I AM the bassist from a punk band. We come from the town, we practise in the town...but we hardly ever play in the town.
Why you may ask? Quite simply – St Helens has limited opportunities for young bands playing their own original music. If you take a walk down Duke Street or Westfield Street and a band is playing; 99per cent of the time it will be a covers band.
That is fine, it’s what brings the people and money in.
However, young bands with original music have to go elsewhere. My band Last Reserves have played across the UK in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Leicester and London.
However, we struggle to find a chance to play our material in our home town.
We aren’t alone, so we teamed up with three other St Helens bands and decided we to organise a gig in the town to play our material. However, after to speaking to quite a lot of venues, we could not find one.
Nearly all the venues were happy for us to play...provided we play a two hour covers set.
Not ideal. Step forward, Tank bar on Westfield Street. So on Friday, August18 the gig shall take place.
Matthew, Last Reserves
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