Seeing a friend of mine posting on social media yesterday about being dumped off a line-up without being told reminded me of a war story of my own. I thought I might start a little series of these, as 1) they're quite funny, and 2) burst the bubble that being in a band must be 100% fun all the time. Yeah, it's shit sometimes. Anyway, as there's a bit of downtime in satan land at the moment, here's one for you:
This was back in 2016, and the band was doing quite a bit to celebrate a new album: Blank Tape. That album had it's own war stories, lemme tell you, but that's probably for another day. Anyway, so we were asked by a very reputable London promoter to play a show supporting a fairly well known, and very critically acclaimed artist, at a pretty big venue. Of course, we were delighted and said yes. And then... nothing. Not a peep. Time (months) went by, and I thought I might as well check the listings and see if I can grab the poster to put online. But still there was nothing - just the main act listed. To see what was going on, I emailed the promoter.
"Oh yeah, sorry, just heard from [artist]'s management that they want [up-and-coming DJ/ producer] to support instead. Hope we can work something out for the future"
Yeah, cheers for that mate. I mean, if it wasn't for me being impatient and annoying, we'd probably be there on gig day, equipment in hand, being told to fuck off. Promoters: please tell bands who've been bumped by management off bills that they've been bumped by management off bills. FFS.
I heard from the promoter a few months later, asking if satan could support someone I'd never heard of for barely any money at 10 days notice. I politely declined.
Actually, this happened before - a gig in Liverpool if I remember rightly. Big band suddenly brings support act at the last minute, and I get bumped to just 'DJ' instead of 'live' on the posters. This meant I just took my laptop and played tunes in between bands. Not the worst thing in the world, but I do distinctly remember the main guy in the headline act walking up to me, half pissed, asking if he could DJ instead. You should've seen the look on my face: I was taking zero shit that night, let me tell you. I mean, he went onto work with Katy Perry, and I'm sat at a desk writing this, but whatever.
