Can we make a living from prog?

harmonium.ro wrote: Good article: http://oneworkingmusician.com/what-it-really-means-to-be-a-working-musician Unfortunately it only applies to well-developed Western countries, but still.

Cripes! $1000-$3000 for a band to play at a wedding ... I'll give my daughter $3000 to elope.

clarkpegasus4001 wrote: I have been told that the Yes tribute band called Fragile are very good, I must try to get to see them.

I have been told that the Yes tribute band called Fragile are very good, I must try to get to see them.

Vibrationbaby wrote: Funny CSTAK3 mentions The Musical Box from my hometown, Montréal. I've seen them twice and concur that I would rather see these guys rather than the real Genesis. I saw them do Foxtrot & Trick Of The Tail and the guy who did Philly was very convincing. Philly even sat in with them once and said afterwards that they played the material better than Genesis were playing it. I think hackett also played Firth Of Fifth with them at The Royal Albert Hall once. What's so great about these re-enactments is that they often play at venues that are more intimate. Genesis' early shows were presented in small theatres so this is something you won't see the real Genesis do ever again. I sawthem at the big O in front of 60,000 people and the whole thing was a monumental catastrophe. Atrocious.

I saw them last summer at Bluesfest in Ottawa and they were outstanding. They had a pretty decent crowd too. Plus, the lead singer even looked a little bit like Phil Collins from the 70's with his beard.

ATTW3 is great!!! I'd wager audiences would actually like that.

no.

I'm not a big fan of Genesis but I thought The Musical Box were great because they were recreating what Genesis used to be. The performances of older songs during the actual '07 Genesis concert at the Olympic Stadium were dissapointing and it seemed that all they wanted to do was the newer crap. When Musical Box start doing And Then There Were Three that's when I stop going. It would be a cover band selling out ! I'll actually go and see Trick Of The Tail again. They have a smaller more intimate theatre in The Bell Centre which is where Musical Box always play.

You couldn't get away with playing Revealing Science Of God in a bar in Montréal. It would be empty. Seriously. There's only crappy Indie bands metal bands as far as bars go Only saw Yes once on the 90125 tour. Almost saw them in Calgary Alberta but the promoter cancelled the show because of sales. I actually called the guy to find out why. He told me that he had just lost his shirt on an ELP concert where he had to comp a few hundered tickets to make it look like there were people in the audience and wasn't about to lose it again !. I think it was the Black Moon tour.

Even if I could make a living off of what I play I wouldn't want to.  Too much work and much more fun as a hobby.

Dean wrote: AllP0werToSlaves wrote: It's really tricky trying to make money from the actual MUSIC beyond live shows and selling merch, but if you play out a lot and have a decent sized following, you can make quite a bit (if no one is taking a cut, that is!). ...but can you live off those earnings without supplementing it with secondary income (a full-time/part-time non music job)?   i.e. can it support a band of five members like the calculation Gerinski showed on page 1? (€2,000 is $2700) - even with four members I think not - that would be $2700 a week or $10,800 a month - which is a lot of gigs and a lot of merchandise. As has already been noted in other threads, no one is living in a Prog happy town or city - even here in the UK where distances between towns are shorter and the towns themselves are larger than the USA, 100-200 people at a Prog gig is pretty average.

Edited by AllP0werToSlaves - February 18 2011 at 16:57