Music Venue Trust, Karousel Music, Communion, This Feeling and Roundhouse Rising Team Up For Benefit Show to FUnd the MVT Emergency Response.

On Tuesday 18th October, we’re delighted to be teaming up with the Music Venue Trust to support their #FIGHTBACK benefit, raising money to secure the future of what grassroots venues are left in the UK. We cannot see any more venues close if we’re to have any form of thriving music business in this country. The show was announced a couple of weeks ago and put on sale with NO ACTS confirmed. 1,500 of you bought tickets for £10 with no idea who would be playing, and over 800 bands offered to play. Those lucky people who got in early will get to see Everything Everything, Public Service Broadcasting, The Leisure Society, Recreations (Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly’s new project), Pat Dam Smyth, Samantha Whates and The Chaps Choir Jake Isaac, Ed Harcourt, and a whole host of blistering, emerging acts. We’re made up to be presenting and curating the Karousel Fightback stage in the Roundhouse’s Sackville Theatre. The remaining tickets are now £30, and they’re flying out. Grab one now!

Here’s what Mark Davyd at the MVT had to say about it all the morning it was announced:

“We’re announcing an event today which has no artists booked and no infrastructure confirmed because this is urgent. What’s happening to our music venues is an emergency which should concern every music fan, every musician, and everybody working in the music industry in the UK.

“As of 9am this morning we genuinely don’t know who is playing. It might be me with a ukulele and a bass drum tied to my back, or it might be the biggest artist in the world. We’re asking music fans from across London to please join us for just one night to say loudly and clearly that we’ve all had enough of music venue closures and we aren’t going to put up with it any more.

“We hope musicians and music fans will believe that’s a cause worth joining. If it turns out someone who believed in that cause paid £10 to hear me whistle the national anthem and rant about the importance of venues for half an hour, then the cause will still be worth it. And if you buy a ticket on Monday for £10 and it ends up being stuffed full of Brit Award winners and the people around you paid £100, then lucky you.”

Here’s a Spotify Playlist featuring the night’s acts:

/// MVT EMERGENCY RESPONSE ///

Music Venue Trust is a registered charity which acts to protect, secure and improve grassroots music venues in the UK. We have been fighting for nearly three years to stop these closures. We’ve achieved changes to the law, planning guidance, developments. We’ve fought back on behalf of venues to tackle the real reasons why they are closing down.

Because people haven’t lost faith in rock ‘n’ roll. Kids still want to play and audiences still want to see them. Truthfully, more people than ever want to see live music because you don’t stop loving live rock ‘n’ roll. Our venues should be full of three generations of music fans that grew up on your music and more than fifty years of incredible British talent.

But developers and money men having been making a grab at our culture and they’ve been winning. A local music venue isn’t ever going to make anybody rich; they’ve been easy targets because councils and government don’t respect them like they do theatres and opera houses and the venues haven’t got the money to fight back themselves.

We know what is causing the majority of these closures, and we know how to stop it. Yesterday we announced decisive action to stop the number 1 cause of these closures in their tracks – our Emergency Response Service. We’ve brought together a team of experts on licensing, development, planning, noise complaints. Any venue in the UK that faces a threat to its future can contact us and will be able to get free, instant access to the best legal and expert opinion available in the UK.

We’re a charity and we need to raise funds to pay for that service to exist. We announced yesterday that on Tuesday 18 October at The Roundhouse, London, we are going to stage a one-off benefit concert to raise that money. That event is called Fightback, and yesterday thousands of music fans from across the UK used social media to tweet #FIGHTBACK and support that event and our campaign.