Guerrilla gig
Encyclopedia
Guerrilla gigging is a type of concert performed in a non-traditional setting or arranged in an unusual fashion. It became associated with punk rock
, indie rock
and noise rock
bands in UK and the United States during the early to mid 2000s. Bands who perform at such events are sometimes referred to as "guerrilla rockers
".
There are two major elements that characterise a guerrilla gig. The first is similar in concept to a flash mob
, and involves a band or artist performing in an unexpected, sometimes unannounced, setting not designed to accommodate live music, such as on a bus or subway train
, parking lot, or building lobby. The second characteristic involves their being arranged very quickly and without the typical processes of publicity or advance ticket sales. They are usually announced through various internet message boards as well as by text messages and sometimes last-minute flyers.
It is often viewed as an example of punk rock's idealistic "do it yourself" philosophy (which aimed to achieve underground artistic success without commercialisation by avoiding mainstream corporate record labels) being applied via modern communications technology, in a way which would not have been possible before the advent of the internet. The popularity of online forums
and social-networking sites
has made it possible for bands to immediately disseminate news of a gig to thousands of people only hours before a performance, at minimal cost, and bypassing the traditional print and radio-based methods of publicising concerts.
One of the earliest known example of a guerrilla gig was in November 1968 when Jefferson Airplane
, by the suggestion of Swiss-French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard
, began work on a political semi-documentary he called One A.M. (One American Movie). Godard, who felt that Jefferson Airplane best represented the youth revolution of the day, wanted the band in his film while keeping to a somewhat militant spirit. Godard had the musicians set up their equipment, sans permit, on a hotel rooftop in midtown Manhattan
at the peak of the working day. Harried New Yorkers below scanned the sky above the hotel and were able to hear Jefferson Airplane complete one song, an incendiary version of "House At Pooneil Corners". The performance culminated with the New York City Police shutting down the unexpected performance with threats of arrest due to the noise disturbance. The Godard film was never released, but documentarian D. A. Pennebaker
finished it up and renamed it One P.M. (for One Pennebaker Movie). A recount of this performance can be seen on the "Fly Jefferson Airplane" documentary DVD released in 2004.
This Jefferson Airplane performance predates the similar although more well-known performance when The Beatles
,on January 30, 1969, played a gig entirely unannounced on the roof of Apple Studios at Savile Row, London. They performed several takes of their newest songs (which would appear on the album Let It Be
) as the passers-by on the street looked up in confusion. After the third take of "Get Back
", they too were kicked off by the police due to noise complaints.
A few British bands became known for "guerrilla gigging" in the early 2000s. The technique first developed there because the concentrated social and geographical nature of the London music scene made it possible to generate a favourable "buzz" and ensure attendance at the events.
The Libertines
were among the first to use internet technology to accomplish this, often announcing a gig a few hours before the show by providing cryptic instructions for fans to meet at a given place to await an escort to a flat, where the admission price would be collected and the concert would take place in a living room or basement.
The Others
provide another example, having performed brief shows in tube trains (subways) on the London Underground
for mixed groups of fans and startled passengers. In another famous instance, singer Badly Drawn Boy
earned £4.60 from passersby while busking
outside London's Waterloo Station
for a day in 2003, going largely unrecognized by the public. It is important to differentiate busking
to Guerrilla Gigging, however for a predominantly acoustic artist such as Badly Drawn Boy
the line between the two performance methods can become blurred.
noise rock
bands such as Lightning Bolt, and other American bands, have embraced this new extreme DIY culture.
Many bands have embraced this by going down the streets on wagon hitches such as the Dropkick Murphys and AC/DC. In the mid-to-late 80's Rodent Kontrol, a punk band from Ann Arbor, Michigan, gained local notoriety for their guerrilla gigs in and around downtown Ann Arbor and on the University of Michigan campus. Some of these shows terminated in the band's ejection from the unauthorized venues by police or security guards.
U2
famously recorded the music video for Where The Streets Have No Name
on the roof of one-storey building in downtown Los Angeles. They performed other songs to the large crowd that had spilled onto the streets of Los Angeles and attracted media and police attention, which caused the shutdown. Home video footage of the gig exists on the internet.
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
and noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
bands in UK and the United States during the early to mid 2000s. Bands who perform at such events are sometimes referred to as "guerrilla rockers
Guerrilla Rock
Guerrilla punk is not as much a sub-genre of punk rock as it is a movement or mentality. More appropriately it could be considered a hyper, or extreme DIY punk ethic. It derives its name from bands who participate in "guerrilla gigging", a practice used either because of its novelty or sheer lack...
".
There are two major elements that characterise a guerrilla gig. The first is similar in concept to a flash mob
Flash mob
A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, artistic expression...
, and involves a band or artist performing in an unexpected, sometimes unannounced, setting not designed to accommodate live music, such as on a bus or subway train
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
, parking lot, or building lobby. The second characteristic involves their being arranged very quickly and without the typical processes of publicity or advance ticket sales. They are usually announced through various internet message boards as well as by text messages and sometimes last-minute flyers.
It is often viewed as an example of punk rock's idealistic "do it yourself" philosophy (which aimed to achieve underground artistic success without commercialisation by avoiding mainstream corporate record labels) being applied via modern communications technology, in a way which would not have been possible before the advent of the internet. The popularity of online forums
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
and social-networking sites
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
has made it possible for bands to immediately disseminate news of a gig to thousands of people only hours before a performance, at minimal cost, and bypassing the traditional print and radio-based methods of publicising concerts.
