They're all after you.
From the moment that you read one of those tiny shiny tour adverts in the back of your music magazine of choice, they're breathing greedily down your neck.
Ticketmaster lures you into the alleyway with promises of euphoria, inspiration and wild nights. And once you've left the glow of the streetlamps behind, LiveNation and Carling tear into your wallet and leave you bleeding with only a vial of light, golden piss water and a lone Eels ticket stub.
The con is always the same. Only the names change.
If you're a gig-goer who wants to escape the ravages of lashings of corporate ultra-violence, the only place to hide is your own home. Or, better still, someone else's.
That's the beauty of Gig in a Flat, a small operation designed to bring live bands to your street, preferably in that cosy corner space where the couch used to be.
Sure, your evening out won't have the epic vistas of a night at the Brixton Academy. But admission is free, the bands can squeeze magic out of little more than a busted old acoustic, and the beers...well, they're right in the fridge where you left them. Hopefully.
This intimate house party concept launched in London a couple of years back. Since then, a disparate succession of folkies, rockers, rappers and rouges, rockin' punks and a cappella drunks have graced the bill of the Greatest Show on Carpet, before retiring to the kitchen in the eternal furtive hunt for crisps.
This time, the kitchen was in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury, where upmarket dwellings snuggle with a giant Siemens factory and a mysterious guesthouse you can sample for just £15 a night.
Spirits were flowing, the sofa was full, and gravelly guitarist JOHN FAIRHURST was unleashing merry hell in the middle of the living room, backed only by a harmonica and a pair of clicking spoons.
The Wigan-born picker is a laid-back guy buried under a curtain of hair, but he savages his guitar like a hyena unwrapping a Christmas present. John is a blur of fluttering fingers, full of raw, sandpapery authenticity, with a foot tap you can hear under your knees from several rows back, never mind in a room so cosy that you can get paper cuts from his eyelashes.
His performance jangled into life with a Delta-bluesy flavour before surging into an epic Indian classical melody, dropping jaws from kitchen to corridor with his speed and style. Every now and then, he'd pause to re-tune his bruised instrument, like a frustrated dad nefariously stroking the cat before suddenly drop-kicking it off the sofa.
After a run like that, there were more than a few guests happy to shake his hand, or whatever was left of it. But this evening, John was busier than riot police during a World Cup.
He said: "I'm just about to head to Bristol. I've already played a gig in Bolton tonight, and I came to the flat straight after that. My record was about six or seven gigs in a weekend, but that was all in Manchester. It's been pretty mental this year, but I'd be happy playing gigs every day of every week of the year."
As John was wandering down the driveway towards pastures new, Preston grime rapper BONEY BLACK was limbering up for the wild card show of the night. The quiet 27-year-old had been holed upstairs with two members of The Black Velvet Band for the last 20 minutes, whipping up some impromptu acoustic backing for his set-list.
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The DIY run-through was just two songs long, but the opening number certainly impressed a number of punters lurking in the lounge, who weren't expecting a performance of that calibre from a rehearsal shorter than an episode of Will and Grace. Despite being more at home with hip hop beats, the Preston-born rapper didn't seem to have any bother making sweet music with an instrument often heard on CDs on the other side of the record shop.
Boney Black, aka Tai, is also a busy man, juggling his solo hip-hop project with a community venture called Sound Skills, which runs music production and drama events for Preston's youth. He's currently writing a track about teenage pregnancy, as well as an insider's guide to the perks and perils of life in his hometown.
He said: "I've got a child and I work as well, but I love music and that's where my future lies. Someone just needs to give me a call."
If the entire BLACK VELVET BAND had turned up on the night, someone might have needed to put in planning permission for an extension. But the saxophones, cellos, trumpets and violins were missing, and the bassist was huddled outside his car on a dark highway somewhere, anxiously waiting for the AA to arrive.
So there were just five members of the Manchester troupe on stage when singer John Louis put down his brand-free bitter on the mantelpiece and started hopping around like a jigging prospector with his foot on fire.
"Please feel free to have a dance," he said. "I've danced in smaller places than this before. Like my own mind."
The Black Velvet Band tells stories. They tell parables of love and loss, peppered with harmonies. But these are the tales of a malignant mind; the wild early versions of fairy tales before Disney dilution; the twisted whispers in which Red Riding Hood stayed eaten and Goldilocks paid for her porridge-pilfering.
The mesh-tight group swung from spiced Cab Calloway jazz to gypsy folk and gritty blues, anchored by the vocal sparring of Louis' Buster Poindexter gurn and Ali Cegielka's sweet tones. If the mad and exciting musical tales didn't wake the neighbours, the surging howls of approval by the end certainly should have got the knuckles rapping the walls.
There are only rumours about where Gig in a Flat will turn up next. Some say the organisers are heading further north, some say they're even thinking of playing the next one on a bus. All they need is a few bands, a few guests and a few square foot of space. Bring your own beer, and you won't miss Wembley Arena one bit.
Go to: www.myspace.com/badmarmalade
and...
www.myspace.com/gig_in_a_flat for more details
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