Day Gigs ?

[Murph]

When I was very young, in Clearwater Florida, there was an active day scene in the downtown area. It was very much a retirement area at the time, and some of the same bands that gigged the night would do day shows to fairly large crowds as I recall.

 

While some of that was going on in the Phoenix area while I was living there, I don't see it here in the Heartland much, other than festivals, BBQ's and such.

 

What about your area?

[kidblast]

afaik, nursing homes, and assisted living centers is where a lot of this stuff goes on around here. Especially around the holidays.

 

there's also chamber of commerce functions during the summer, into fall. Actually worked a few of those.

 

they pay pretty good, but usually outside, so you never can tell what the weather will be the day of the event.

[EuroAussie]

Not done one, but yes, there is a cool day gig that goes during the summer months in a bar on the river here in Prague.

[Dave F]

We recently went to Nashville. The bars there do live music 24/7.

[MorrisrownSal]

In Brooklyn and in New Jersey, there is an occasional day gig - at a Town or neighborhood festival for example - but outside that, it's all at night.

[MissouriPicker]

I play two day gigs each week. Started one at a coffeehouse that I've been playing for over 3 years now. It kind of grew. This place was always busy, but the regulars got to where they were expecting me to be there and now I know a lot of them by name, and if someone shows-up with a guitar I let them play a couple tunes. Then last June I started doing an every Friday lunchtime show at a Caribou Coffee. They pay me $25 and feed me, for two hours. After a couple months I turned it into an afternoon "open mic" show. Don't have more than 2-3 pickers come to play, but they make it so I don't have to play two full hours. I imagine a lot of these types of venues would appreciate some kind of afternoon music. Instead of buying coffee and leaving, quite a few people will sit down with their coffee, listen for a while, then buy something else before they leave. It don't hurt to go and talk with manager. The most they can say is "no." And for sure, retirement/nursing/rehab locations can be really good. Most of them are open to providing entertainment.

 

Still, the evenings and nights are when most of the music is played. There are quite a few festivals also.

[tpbiii]

We do both. The backbone of the bluegrass genre are the festivals -- the name of our band (THE NEXT BAND) is kind of a play on that fact. They usually start in the afternoon on Friday and go to maybe midnight, maybe 11 am to 12 pm on Saturday, and sometimes (less common in the South) a gospel show Sunday morning. Of course, these are also extreme jamming events where there is (acoustic) music "in mass" all day and sometimes to dawn -- it is not odd to jam 8 hours or more a day with many people when not warming up or performing.

 

In Nova Scotia in the summertime we also play at many small festivals that have "variety shows" -- if we can assemble a bluegrass band, we are usually the only one. We also play as a traditional folk duo and with pickup folk, Down East, or on country shows. These tend to be daylight affairs that sometimes extend into the night. Like y'all I guess we also do shows for seniors at their living facilities and at churches. We do one a month regularly, and a few others as they show up.

 

And we do a few (maybe a dozen a year) night time shows at bars and as concerts in concert facilities. These tend to be long (maybe three hour) events.

 

The core of bluegrass and southern highland styles are groups that improvise on the fly and make music in acoustic string bands -- small to maybe up to six or seven. That is its great appeal to us -- sort of working without a net with an ever changing cast of characters where you can use vocal, harmony, lyrics, and instrumental skills in different ways at different times -- sometimes in unique "one time" combinations. We probably play three times a week at jam sessions -- these are sometime private affairs, but often public with audiences of different sizes. With a few rare exceptions, we have lost our fascination with well rehearsed music presentations -- it is far more interesting to watch skilled musicians collaborate and create on the fly, and even more exciting to be involve in the process. So these are sort of semi-gigs, where the musician focus on each other the audience watches it happen. For example every Saturday in summer we run a jam sessions for about four hours at a farmers market. We (wife and I) can enjoy just playing together for hours, but it seldom happens for long. Someone comes also to make music with. Quality of course varies.

 

And we also have a lot of vintage acoustic instruments which flavors our ever changing musical stew. I never wrote this down before -- we seem to have a pretty cool (retirement) life.

 

Best,

 

-Tom

[blindboygrunt]

Toms day out sounds like a dream. I'd be well into that .

 

If there was day time gigs here I would seriously consider giving up my job. I would play day time gigs 7 days a week , they're a joy. No drunks , or not AS drunk . Decent bedtimes .

But unfortunately to earn a crust you have to be out among the riffraff with their dumb questions and shitty requests . I'd want mick Jagger's fee to put up with that for a living !