explore | Grilled Cheese

Your ears are your instrument too. 🎧

Decades of loud stages take a toll — tinnitus doesn't care how good the gig was.

What's your hearing protection routine? Share it below. 👇

#MiddleAgeMusician #HearingProtection #MusicianLife #Tinnitus #LiveMusic #ProtectYourEars #GigLife #VeteranMusician

No big names on the poster. No tickets to sell out. Just a band you haven't heard yet, a room with fifty people in it, and a decent chance one of those songs stays with you for years.

Go out tonight?

#LiveMusicIreland #IrishMusic #GigLife #SupportIrishMusic

Hotel Room Art Collection 14
Sheraton Suites Chicago O'Hare

I didnt think there'd be art in this conference room

#GigLife #Actor #TravelsWithOswald

This is when my band played at the Ozzy company in Bogota, Colombia 2016
📸: Miguel Mejia

#rock #music #indiemusic #punk #photography #metal #livemusic #livemusicphotography #onstage #hardrock #giglife

Before the lights, the crowd and the first song, there's a side door, a van parked where it probably shouldn't be, and someone carrying a kick drum up a flight of stairs nobody mentioned when the gig was booked.

Every gig starts here.

Photo by Marios Proniaris on Pexels

#GigLife #IrishMusic

Hotel Room Art Collection 13
Holiday Inn Chicago/Schaumburg

A abstract in the bathroom and Oswald loves his king size bed!

#GigLife #Actor #CrisisIntervention #CIT #MentalHealth #TravelsWithOswald

Stage set, sound checked, and waiting to go on.

Wherever you are tonight, someone spent the afternoon getting a room ready for you.

Go out. Pay in at the door. Buy the merch.

Photo by Wendy Wei on Pexels

#IrishMusic #LiveMusicIreland #GigLife #SupportIrishMusic

Sixty minutes. That's the only part of the day that looks like being in a band.

The rest is a van, a deli stop, a car park, a soundcheck that ran long, two hours of waiting, and a drive home in the dark with everything still to unload tomorrow.

Nobody's complaining.

#IrishMusic #GigLife

Hotel Room Art Collection 12
Hilton Garden Inn Naperville/Warrenville

Oswald couldn't make it. I'll make sure to wake him up in time for next week's trip!

#GigLife #Actor #CrisisIntervention #CIT #MentalHealth #TravelsWithOswald

They were in at four...they'll be there after you've packed up. They'll fix the feedback you never hear, ride the vocal you're pushing too hard, and take exactly none of the credit when someone says you sounded great tonight.

Photo: Leon Huang via Pexels

#IrishMusic #GigLife #IndependentMusic

A phone call months ago. A venue saying yes. A band loading gear into an empty room, and a crowd who chose to join them on a Tuesday night.

That's the part that matters...the connection, the shared joy.

Everything else...is just admin.

#IrishMusic #LiveMusicIreland #GigLife #IndependentMusic