The London suburb where I lived had several technical colleges within easy reach. Not every week, but often enough, one or other of them would have live music playing. This would vary enormously. One time it was a folk singer called Mike Absalom, then a month later it was a band called Nazareth. No special arrangements were made by the college authorities, they were happy to rent out their place to make a bit of extra cash. Concerts like this were one of the ways of hearing about new music. If a singer couldn’t get his records played on the radio, then he had to go round small places and hope that his reputation would spread by word of mouth. The internet has changed all that of course. << less