Do you want chips with that?

Eyre Peninsula has long enjoyed a vibrant music scene and been well endowed with musical talent.

Pubs and clubs have largely been the outlets for local artists giving punters free live music as part of the service they offer. Cover charges have been mostly used for larger events and dance clubs.

Fast forward to 2017 and grab a snapshot on your new iPhone 8. It’s probably in your hand right now anyway and the 12 megapixel camera should capture every detail. Hard to imagine a world without a mechanism to promote a gig and instantly contact hundreds if not thousands of people isn’t it? Back in 2004 when Cummins on the Eyre Peninsula hosted The Wildeloo Music Festival, there was certainly not the number of people thumbing their way through a newsfeed on Facebook. Now we can live stream events and listen to new releases from all over the world. So called reality TV has made us music critics and actively encouraged that process. Gone are the decades focusing on a particular genre of music that determined fashion styling or the lack there of. We literally have so much more choice and that is good.

So are we spoilt? Have we lost some appreciation for the value of music? Do we take it for granted?

On a local level we certainly have been spoilt with the number of talented artists. But do we realise the value of music as clearly as we recognise the increased price of a cold frothy pint of beer? Don’t be fooled into thinking drink prices are remotely linked to the cost of having that muso sitting in the corner smashing out tunes. If he won’t play Chisel or The Gambler then there’s probably a chick down at the other pub that might give it a crack for you. Let’s face it the music is just an accompaniment to swilling down some pints before a few shots or an espresso martini. We’ve all been there to be honest and it’s not like we paid $200 for a ticket at the Entertainment Centre or the $300 return flight.

But do we take it for granted?

The answer is just another question. Why wouldn’t we? It’s the way it has always been and as long as there are musos out there that love playing music, then it will continue to be that way. Right?

Well it would be a dark day when there wasn’t a love of music or a desire to share it with others. But it is very likely that you may have to look a little harder to find it. Poker machines in hotels and venues locally have taken over some great musical spaces. But that is old news and unlikely to change any time soon. Now the screws are going in tighter on the artists to actually draw a crowd into a venue that people less often are affording. The reality is that it has become very expensive to go out and get pissed

let alone chuff down a packet of dirty Styvies outside while you do it. This opens the door literally for smaller venues with less overheads to offer an alternative to the pub culture we knew and loved. Best part of that for the musos is that people going to these smaller gigs actually may care about the music.

So in the same way we have watched the tail lights of the big music festivals disappear and be replaced by smaller boutique events, people are looking for a quirky scene beyond a front bar.

Isn’t it lucky that small venues such as Soundcity might just be what you are looking for.