Rock Show Recap

We recently had a rock show. We had booked it months ago with School for the Dead and The Fawns. At the time that we confirmed the date we had assumed it'd be a regular three band set at our local rock venue. As the date neared, and we began the promotion process, we discovered on the club's website that there were five bands on the bill.

When you are playing in a independent band and you are doing shows at little clubs you learn pretty quickly that you have to just try to go with the flow. We had intended the night to be one where we could finally stretch out a little and play nice relaxed sets of a normal length, but instead it was going to be one of those marathon nights of loudness and chaos.

Often when we have a show coming up, people ask me what the order of the bands is. Amazingly, lots of times, I just honestly do not know. This was one of those shows. It wasn't until fifteen minutes before show time that we finally worked out an order. I know this makes it very difficult for people to schedule their evenings. Just because someone wants to see a band or two, it doesn't necessarily mean that they want to spend four and a half hours in a rock club. I wish things were more organized in this underground world of rock shows, but over the years, I've come to expect just the opposite.

Sometimes, a venue doesn't want to make an order of bands in an attempt to trick people into coming out early and staying the whole night, therefore providing a larger audience and selling more drinks. I don't think that is the case for this venue necessarily. I don't think there is anything nefarious going on.

Anyway, the night went fairly well. It was long and there were dazed blank faces in the audience as The Fawns took the stage. The room was really loud and after being there for a few hours in the loudness, it's hard to not play a loud show yourself. So we played a rock set. Actually, that is what we had rehearsed for. We wanted to play the power pop that night and that's what we did. It was a really solid set I think. People clapped along to High School Party!

By the time School for the Dead took the stage, ears had been numbed. We tried to start off with a nice quiet Dayjob to ease into things but by the end of our set we were pretty crazy loud, too. We did manage to debut two new songs and they sounded better than I imagined. What a band. These guys pick things up so fast and play them so tastefully. The songs were "Somebody Else's Problem" and "I Don't Know About Anyone Else But".

What the crowd lacked in size it more than made up for in quality. The people there were engaged and encouraging and seemed to be having a good time. There was a little dancing, a lot of clapping and laughing and we even sold some merchandise.

Local shows are by far the most difficult shows on the ego. You'd think it'd be the opposite but we always get the greatest response from people who don't know us. In a couple of weeks we'll be at The Black Moon in Belchertown. I imagine a partially local crowd and a partially new crowd. I'm pretty excited to see how that goes down. I hope you can come out to it.