It was Independent Venue Week. The organisation has grown from partnering with just 17 venues in 2014 to working with over 200 venues eleven years later. Counting this year’s iteration, including She Drew The Gun live in Lancaster, the initiative has been involved with over 5,000 shows, resulting in well over 1 million tickets sold. It has also helped venues secure over £1.3 million in Arts Council England funding.

Yet, the landscape for grassroots music venues is undeniably precarious year round. The Music Venue Trust (MVT) monitors and battles the joint impacts of “rising property prices, aggressive development, nuisance laws and the state of the music industry.” Their 2024 Annual Report revealed that 810 members of the Music Venue Alliance had an average profit margin of was just 0.48%, with 48% actually losing money.

Furthermore, they reported that “just 12 locations, all of them major cities, remained as primary and secondary touring circuit stops” in 2024 (as compared to 28 in 1994).

It’s not surprising, then, that almost 25% of those surveyed operated under the threat of permanent closure, and 200 had to call on the help of MVT’s Emergency Response Service.

In this context, what is the state of live music in the regions, and what role does it play? We went to see She Drew The Gun live in Lancaster to find out.

A quick scan of Lancaster listings revealed something you’ll see replicated in towns up and down the country (at least the ones that have held on to their venues so far): tribute acts. Lots of tribute acts. For instance, Lancastrians can relive their teen spirit at Kanteena with Fu Fighters on February 14th and Sons of Nirvana on February 15th.

No shade to anyone who wants to feel that love buzz this Valentine’s weekend, or enjoy any of the myriad other cover bands, live club nights, or tribute festivals. There’s an important place for familiarity and nostalgia. Think also of push factors limiting the chances of seeing the original acts live, such as the cost of arena tickets plus accommodation and travel, or their inability to tour following illness or death.

Venues working on thin profit margins need to book what will most reliably sell tickets and, less face it, alcohol. Thereby leading to one of the tensions facing venues today: how to be profitable without being seen as profiteering. The ancillary costs of attending a live show loom large over the venue’s online reviews. ‘Bob R’ speaks for many a Northerner in writing: “£5.50 for a can! This is Lancaster, not London!”

In a larger city, Karteena’s inviting courtyard would be packed to its plywood rafters with street food vendors (and Bob R might weep at the price of a small plate). On the other hand, the venue would likely have closed long ago, caught in the crossfire of arguments over noise pollution, rising rents, and gentrification. Here, the surrounding empty lots and parking spots weren’t affected by sound bleeding from the beer garden/smoking area.

The cavernous venue resembled a cross between a barn and a church hall set up for the coolest school disco imaginable. Think wood and particle board fixings, a scattering of tables along the back wall doubling as perched seating, and a giant mirror ball scattering light across the filling dance floor.

So, where do original bands fit in the contemporary local live scene? To check this out, we chose to see a new-to-us band, relying on nothing more than the Independent Music Venue branding and the involvement of award-winning drummer Siân Monaghan to guarantee a level of quality and skill.

January 31, 2025: She Drew The Gun live in Lancaster at Kanteena

Unlike the prevalence of tribute band shows, this was only She Drew The Gun’s second show of the year. They’d be forgiven for treating this as a dress rehearsal for the upcoming tour and settling for a muted reception.

Despite having eight new songs to build into the set from 2024’s Howl, there was no ‘I hope you don’t mind if we play a new song’ sheepishness. Instead of treating new tracks as guilty interlopers, the band confidently opened with a new song, Became. That self-assured selection was justified. It was welcomed like a timeless classic.

Indeed, far from the solid attendance simply reflecting the provincial phenomenon of embracing ‘something to do’ regardless of familiarity, or curiosity about the Independent Venue Week branding, this gathering most closely resembled the AGM of the She Drew The Gun fan club.

We’re not just talking about the accessibly anthemic call-and-response of ‘how much did you get paid for that?’ in Class War, or the psychedelia-meets-Pitchshifter hypnotic beats and samples of Next On The List.

The newer music blends a lot more personal narratives alongside the political polemics that the band has become known for. To accompany this, singer-songwriter Louisa Roach developed a sequence of spoken word introductions. Clever. This feat of memory avoided any awkward small talk and kept the performance thundering along.

This performance demonstrated just how familiar the Lancashire locals were with the new songs, such as squeals of delight on hearing ‘self-care and duvet days’ which indicated that Mirrors was on the horizon. Beautifully sung it was too.

Another benefit of the spoken word poetry was the ability to share darkest feelings and secrets with a level of self-protection. There was raw specificity in the vignettes of grief, and hurt and hate. But there also remained the possibility of alternative viewpoints, art, and artifice amongst the authenticity.

The overall impression was of perseverance. Survival expressed in the quiet confidence of transfixing a room full of people with an engaging, energetic, intense presence. Roach’s bandmates Jimmy Moon and Anna Donigan (yes, from Honeyblood!) held the line with unwavering precision performances.

Meanwhile, Siân Monaghan demonstrated another important role of live music; reinforcing the effectiveness of symbiotic relationships between bands and brands. There’s no doubt that Monaghan showcased the range and resilience of Natal equipment from gentle mallet tapping in What’s The Matter, to a stellar drum fill in the Space-esque song Something For The Pain, to near on demolishing the kit in rising, rousing numbers like Cut Me Down without any ill-effect.

As for the audience, what do they get from live music? Who is it for? Here, it was for the entranced crowd joyfully bouncing in unison to Howl.

It was for the friends in six inch platform boots and the stranger next to them independently developing interpretative dance moves.

It was for the humans who can’t currently count on the universality of human rights but for one night could feel safe to express themselves.

It was even for the people who inexplicably paid good money to have their shouted conversations soundtracked by a live band (although the newcomer yelling “‘oh my God, that’s amazing” during a break in the set was more representative of the general vibe).

Importantly, it was for the little girl on the front row peering over the barrier, watching intently. The 13 year who discovered the healing power of guitars and REM and East 17 grew up to teach that lesson to the next generation.

Roach promised that they’d play an encore “if you howl for me,” delivered with a broad grin, because by that time the fans at the front were already already howling for more umprompted. They were rewarded with perennial favourite Poem, a sweet tirade that started close to spoken word and ended up as an electric tune.

Roach brought it back full circle – “thanks for holding space for me” – as though she had completed a successful counselling session, although the reaction of the audience suggested it was they that had received therapy that night.

The band ended with Panopticon, a song so banging that even ever-resolute Anna and Jimmy were bopping!

We were left wondering if there had ever been such an obvious Lancaster to Glastonbury pipeline before, and hoping there had been a covert talent scout around. No need. She Drew The Gun won the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent competition back in 2016.

You can catch She Drew The Gun on tour from February 14 to February 28, 2025 – fittingly playing plenty of local venues well off the typical touring circuit.

She Drew The Gun live in Lancaster setlist

1. Became
2. Origin Song
3. Washed In Blue
4. Conjuring
5. What’s The Matter
6. Mirrors
7. Shine On
8. Ritual
9. Howl
10. Cut Me Down
11. Behave Myself
12. Resister
13. Class War
14. Next On The List
15. Something For The Pain
16. Poem
17. Panopticon

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