>And if concerts and not recorded albums are their craft, they will need to spend lots of time on the road perfecting it. But how? Practice does not make you a good stage performer. And you can't play 10 times a month in your home city and expect fans, promoters, or clubs to think nicely af you.
Not to mention that this "just make money through concerts" thing is a US-centric, narrow view, of the musical landscape.
Not all artists are rockers/jazzers, enjoying touring and playing to crowds with their guitars and stuff. And even fewer are like Phish or some heavy metal touring band.
Some don't even have the kind of material that would draw a crowd at a concert (e.g ambient music writers), but they still managed to make money in the record era.
E.g you could sell 40,000 records worldwide and make a decent living (know several artists who did), but still not have enough fans in more than 1-2 cities to make a concert possible.
So this whole concert thing mostly works for either huge familiar brands (like the Stones) or pretty, trendy musicians that can manage a wider following of younger people, like Amanda Palmer and such.
For most bands, historically, concerts were a loss leader for album sales.
And, no, selling t-shirts is not a musician's job. That's like "pivoting" your web 2.0 startup into a fast food franchice. It might make you money, but it's not what you wanted to do.
Not to mention that this "just make money through concerts" thing is a US-centric, narrow view, of the musical landscape.
Not all artists are rockers/jazzers, enjoying touring and playing to crowds with their guitars and stuff. And even fewer are like Phish or some heavy metal touring band.
Some don't even have the kind of material that would draw a crowd at a concert (e.g ambient music writers), but they still managed to make money in the record era.
E.g you could sell 40,000 records worldwide and make a decent living (know several artists who did), but still not have enough fans in more than 1-2 cities to make a concert possible.
So this whole concert thing mostly works for either huge familiar brands (like the Stones) or pretty, trendy musicians that can manage a wider following of younger people, like Amanda Palmer and such.
For most bands, historically, concerts were a loss leader for album sales.
And, no, selling t-shirts is not a musician's job. That's like "pivoting" your web 2.0 startup into a fast food franchice. It might make you money, but it's not what you wanted to do.