Victory!
First off, I want to offer a hundred thousand thank-you's to addktshun for putting together Friday Night's opportunity for us. Seriously, he took care of us every step of the way. From setup to breakdown he was there, making sure all three bands were comfortable and ready. Sometimes I've gotten the feeling that promoters don't really give a damn about the musicians there, as long as they bring in the crowd. But for him, everyone involved with that night was important, and that's a pretty damned commendable attitude. We're looking forward to doing many more shows with him in the future.
The show itself was great, as well. Turnout wasn't as great as we'd hoped, but all things considered it was still quite good. The crowd seemed fairly responsive too, especially at the end of "Salieri" and "Through My Fingers." The sound wasn't too bad, though I really had nothing in my monitor but the sequence and one of explodingcat's keyboards for the first half of the set, and nothingoth seemed to disappear at points. Still, we plowed through with our trademark energy, and I didn't hear any complaints from those watching.
The setup of the stage made things a bit interesting, too. There was basically three platforms, and so Tom and Chad took either side, and I literally was Center Stage. I couldn't see either of them very well, and so almost felt like my first show again, where it was just me onstage. If you've never done that before, understand that, for me at least, there's this tremendous pressure to try and hold the crowd's attention. I knew the pressure didn't really exist, but I had to keep turning off the part of my brain that said it did. As always, though, I managed to fuel even that nervousness into the show. I honestly can't even remember pieces of my performance at this point. I'm going to go ahead and assume this means I just lost myself onstage and not that it was so bad I blacked out.
Many thanks also to In Tenebris and Void Stares Back, who also put on fantastic shows, for letting us ride on their coat-tails so to speak. We are still very much the rookie band, not knowing much about booking and no one knowing who we are, so it's good that these excellent bands on the verge of really breaking through have enough faith in us and our music to allow us to share a bit of the spotlight.
I will admit, that's what it feels like right now. . . riding coat-tails. That's the one gripe I have about this situation, and it has nothing to do with the other bands, promoters, anybody but me, really. I hate being the new band. I hate being unknown. Trying to encourage people we've never met to show up early to hear us, and then spending the rest of the show at the merch booth hoping someone noticed. But we're rookies. We're unknowns. And not many people really want to take a chance on us yet. I can understand that, I suppose, but it's tough to sit there, watch people browse over the CDs, pick up everybody's but yours. . . yeah, we sold one CD (and that was to a friend who already had one and wanted to give one to her father) and two buttons. I should be happy with that. At least we touched someone. At least we got some advertising out of it. At least the crowd liked us enough and the club made enough money that we should be asked back. And I know this is the transition point where most new bands die. We've managed to get out there, record an EP with a full-length on the drawing board, and now we just have to keep pushing through. Eventually, if we stick to our guns long enough, the breakthrough happens somewhere. We go from the baby band to the Opening Band, and one day the Headliner. It could take more years than I'm probably ready to admit, and the struggle does seem overwhelming at times.
But I know it will be worth it. I know we can make it through. I believe in my bandmembers. I believe in our music. And I believe we truly can reach people, and they will appreciate what we're doing.
And if that never happens, fine then. WE appreciate what we're doing, and that'll just have to be good enough.
The show itself was great, as well. Turnout wasn't as great as we'd hoped, but all things considered it was still quite good. The crowd seemed fairly responsive too, especially at the end of "Salieri" and "Through My Fingers." The sound wasn't too bad, though I really had nothing in my monitor but the sequence and one of explodingcat's keyboards for the first half of the set, and nothingoth seemed to disappear at points. