Old Rockers, Roland and Brand Consistency

I couldn’t resist when I saw this gig announced…

Glenn Hughes formerly of Deep Purple, one of the greatest rock bands of all time was touring the UK to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their album ‘Burn’ .

The gig was at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, London and my London buddy Roger agreed to come along with me and spare Deirdre the experience of having to “suffer” through four hours of standing and listening to a night of hard rock complete with long hair, 1,000 guitar solos and even a 10 minute drum solo!!

While I wasn’t going to gigs 50 years ago when I was eight years of age, I did start at 13 and Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Thin Lizzy just hooked me and I’ve been a huge music fan ever since.

At that first Thin Lizzy gig that I went to, us boys wore our denims, our rock hero t-shirts and our leather jackets and this time at the Electric Ballroom while our gig uniforms were exactly the way they were, we have all aged more than a bit, but like Glenn Hughes who is now in his seventies, we still rocked !!

Glenn served up two hours of Deep Purple classics and while I never saw them in their prime at least now I heard all of those monster tracks delivered with precision 50 years later – I was in hard rock heaven.

A huge shout out to Roger who declared that it was an “interesting experience”!!

In the spirit of great music and guitar heroes, Roger brought me to Denmark Street the following day which was famous as a haven for songwriters and record companies. Now it is famous for the collection of specialist shops selling instruments, everything for musicians and their rock star dreams.

One of the shops we couldn’t resist popping into was the Roland store – Roland are famous for keyboards, synthesisers and electronic drum kits and it was exhilarating watching potential purchasers sitting at the various instruments in display and putting them through their paces.

This of course included some young kids with their parents sampling the expensive equipment that might just be the next step to a career of stardom.

Before we left I noticed a display of t-shirts donning the famous Roland brand – wearing one of these would give me huge automatic kudos with the music fraternity even though my 7 years of piano lessons resulted in my 3rd teacher giving up on me with a break up note to my mother who was paying for my lessons “Greg is wasting my time, his time and your money “ .

That was very harsh !!

If she was a better teacher and inspired me more maybe I would still be playing and legitimately wearing one of these t-shirts (at least that is my version of the truth)

Feck it, I’ll buy a t- shirt, a very cool souvenir from my trip to London.

“Would you like a bag” the sales assistant asked.

“Of course” I said, and eagerly awaited a cool bag with that iconic cool logo to carry around London with me for the rest of the day.

My heart sank when he pulled out a white unbranded plastic bag and placed my t-shirt in it.

What a waste .. maybe they ran out of cool branded bags or maybe they just don’t value the little chance of their brand being carried around this bustling city?

I thought about Glenn Hughes and his flawless delivery of classic Deep Purple songs 50 years on despite being in his seventies and I thought about Roland and their iconic brand.

Put the t-shirt in a proper bag and give your famous brand the respect and consistency that it deserves

Greg (the rocker!)

Greg is a partner at?Fuzion?a?Brand Communications agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland