I know how it feels. I was in a Christian music group a couple of years back and we became quite popular in some circles. Not popular enought to make a living, but enough that we'd charge $400 a gig.

Well, there was this one place that had booked us ever since we started playing, back when we didn't charge anything. They started out paying nothing, but then started giving us $100 a gig. The thing was, this place never had ANYBODY there, and it was never any fun to play. The idea was like a Christian club, but something about their execution didn't work (I know what it was, but these were such nice people I'm not going to rant about it). The bottom line was, though, we really didn't like playing there.

So one time they asked us to play and we were just tired. We'd been playing a lot recently, and the idea of playing for less money at a place where no one shows up or pays attention really didn't sound appealing. So we said, "well, we really charge $400 now, so if you'll pay that, we'll come." Now please understand I've never been about the money. I really just love to play music, but our thinking was that there was no way they'd be willing to pay that price for us. Unfortunately I was wrong because they said "we love you guys, sure we'll pay." Well we got there and two people showed up to listen. I felt so crummy taking the money because we did a terrible job (it's hard to play a concert and do it well for just two people). Even to this day I feel guilty about taking the money, especially since these were such nice people. Eventually the club went out of business.