My Hatred of Cocktail Gigs

Perhaps it is a fate we are all, as musicians, forced to accept:  the economy we threw ourselves is a small circle. As the need for jazz musicians dwindles, it becomes an increasing source of dread for our musical minds. Is there a way to make money here? How can I survive like this? 

The answer for most is either teaching or cocktail gigs. The first time I ever played a cocktail gig I was in shock; I had never made so much for so little artistic effort. As a drummer, if anything, I played far less and far quieter than usual, so much so that I might as well not have been there, yet I was making more from this than any passion project I had ever been hired for. It seemed ironic almost, the time I spent practicing my eighth note swing only to have them disappear into the background, for my cymbal to sound less clear, more like a distant atmosphere. 

Cocktail gigs make me want to rip my hair out, if i'm being honest. The first couple times are exciting, sure. Getting to dress up all nice and loading into fancy venues and pretending to be a professional. Seeing the guest file into the room and look at you, impressed; “oh wow, they even have entertainment!” Feeling like you're part of something greater and a hell of a lot more expensive than you. 

The upside of cocktail gigs is the leniency it gives you to overcharge for your services. Typically, the people running the event will not have their thumbs on the pulse of what the going rate is for musicians. This means that when you bring up your rate, you can and mostly always should ask for more than you're used to receiving. Either they will agree to it or they’ll negotiate back down to something that is still acceptable and dignifiable. They might also offer you food and drink that you otherwise couldn't ever afford. 

You mustn't forget, though, that you are there to work. You are not part of the elite listeners, and you are not part of the events staff. You belong in a strange purgatory where certain liberties are afforded to you and others not. I have played gigs from 7-10 pm during dinner services where the band was not once offered food. I have played gigs during a reception where afterwards, we were seated and given a 3-course meal alongside the guests. 

I once played a cocktail gig at a famous Montreal landmark in September. It was a fundraiser for women’s cancers and they requested an all female trio, one which I was able to piece together easily. The gig was from 6:30-9, and I had negotiated $200 for each musician, as well as food. We, of course, were expected to bring our own gear and set up before the event, take down once it was over. 

A week before the gig, they told me that because the event was in the old port, the service road necessary for me to take in order to drop off my drum kit would only be open until 8am the morning of, so I would need to drop everyone's gear off during that window of time if I was thinking of driving (as a drummer, I was in fact thinking of driving). That rainy Tuesday morning I drove my drum kit as well as my bassist and her gear to the old port, met with the Australian manager of the location, and dropped off our gear in their locked offices for the day. I was to return to soundcheck 8 hours later that day. 

My pianist was a bit late with her keyboard and two music stands and so when she met up with me, she was in a hurry to get back to school and be on time for her class. I told her not to worry about it; I would walk it (a good 10 minute walk) to the rest of the gear and she could go. Right as she left, the train siren blared. 

The manager told me it was bad news; we couldn't exactly say how long the train would be passing for. This was not a regular passenger train. This was cargo, and lots of it, and I was stuck on the other side, on this cold, rainy, Tuesday morning. The train passed and then stopped all of a sudden, then reversed slightly before stopping again. And it stayed there. For 45 minutes. I waited, with the gear, for 45 minutes (too much gear for me to walk around the train by myself). 

So it wasn’t a great morning. That was also the morning I knocked my nose piercing out, so just a bummer all around. When I got back to the venue for soundcheck, around 5:30pm, I met the event organizer who I had been contacting through email for the last 6 months. He told us to start playing 30 minutes before the agreed upon start time, and gave us a schedule that totaled us playing 1 hour more than we had agreed on. 

The event was catered by a well-known Montreal chef and I was excited to try the food, as they mentioned we would be fed. But the food offered to us was boxed red-slab-pizza and 2 day old chocolatines, with à complimentary flute of champagne. 

During our second set, we noticed the guests getting rowdier, surely a product of the open bar. They were dancing and speaking and laughing loudly as we played, definitely not hearing how killing we were sounding on Softly. Soon, people began yelling, and I meekly stopped playing, assuming a fight was breaking out. We looked over at the MC, who looked just as confused as us. A man was having a heart attack, we soon found out. 

Luckily for him, a cocktail event full of doctors is perhaps the best place possible to have a heart attack, second only to the ER. He was laid down, his feet elevated as a circle of doctors swarmed around him speaking medical jargon. What a day I was having. Then, as the man was still lying on the floor, the MC turned to us and wagged her finger: “keep playing!”. 

We played How Insensitive. 

After the event was done, after we all got home, the two other women in the band texted me to say that they felt like the pay wasn't enough for all the time we spent there. I told them I agreed; I had spent close to 2 hours at the break of dawn, and then around 5 and a half during the actual event. I tried to negotiate again, and was only able to get us 50$ more each. Not terrible, but my nose piercing fell out, man. A man almost died! Whatever. 

I find it hard to complain about gigs. There will always be a musician around the corner saying: “You should just be grateful that you're busy playing! Any gig is a good gig.” Shut up. I will complain all I want. No one makes me wait in the rain. Of course that was not my most recent cocktail gig nor will it be one of my last. I will probably play cocktail gigs until I die, like all of my teachers still do. Perhaps I will learn to love them the way my peers and superiors seem to have done. Perhaps I will simply learn to mitigate my anger more effectively.