News & Jukebox Chart

If you go down to the pub today…

Forget the stadiums, the best place to see the stars perform appears to be your local.

Only last week, Blur front man and musical polymath Damon Albarn performed his seminal hit Park Life in an East London pub with a live cockney band called The Gents – to the surprise of the band and drinkers!

And a couple of months back, The Ring O’ Bells in Compton St. Martin in Somerset played host to some stellar performers including Coldplay.

The pub, which is co-owned by Miles Leonard, Chairman of Parlophone and co-chairman of Warner Bros. has also hosted a sets from Kylie Minogue and Gabrielle Aplin from the label.

In a previous blog, we mentioned that Elbow previewed its latest album The Take Off and Landing of Everything in 250 pubs in March this year, also launching a new beer called Charge at the same time.

What’s going on – are these artists going back to basics in search of a new audience?

We don’t think so, pubs and music just seem to be the perfect match. PRS figures have shown an increase in revenue from the licensed trade for music royalties and at Soundnet we are seeing that jukebox cashboxe is now second only to that of the pub fruit machine.

People love music and people love beer – put the two together and everyone will stick around for longer to have a good time. Some like Damon Albarn, might even have a sing along…

Tagged in: Beer & Music