What’s In A Poster?

I took this picture outside The Dublin Castle, a venue for up-and-coming bands in Camden.

On the face of it this just looks like a programme of the venue’s bands. They print it and replace it every couple of weeks, and every couple of weeks it draws my eye. Not because I’m interested in attending any of the gigs, but because it’s actually a bare representation of thousands of hopes and dreams.

Who will be chosen for the big time? The Guns of Pig Alley? I Thee Lothario? Danny Conners and the Ladders?

(Perhaps none of these, for their names are immensely shite.)

Bound up in each of those names is a network of band members, managers, friends, families, groupies, hangers on etc. who are all crossing various parts of their bodies, hoping from the depths of their aortae for further success.

And yet, most will fail.

And all those big, fat, squashy dreams will deflate to nowt.

But.

But.

But.

One might survive, sending all the dreams to explode in a fireworky crescendo across the night sky.

And it’s all there in that humble, black-and-white, replaced-every-couple-of-weeks, messy old gig poster.

(By the way, I’m going to stick my neck out and tip Shot Dead for the hit parade. I like their name. It has attitude.)