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Spain can be an unusual location of curation for live music. The most prevalent trends are discotheques based around popular music (mostly American), hippie and rasta jam bands, or death metal. Anything else can be hard to come across unless you know where you’re looking. Even for a cosmopolitan contemporary cultural center like Barcelona, such places are pretty small, but there are indeed lesser-known pockets where similar musicians and friends gather.Part of the reason why independent music isn’t flourishing in the city like one would think and why there aren’t a lot of live indie rock venues has to do with laws and police. Getting licenses is very difficult and expensive for small business owners already contending with the crisis. Because Barcelona is so thickly settled, noise complaints and violations become an issue, which can also end up being expensive. The difficulties associated with the live music scene have resulted in the closing of venues, and bands being forced to actually pay to play, which means that a lot of bands don’t ever end up playing live. There also aren’t ever any apartment shows for the same thickly settled reasons that cause venues problems.
