roadkill supplied someone to collect money on the door, so I thought I'd do a free entry night at The Magnet to maximise the crowd.
Originally The Magnet gig was meant to be on the Thursday, but at the last minute it was switched to the Tuesday. I'd checked that there were no clashes on the Thursday, but when I was told they were only doing student promotion nights on Thursdays and I had to either move it to Tuesday or forgo the night, I didn't want to cancel any of the bands I'd booked and thought I'd give it a go. But I was so busy with the reorganisation that I hadn't checked that night, and it turned out there was a big Liverpool game on TV.
In London it wouldn't really matter, there are plenty of people who love music and hate football, but in Liverpool that's not the case.
To bolster the numbers a bit I decided to have people from the poetry group pop up between bands and do a quickfire poem or comedy sketch just to do something a bit different and attract a more diverse audience.
Getting publicity in Liverpool is much easier than in London, I got mentions on the New Bands show on BBC Radio Merseyside, a plug on the Liverpool Echo music blog, local papers in Wirral, and in a student magazine.
Alas, an hour after opening there was still only a handful of people there, even one of the bands, The Mong Club didn't turn up - which was a shame as I was looking forward to them, and the other bands didn't really bring many people with them.
The poetry got a bit out of hand over running, and the few people that turned up leaving.
There were about 30 people at the end of the night, which would have been ok in a 100 capacity venue, but in a 300 capacity, it just looked empty. I felt like RayVon when I was DJing.
All in all a complete disaster as a launch of a night, and economically, but the acts who turned up were good and perhaps if it had been on the Thursday as originally intended I might have got a good crowd.
Then again I've spoken to quite a few bands who have played there to literally zero audience, and from what other promoters have said, despite it's reputation as a musical city, Liverpool is one of the hardest cities in the UK to find an audience for gigs, with many bigger bands skipping Liverpool all together knowing that the fans in Liverpool who want to see them will travel to Manchester.
The sound man at The Magnet really impressed me. At the start of the night he seemed a bit moany, but in fact not only was he could on the PA system, but he was also very good at taking charge and getting the bands on stage on time. Top bloke too.
In the taxi home I just hoped the following night would be a lot better.