The Men and the Boys

[monquixote]

I'd have that job, nice hotels and meals. Playing amonst other quality musos and enough free time. Meanwhile the (temporary) stars are off doing radio, press and TV promotion with hardly time in between for a piss or kipp. Unless they wrote the songs they will be working hard to line someone elses pocket.

You make a good point.

I wonder how many teen sensations the average successful session man has seen come and go.

[Setzer]

Funnily enough along the same lines last night I was watching something on tv and there was this older gent that I have seen in many many films and I was thinking what a great life he must have being a character actor instead of the star because he doesnt have to suffer all the promo for the films he works on and all the interviews etc and he doesnt care if the next 10 films he works on are total flops where the stars will find their careers have well and truly departed if they do more than 1 or 2 total failures and this gent just keeps working away with not a care in the world how well the films he works on do at the box office.

A strong resemblance to the paid players and the "stars" they play behind.

[MRLEON83]

Yeah, a jobs a job it probably also pays quite nicely - however, apparently the Tremonti band go a lot of grief from the 1d boys... they didn't give the full details but the Tremonti crew got pretty p!ssy on twitter ...

[erictheweary]

Flicking through the tv last night and Garbage were on SkyArts. I don't suppose Shirley Manson is all that young but it looked like she was rocking out with her dad and uncles. I am more than double the age of the youngest member of our band but that mix seems perfectly normal at a pub level, always seems a bit odd when you see it at a pro level. I guess there is still some idea that a band is a bunch of mates with a shared musical direction rather than being the equivalent of watching the staff from a local authority planning office.

[RocknRollDave]

I imagine part of the reason the backing band are older is that to get on a high-profile gig of that nature you have to have some kind of proven track record of experience.

[sonictekdept]

For my two cents......the option for me is sit at boring desk job between 9-5 or have the chance to play guitar for a living even if it is for 1D. Hello 1D! Id so do it!

[BlindLemonAde]

I was having a conversation about this with someone the other day. We were watching one of the early 70's TOTP episodes and post Beatles it seems to have been a very strong movement that if you wrote emotional ballads then you should also perform them. Shows from that era always seem to have some heinously ugly beardy twonk in chunky knitwear and huge glasses crooning out some heartfelt lament. It occurred to me I'd actually rather see some bint in a spangly jumpsuit dancing about singing it while the muso sat counting the money.

I spose 1D is more about pubescent girls sexual awakenings in the medium of non threatening boys presented in a sanitised environment. The music is probably peripheral to the posters and lunchboxes (In either sense of the word).

Not forgetting that The Beatles were the original "boy band", with hordes of pubescent girls following them around. National newspapers had a daily page of Beatles news - even Justin Bieber doesn't get that (well, except in the Mail...)

I read that the old adage "not a dry seat in the house" was true, with a strange... "aroma" in the theatre after their gigs.

[ESBlonde]

I imagine part of the reason the backing band are older is that to get on a high-profile gig of that nature you have to have some kind of proven track record of experience.

Partly that, it's the old 'who you know' thing too. Musical Directors (just as the rest of us really) like to use people they know that have worked for them before, or at worst someone recommended by someone or several people they know. Once you are in that clique you get lots of calls as long as you always perform and don't screw up. Reputations count for that money.

[uncle_psychosis]

I'd totally do that job. Just not for One Direction, because I have a (slightly) irrational hatred of them. Pretty much any other teeny bop band would be cool though.

[stratcat]

I know where you are coming from with this.
I used to be a teacher in a secondary school and the inane crap that would come out of the mouths from most in the sixth form really used to do my head in! Ok 1D are a bit older than that so it's perhaps not the same.