The best things in life are free - and not allowed anymore

While watching Oceansize last week at the Islington Academy, vocalist/guitarist Mike Vennart (who isn't exactly the world's most talkative frontman) said something astounding. Halfway through the set, he delivered the message that: "Apparently no one's allowed to take any more photos or you'll all get fucked." I was staggered - nowhere either within the Academy or outside the venue (or even anywhere else in the N1 Shopping Centre, where the Academy is situated) were there any signs forbidding the use of cameras inside. No one was searched on entry. There weren't even any complaints from Vennart or any of his bandmates. The poor guy seemed genuinely surprised at what he was being asked to relay to the audience (who, after paying more than a tenner for tickets thanks to the dreaded, and pointless, booking fee, were then made to pay £3.25 for a pint of Carling - yes, that's right, Carling).

The point is, given the cost of actually getting to the gig in the first place, many people think that paying £15 for a souvenir T-shirt is just a tad unfair, and that taking a few snaps (whether on phones or the latest digital camera) is a much cheaper, more personal way of remembering the night. I don't condone bands who give clear notice that "The use of any camera or video capturing equipment is prohibited during the performance" (Tool, for one, are famously camera-shy, causing widespread blindness during their recent tours by ordering stewards to shine torches in the faces of anyone who raises their hand for fear it might contain a camera, phone or - Great Odin's raven! - a cigarette) for reasons already given, but at least when that happens the audience is fully aware of the consequences should they get caught trying to smuggle in a camera.

For Oceansize - still considered a "small" band despite regularly playing to audiences of 750+ on this tour - to be told, presumably by their management, to order their fans not to take any pictures so that they might spend ludicrous sums on a 10p-to-make T-shirt or hoody is disgusting, and a sign of just how much of a business the music industry is. Oceansize are a band with no songs under 5 minutes long, a band with no real chart prospects, a band that is firmly rooted in the underground scene. That is what their music dictates - and no amount of money-making, executive decisions is going to change that.