What is it with audiences these days? There was a time, back in ancient Rome, when the average small town crowd was really appreciative of the entertainment on offer to them. These days the healthy use of the thumb seems to have been replaced by apathy.

But why is it REM can go on stage looking like they should be cared for in the community, drone on about subjects that never happen where I live and crowds all over the world go wild? How do Metallica, and before them Iron Maiden, get half the planet to buy one of their expensive T-shirts featuring a grotesque piece of art on the front? Is there any justice when M People simply walk on stage with fruity haircuts, wiggle along to a pre-recorded tape, and everyone goes toe-tapping crazy? It's enough to make you search for the hero inside yourself, buy a car, and run them down.

For most bands, not in the supertax bracket, audiences are made up of either loyal friends and family or drunks who either reckon 'you're bloody brilliant mate' as they fall over pissed, or shout at you to 'get on with it' and offer helpful tips like 'you're the biggest pile of...' — you know the sort of thing.

Could it be that truly loyal fans don't appreciate five minutes of guitar spanking immediately prior to the group being introduced, just so our axe wielding hero can show the world the Steve Vai intro he's worked out — nearly. Don't gig-goers understand that most modern bands are at the very extreme of performance art? They are either boring foot gazers with nothing to say or self-important prancing prats who won't shut up.

You'd think queuing up in the rain waiting for a Mafiosi-style 'door gorilla' to perform an intimate body search wasn't rock'n'roll enough for the average punter today. Doubtless everybody knows overpriced booze and stinking bogs go hand in hand with moments of true rock history. Let's face it, that's what the cool young kids who are really into music want these days; happening new groups ripping off bands from the '80s/'70s/'60s/'50s (delete as applicable).

One of the worst things a band has to deal with is when no bugger turns up. Surely it's obvious to the general public that self-promotion is a capitalist ploy to subvert the masses, and exceptional music will always win through? Yeah, right, and Noel writes original songs with meaningful lyrics!

Talking of which, just how did Oasis become so huge? If your band played like them at the local pub, you'd get booed off for being miserable gits without a single original idea and a terrible muddy sound — not to mention the whining vocals. One thing's for sure, Oasis, those musical ambassadors for England, couldn't give a monkey's. They managed to convince a quarter of a million people to shell out £22.50 each to stand in a field and watch them sing out of sync with the music on a big screen. As well as having punch-ups, moving house, pissing off the Americans (well, that's one point in their favour at least), they're good mates with Chris Evans. In fact that's the key — get in with old 'Ginger Bollocks', and you're away. He seems to be more or less completely in control of new live music in Great Britain these days. Mind you, it might be worth bleaching your hair yellow — it didn't do Sting any harm with the Police. Let's see how Dodgy fare using the same ploy.

If you don't happen to be Mr Evans' chummy pal and the hair care option is a non-starter, it might be handy to start by sound checking properly. On the whole, bands these days have spent as much money on gear as it costs to build a space shuttle — a good deal of them sound like blastoff too. Sadly, rather than get all the available technology working in harmony, they spend their time working out another bit of Steve Vai — badly.

It's also an idea to spend a lot of time promoting the band and forthcoming gigs on local radio. No matter how crap it is, people who work for a living and spend money going to gigs sometimes listen to the radio. The local press is the perfect place to start that scrap book which will go for millions at Sotherbys one day (a good black and white photo is as essential as having safe electronics).

Then there's that old chestnut of actually being any good — a point that catches out quite a few budding supergroups. Try not to piss off the people that did turn up by moaning about all the things that haven't gone right in your day — as if they care — 'Get on with it!'

It seems audiences in the latter part of the 1990s are just too hard to please. I guess that's why we try and kill them with as much volume as we can squeeze out of the PA.

Whoever turns up, Never Turn Down!

Big George Webley is a composer, musicologist, and bandleader. His credits include BBC 2's Have I Got News For You, Channel 4's Catch Five, and ITN's London Tonight.