THE RECENTLY ADDED

Shows, Shows, and More Shows - The Over Saturated Fall Touring Season of 2015


   As this blog  started to grow from just minor rantings about new albums I purchased from the Deathwish catalogue on weekly basis, to consistent up keeps of weekly new releases, I kept on thinking of what else to include. Obviously, the art was really important. Half of this was just being able to recover from Apple getting rid of the cover flow altogether and me just seeing the little jpegs in my Instagram profile neatly collected as I posted a photo of each album I wrote about. I then thought it'd be cool to review some of the shows I go to, as they very frequently have everything to do with the albums I review and I've always been a fan of modern rock art.
   So it was written! I started to write about only the best albums I found instead of just writing about everything that was coming out. Because let's face it, there's just too much stuff out there to even bother with anything but the best, because even the best is a saturated market. I just recently started adding the flyers to upcoming tours that I think are worthy of enough praise to report them here from other avenues of the web. Although AP and many other music blogs do the same, I sometimes filter what they're presenting to me, and I find myself to be a niche market. Sure AP wrote about the new Four Year Strong tour, but they also highlighted Aerosmith and Katy Perry. The exclusivity of what I choose to highlight makes this experience different for me and hopefully I can soon get feedback from visitors to the site on what content they find more appealing.
   As I started to look for the flyers for the respective tour packages and going down my calendar to identify crucial scene highlights, I had to stop after five solid packages. I realized there are just so many coming around that I felt it was necessary to point out the saturation in the market. It was nice highlighting a few awesome bills, but then there were just so many on the same date I realized I couldn't even highlight all of them. If the purpose of this blog was to write about these shows that come through town, I would need to hire three more people so they could be at the different shows that were all playing the same night.
   The bottom three on the photo are all coming to New York City on the same night. I couldn't locate a Blur flyer for their upcoming gig at the garden, but was blown away that was even still happening. Again, on the same night!
   These aren't tiny bars they're playing. Aside from The Acheron where Cult Leader is playing, Gramercy Theatre, Iriving Plaza, and especially MDG are no joke and I want to be at all three!  
   How can I support all these bands on the same night? Blur never tours, you just simply can't miss that. But then again, my girl loves Secrets and I'm a huge fan of Chelsea Grin and their live show. But what about Citizen catching their big break with Circa Survive at Best Buy theatre? I definitely want to be there for that as every time they've come through town  it was through the mediocre sounds of the PA at the Studio at Webster Hall. Surely their set at Best Buy Theatre couldn't compare. Or what about Comeback Kid the next night? I can't miss that either.
   The scene complains that no one pays for things, and claims that shows can't be bootlegged like albums can, but how am I supposed to manage all these shows? Especially when it isn't physically possible to be at four places at once? I picked up tickets to Acacia Strain, Parkway Drive, Four Year Strong, Bring Me The Horizon, The Story So Far and I'm still feeling out of the loop! Who's going to have any money for anyone for the holidays? I'm sure these guys want to sell us some merch then too!
   It's an overall bombardment and these bands should be lucky there's any draw to their shows at all. There's so much to choose from even at the headliner level (Korn and Suicide Silence are playing at Irving Plaza the same night as Bring Me The Horizon is playing at Terminal 5 in NYC in October) that there should no longer even be an expectation for advancement. 
   In my opinion, the way out is through. Stay regional, invest in the production and make enough noise for people to make the effort to come to you. That's the future. Meshuggah has done something special in that they very rarely tour the U.S. and explode when they come to town. Trent Reznor has done the same with Nine Inch Nails for years. What about those jumbo festivals like Hellfest in France and Download in the U.K.? People wonder why we don't have festivals like that in the U.S. and why Mayhem Fest practically flipped on its head in 2015. It's because a week after Mayhem passed through town, Slipknot, Lamb of God and Motionless In White came through the same venue!
   In order for there to be a mass appeal, there needs to be strategic marketing. The best way to put it is if you put Mom's secret Raspberry cheesecake in a buffet along the millions of chocolate fountains, the likelihood of it getting overlooked are very high. Someone may take a slice and tell a couple other people how good it is, but someone might knock into it while trying to get another piece of pie and it might be crumbs on the floor before anyone else even gets a chance to take a bite. 


(do these tour managers have the same internet we do?)

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