A Gig on Short Notice

The following day, I drove down to the club to meet with a couple of the owners about having us back to play there. It had been six weeks since our gig with AC/DC, and I knew our track record of drawing huge crowds would give us some leverage...but I made sure I went when I knew my brother wouldn't be around to sabotage our chances. As it turned out, there was an open Thursday night on the club's calendar the following week, and although I knew Thursday night turnouts during winter could be light, I decided it was the opportunity we needed to get the band back on stage. On such short notice, there wouldn't be a lot of promotion or advertising time, and although I knew that up to that point, we had normally drawn great crowds..that had only been true if people knew we were playing. I decided that the band needed to work, and that regardless of the promotion, we would still do OK, and even if it wasn't a sellout this time...it wouldn't be a reflection on the band, as much as the timing. But I had been away for three weeks...and I found out a lot of things had changed in the six weeks since our date there with AC/DC...because the club did very little advertising for the show...only a few radio spots and some local print ads that just listed the date in a calendar of upcoming events...hardly the kind of promotion needed to bring in a crowd for an established band that was hastily booked, and with the show  just a week away. I thought the club would have invested some money to push the show...a good crowd was in their best interests financially...but as the date approached, and most people I talked with didn't even know we were playing on that night...it became very obvious that hadn't happened...and I wondered how much my brother had to do with that...I knew a light turnout would be perceived as a loss of momentum, and momentum was what had been keeping the band going...and an Avalanche that stops moving... just becomes a snowdrift...