One of the earliest known example of a guerrilla gig was in November 1968 when Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, by the suggestion of Swiss-French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is a French-Swiss film director, screenwriter and film critic. He is often identified with the 1960s French film movement, French Nouvelle Vague, or "New Wave"....
, began work on a political semi-documentary he called One A.M. (One American Movie). Godard, who felt that Jefferson Airplane best represented the youth revolution of the day, wanted the band in his film while keeping to a somewhat militant spirit. Godard had the musicians set up their equipment, sans permit, on a hotel rooftop in midtown Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
at the peak of the working day. Harried New Yorkers below scanned the sky above the hotel and were able to hear Jefferson Airplane complete one song, an incendiary version of "House At Pooneil Corners". The performance culminated with the New York City Police shutting down the unexpected performance with threats of arrest due to the noise disturbance. The Godard film was never released, but documentarian D. A. Pennebaker
D. A. Pennebaker
Donn Alan Pennebaker is an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema/Cinéma vérité. Performing arts and politics are his primary subjects.-Biography:...
finished it up and renamed it One P.M. (for One Pennebaker Movie). A recount of this performance can be seen on the "Fly Jefferson Airplane" documentary DVD released in 2004.
This Jefferson Airplane performance predates the similar although more well-known performance when The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
,on January 30, 1969, played a gig entirely unannounced on the roof of Apple Studios at Savile Row, London. They performed several takes of their newest songs (which would appear on the album Let It Be
Let It Be (album)
Let It Be is the 12th and final studio album released by the English rock band The Beatles. It was released on 8 May 1970 by the band's Apple Records label shortly after the group announced their break-up....
) as the passers-by on the street looked up in confusion. After the third take of "Get Back
Get Back
"Get Back" is a song by The Beatles, composed by Paul McCartney and frequently attributed to Lennon–McCartney. The song was originally released as a single on 11 April 1969, and credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston." A different mix of the song later became the closing track of Let It Be ,...
", they too were kicked off by the police due to noise complaints.
Development in Britain
The English band The Beatles were possibly the first band to perform a Guerrilla gig in Britain, this gig was performed on top of their Apple Recording studios. In the Summer prior to this Jefferson Airplane performed across the Atlantic on top of a New York skyscraper, arguably giving the Beatles the idea for their Let It Be performance.A few British bands became known for "guerrilla gigging" in the early 2000s. The technique first developed there because the concentrated social and geographical nature of the London music scene made it possible to generate a favourable "buzz" and ensure attendance at the events.
The Libertines
The Libertines
The Libertines were an English rock band, formed in London in 1997 by frontmen Carl Barât and Pete Doherty . The band, centred on the song-writing partnership of Barat and Doherty, also included John Hassall and Gary Powell for most of its recording career...
were among the first to use internet technology to accomplish this, often announcing a gig a few hours before the show by providing cryptic instructions for fans to meet at a given place to await an escort to a flat, where the admission price would be collected and the concert would take place in a living room or basement.
The Others
The Others (band)
The Others are an English rock band, signed to Poptones in July 2004 and their eponymous debut album was released on 31 January 2005.-Career:...
provide another example, having performed brief shows in tube trains (subways) on the London Underground
London Underground
The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
for mixed groups of fans and startled passengers. In another famous instance, singer Badly Drawn Boy
Badly Drawn Boy
Damon Gough is an English alternative music singer/songwriter. He was born on 2 October 1969, in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. He grew up in the Breightmet area of Bolton, Lancashire, England....
earned £4.60 from passersby while busking
Busking
Street performance or busking is the practice of performing in public places, for gratuities, which are generally in the form of money and edibles...
outside London's Waterloo Station
Waterloo station
Waterloo station, also known as London Waterloo, is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex. The station is owned and operated by Network Rail and is close to the South Bank of the River Thames, and in Travelcard Zone 1....
for a day in 2003, going largely unrecognized by the public. It is important to differentiate busking
Busking
Street performance or busking is the practice of performing in public places, for gratuities, which are generally in the form of money and edibles...
to Guerrilla Gigging, however for a predominantly acoustic artist such as Badly Drawn Boy
Badly Drawn Boy
Damon Gough is an English alternative music singer/songwriter. He was born on 2 October 1969, in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. He grew up in the Breightmet area of Bolton, Lancashire, England....
the line between the two performance methods can become blurred.
The United States
Rhode IslandRhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
bands such as Lightning Bolt, and other American bands, have embraced this new extreme DIY culture.
Many bands have embraced this by going down the streets on wagon hitches such as the Dropkick Murphys and AC/DC. In the mid-to-late 80's Rodent Kontrol, a punk band from Ann Arbor, Michigan, gained local notoriety for their guerrilla gigs in and around downtown Ann Arbor and on the University of Michigan campus. Some of these shows terminated in the band's ejection from the unauthorized venues by police or security guards.
U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
famously recorded the music video for Where The Streets Have No Name
Where the Streets Have No Name
"Where the Streets Have No Name" is a song by rock band U2. It is the opening track from their 1987 album The Joshua Tree and was released as the album's third single in August 1987. The song's hook is a repeating guitar arpeggio using a delay effect, played during the song's introduction and...
on the roof of one-storey building in downtown Los Angeles. They performed other songs to the large crowd that had spilled onto the streets of Los Angeles and attracted media and police attention, which caused the shutdown. Home video footage of the gig exists on the internet.