School for the Dead at the Calvin Theater, Northampton, April 6, 2008

On Sunday, School for the Dead played an interesting gig. It was called Raise the Roof and was a fund raiser for roof repairs for the big brick church in the center of town. On a personal level, we have an attachment to that building since, not only is it a beautiful iconic center piece to Main Street, but The Fawns have played there for the last three years running at Northampton's First Night Celebration.

This show on Sunday was a variety show of sorts with many different performers playing short sets. It was at the wonderful old Calvin Theatre, where Joe Jackson had played just the night before.

School for the Dead played as a four piece and we were the last act of the day. Max and I, and later, Brian, got to the theater early for load-in and while I was there I walked around the place and tried to plan our attack.

After we had our back-line setup I took a ride over to Stop and Shop where I purchased six helium-filled balloons with fifteen foot ribbons. The woman who was inflating them for me, told me about her experiences of going to the Calvin sixty years ago to see movies.

Back at the theater, as we were preparing to go on stage we stood off to the side with our balloons and our nerves and got ready for our four song set. Right before us was a large choir. I'm pretty sure this was the first time we've followed a choir.

We took the stage, tied our balloons to our instruments, as we often do, and kicked right in with Superhero. For our second song we did Waiting For A Ride and we got full audience participation on that one. It was pretty great hearing everyone clap along in that giant room.

We played Ayla and Omnivore and then it was our turn to lead the all-star finale. Brian had had the idea of doing Yellow Submarine so I printed up a few lyrics sheets and we started it up while calling everyone back to the stage.

It was a School for the Dead moment that I won't soon forget. As I looked back behind me, the stage was full of people all singing along, some were dancing, there was a juggler, and the Primate Fiasco was playing all the horn parts perfectly and gleefully. It was like Carnival up there and the whole audience was singing, too.

The picture above was taken by Jaz Tupelo of WRSI, there are more shot of the event at her Facebook page, but apparently nobody can see those unless they happen to have a Facebook account and are friends with Ms Tupelo (thank you Anonymous for pointing that out).