"People go to bars to drink, watch TV, and hang out" - well, I go to pubs to play music and sing mostly. Fortunately I'm not the only one or I'd feel a right lemon.

It can be a pain though the big-screens - but it can work out all right. They stuck a big-screen projection-telly in a pub where we had a regular session, and on big game nights it meant we sat and talked and drank till the match was done, and maybe watched it; and then we played for the restof the evening.

If it wasn't a big match, but there was a match of some kind, the landlord might leave the screen on with the sound down, and the people who wanted to would listen to it on a little set on the other side of the bar. This was quite good, because it meant you were playing next to this huge green window with these fellas running around chasing a ball, like being in a sound-proofed private box up in the grandstand.

But you're right Mbo, you wouldn't want a concert where you want everybody paying full attention in a bar. If you're playing in a pub session, it's more like being a juke-box - there are some people who are listening with rapt attention, and some just like it in the background, and some who don't even notice it. It's somewhere in between a performance and a practice session. And it's different from the sort of pub-gig set-up with a stage and mikes and that stuff, where the question of competing with the telly wouldn't arise.