a tale of two tours - Volbeat, Trivium vs. All That Remains, Darkest Hour
So, with that out of the way, let's move to the metal scene. Two shows in the report caught my eye. Here's one:
Artist: Volbeat, Trivium, Digital Summer
Venue: City National Grove Of Anaheim – Anaheim, CA
Date: April 6, 2014
Gross Sales: $66,535
Attendance/Capacity: 1,702 / 1,702
Prices: $45, $38
That's pretty impressive. And in fact, nine days later those three same bands sold out a 5,700+ seat venue in La Cross, WI, grossing a total of $201,188. But that was on a Friday night, so we'll be kind to the next three bands we're about to mention and use the smaller show. What three bands, you ask? Here:
Artist: All That Remains, Darkest Hour, Wilson
Venue: 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
Date: April 9, 2014
Gross Sales: $4,840
Attendance/Capacity: 242 / 1,200
Prices: $20
Woah. That's not good. Granted, this was on a Wednesday night, but that excuse only goes so far. Let's break this down a bit.
Volbeat plays the most accessible brand of music out of the lot and their last album, released a year ago, has sold roughly 205,000 copies in the U.S. to date. For their part, Trivium's latest album has sold nearly 50,000 copies; nothing to sneeze at.
Meanwhile, All That Remains, while not as popular as Trivium, is still supposed to be a fairly bankable band. They aren't exactly playing brutal death metal, and their last album, 2012's A War You Cannot Win, has sold nearly 113,000 copies in the United States. Not too shabby. And how about Darkest Hour? They haven't released an album since 2011, and they're not nearly as popular as Trivium, but Washington D.C. is their hometown and you'd think they could draw at least 100 people on their own.
Perhaps there were other facts involved that I'm not aware of, but 242 people at a $20 All That Remains and Darkest Hour show in a large city seems really odd. I want answers. Do you have any?
13 comments
Post Commentdarkest hour may not have had as drastic as a change in close to the same length of existence, but still basically a completely different band musically, if not personally (how many original members do they have?). while they at least do it somewhat well, its still deathly boring, so some combination of those two factors probably contribute to no one giving a fck about them either.
D.C. is majority blacks and was there another D.C. show or in surrounding area. Club Son or in Baltimore may have stolen potential guests.
i've seen ATR half a dozen times live and i live in the middle of fcking nowhere. i'm basically bored of seeing them live. if they're the headliner, then zzzzzz. phil's armchair twitter political rampaging is dumb. their new music is weaker than weak. wilson kicks fcking ass though.
…maybe bc EMMURE wasnt on this. Never gets old.
there has to be a reason why that second show would only pull like 250 because that makes no sense. if volbeat is selling out houses with trivium then all that remains should be in the same league. they are one of those 'we got our band on guitar hero' bands so you would think a lot of people would go to their show especially if darkest hour is a home town band. ive booked bands made of highschool kids who have brought in more people than that -- maybe not at 20 bucks a ticket but still...
this doesnt include merchandise sells so you should start mentioning that since the word on the street is the bands make most their money off that
I've seen darkest hour so many times at so much better venues than 930 club.
Volbeat is all over radio right now, they have 4 fcking songs in rotation. ATR sucks, they would love to be on the radio, but arent. Flaming Labonte is an emo Ted Nugent
DC dude here. Honestly, people in the District take their jobs way more seriously than most and are less likely to stay up late on a weekday, so attendance suffers. Also, although DH rep DC, I always remembered them as having a bigger fan base in Richmond, and again, it's tough for that crowd to come up for a weeknight show. Can't say shit for ATR, though.
maybe darkest hour put everyone on the guest list since it was their hometown?
all that remains fcking sucked when they were metalcore, and what little headway they made with that, they shit all over with their even worse and completely shameless commercial rock aspirations.