Is this irony?

I haven’t had my coffee yet this morning so beware.

I have been doing gigs in Sydney Australia for the last 18 years and for the first 10 years most of them have been what they call “door deals”.

There would be 3-4 acts playing and the fans of those artists pay a cover charge at the “door” to come and support their artist. One of the staff of the venue or friends of the acts would take the money at the door and at the end of the night the money firstly paid the sound engineer and then was split evenly amongst each act (usually enough for a few beers).

On the weekend I was asked to do one of these shows which I haven’t done for a long time and only because it was friends of mine that where organising it agreed at the knowledge I probably wouldn’t see any money and would lose money in additional expenses like fuel, parking and paying for my preferred guitarist. It was very professional with a house band a venue manager and sound engineer.

The gig went quite well with the room being at around 75% capacity and everyone seemed very happy.

I got a facebook message the next day from one of the house band commending me on my performance and how cool it is that he’s getting paid. Then it dawned on me…

After the house band, sound engineer and “venue manager” get paid there will be extremely slim pickings for the artists even after a successful show. 

So finally my point is isn’t it ironic how everyone else gets paid before the artist even though their wouldn’t be any revenue if it wasn’t for the artist. Jeez, if only the fans knew where their money was going.

Just having a typical Muso winge 😉