The gig venue that rocks – our own backyard
Sick of the bar scene? A growing number of music fans host concerts at home, writes
ON SATURDAY afternoons, Murray Aitken can be found setting up rows of chairs in his living room, putting a batch of cheese rolls in the oven and whipping up some guacamole.
He is preparing to host a concert at his home in Khandallah, Wellington.
Aitken, who works in marketing, is one of a growing number of Kiwi music fans who are fed up with the bar scene – and instead, they are bringing musicians into their own homes.
House concerts are around New Zealand.
Aitken thinks he was one of the first regular hosts when he started in 2010. Now, he says, there are regular events in Napier, Rotorua, Inglewood, and Wairarapa.
‘‘The big feature of house concerts is that people are there to listen to the music. It’s not like in a bar or cafe where they’re coming there to socialise and the music is in the background,’’ Aitken says.
They are easily organised. He just books the act, sends around an invite to regular attendees, and charges $20 on the door.
When his living room is packed with 40 people, artists can leave with $600 for their evening’s work – more than many bars pay.
Simon Burt and his wife Philippa Steel started hosting concerts in 2010 at their house in the countryside near Carterton, after tiring of events where no one cared about the music.
‘‘I got fed up with going to
taking
off
listen to acoustic artists, mostly, who would just get buried in the chatter and . . . bottle-throwing of the bars and most of the venues,’’ Burt says.
Hospitality New Zealand chief executive Bruce Robertson doubts the trend is a threat to pub music.
‘‘There’s been a very long tradition of a close relationship, and we certainly wouldn’t want to see that go. And to be blunt I can’t see it going.’’
But management consultant Karen Clarke, who runs a side business brokering bands to play house concerts, says it’s harder now for pubs and bars to make music pay.
She encourages anyone organising a gathering to consider adding music.
In Christchurch, musician Paul Seymour, who describes himself as ‘‘an old rocker from way back’’, is trying to build up a circuit of houses around the city.
He says that in his experience, this offers a better environment than bars for music appreciation.
‘‘[ Playing bars] is very souldestroying, because you’re playing the same tired old cover songs to people who are really only up dancing to it or listening to it because it reminds them of their past. They’re not really listening to you, it’s like they’re listening to a jukebox.
‘‘ The house says a word.
‘‘They sit . . . and applaud after every song. It’s just so gratifying, it’s just wonderful.’’
concerts,
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