Week 7 - Melbourne music city

So it's week 7 and over the course of this Trimester we have been working on a podcast that demonstrates what an amazing music city Melbourne is. For this Podcast we chose to focus on local free live music gigs, by talking about the various venues that frequently have free live gigs, and how that contributes to the scene.

I thought i'd spend this Blog talking about my own opinions of the Music scene in Melbourne, along with a bit of research i've done for the podcast. Having come from the Music scene in Perth, i was incredibly excited to come get amongst Melbourne. Perth has like 4-5 good venues that have regular gigs. Enter Melbourne and theres some 465 Live venues(2012 Victorian live Music Census) and thats an extreme amount more live venues.

I moved over here about a year and a half ago, into Fitzroy, and have attended local gigs at least once a week since then. I mostly frequent venues in FItzroy, as the gigs on at the Tote, Bendigo, Old Bar, etc. are the type of music that i'm most interested in. I can safely say there is a huge amount of shows on, with heaps of different bands getting their music out there. However i found that to be a sort of double edged sword, in a sense that there is a degree of quantity over quality in Melbourne. So many venues and so many different gigs to play, means so many bands.

Don't get me wrong, i've seen amazing bands play shows in my time in Melbourne, and the culture is so eclectic, that you find so many crossovers in genres, and a lot of cool different music going around. But you have to sift through so many bands playing the same thing as each other, to find these gems. Backtrack to Perth, and while you literally couldn't go to a gig every week, because chances are there wasn't a relevant one on, but you when there was i can guarantee every band on the bill was pulling their weight.

It was almost like the bar is higher in Perth, and you don't start playing shows until your show is worthy of the other bands playing, and since the other bands are always quite a high pedigree, you're forced to master your songs and set before heading out to play shows.

In conclusion, i think that the music scene in Melbourne is amazing, i think there are such a wide range of venues, and an incredibly open and passionate audience, but it's a fine line from becoming oversaturated. To the point where i don't really just go to random gigs anymore because i've been let down by quite a few. There is no denying how much Melbourne loves music though, and i wouldn't change it at all.