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[eatyrspleens]

a few years ago, i saw the violent femmes for free in raleigh, north carolina. it's a small little suburban town, so every drunk idiot (and their five children) in the city went because it was free. i couldn't get close to the stage, had beer poured on me several times, and generally had a really shitty time. i mean, the band was good, but the sucky audience kind of over-powered the greatness of the music.

friday (420!) i was all down because my best friend went back to north carolina and i slept through class and i wasn't doing anything to celebrate the "holidaze". then a friend told me that spoon was playing a free show at a local college campus here in pittsburgh. my first reaction was "SPOON?! YES!" and then i thought of the one previous free show experience and got a little discouraged. it turned out not being bad at all. there were a lot of drunk college kids, but mostly everyone was into the show and the music was fantastic and it wasn't nearly anything like the free violent femmes show. i'm guessing because it was a friday night in pittsburgh, which is significantly larger than raleigh, north carolina so there is actually other shit to do. oh, and spoon played "me and the bean" and "the way we get by", which totally made me happy.

but anyway, talk about your free show experiences if there are any. the good, the bad, and everything inbetween. from speaking with other people, they seem to have such differing stances on free shows. so i'd like to hear yours!

[a pack of wolves]

A few years back some people I know squatted a pub in Manchester. It was a great building and the bar area was still in good repair (although the upstairs was another story), and ended up with the feeling of a really relaxed, friendly pub rather than a squat party when the opening night festivities began. They'd booked a few bands to play, and the opening two were nothing special although it was nice that one was made up of rather fashionable looking indie kids which meant the place wasn't just filled with the usual squat suspects. But the last band were Solanki, a Leeds group of excellent musicians who play fun music which unashamedly ripped off the Minutemen (they even called their album To Buzz Or Howl Under The Influence Of Leeds Six). They hadn't played in three years and had done their only practice in that time earlier that day, so I was expecting something sloppy. I was wrong, they were one of the tightest bands I've ever seen. I was down at the front dancing and about half way through their set I looked round to see how the rest of the squat was enjoying it. I don't think there was a single person there who wasn't moving. Crusties, hardcore kids, DIY types, indie kids, random people there for the party, everyone was on their feet. They finished by throwing in a bunch of Minutemen covers to see if anyone would spot the difference. They didn't.

[mer]

A couple years ago I saw Mirah for free. She was playing at Sarah Lawerence college, which is located right near my town, so my friends and I decided to stop by(not entirely sure if that was allowed considering none of us were students there). The(small) room was packed but she played a really nice set,and it was a lot of fun.

[DJD0nk3ypunch]

Every year in Detroit, there is a food "Tastefest" and the past couple years there have been some pretty cool free shows.  Last year, the lineup included the Kings of Leon, The New Pornographers, Amadou and Mariam, Eric Burden & The Animals, Cat Power, and some cool local bands including the Great Lakes Myth Society (as well as the All American Rejects  ).  Every year its totally over crowded but it can be fun sometimes to hang out and listen to good free music while eating an overpriced tiny slab of ribs or loads and loads of ice cream.

This years full lineup hasn't been announced yet, but so far both Spoon and Weird Al Yankovich will be playing free shows in the D 

[Spinless]

I never have, and never will go to a good 'free' show, because if the band is good, I'll buy their CD right there and then.

[Johnny C]

Yellowcard and Lillix. Though I guess when you get down to it I had to be a university student so that wasn't really free.

[Misereatur]

squatted a pub in Manchester.

Whenever I hear about concerts at squats it takes me about five minutes to realise that that squat was already busted and shut down.

[Skibas_clavicle]

I saw Broken Social Scene free at Yonge&Dundas square. I could have seen Weatherthans and Metric free at school and I can't recall what was free at my frosh.

[a pack of wolves]

Whenever I hear about concerts at squats it takes me about five minutes to realise that that squat was already busted and shut down.

It always makes me a little sad if I think of all the great squats I've been to that are now something utterly depressing. There's a long-running series of squats in Leeds called A-Spire, and their name comes from the church near my house used for the first ever one. It's now the most horrendous nightclub you can imagine (well, maybe not, but it's pretty damn hideous).

The first gig I ever played was free. Around Christmas a couple of years ago we were getting vaguely good enough not to mind people staring at us while we played, so decided to sort a gig out. My housemates had also got their band ready and we thought it'd be fun to have some other people playing for the first time too, and then realised that we knew some more people who were just about ready. So we decided to make it a gig consisting only of bands playing their first shows, and since we had no 'name' headliner or anything to make it free so people wouldn't be put off by a night of sloppy idiots. I think it might have been an ill-fated gig though since my housemates' band lasted only for that one gig and so did our friends in Dungeon Nun, on account of their drummer quitting due to band overload, my band only managed three gigs before going on an extended hiatus and xOliverxReedx lost their singer after a brief while.

[eatyrspleens]

last summer, i heard broken social scene and bloc party for free. i was in toronto for pride week (around the end of june) and the second day we were there, we took a ferry across the ontario river. the concert was going on on the other side of the river. we couldn't exactly see them, but we could hear everything perfectly. it was pretty nice sitting on the ontario river for pride weed listening to bloc party and broken social scene.

[Johnny C]

I saw Broken Social Scene free at Yonge&Dundas square. I could have seen Weatherthans and Metric free at school and I can't recall what was free at my frosh.

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[Mr u Suk]

The Ann Arbor radio station 107.1 has this thing called Studio A2 (A2 stands for Ann Arbor) and every once in a while a band will play the top floor of Borders in Ann Arbor for this Studio A2.

off this awesome thing i saw John Butler Trio, Brandi Carlile, and saw ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra) then nabbed ALO's cd and got their signatures on it (yay)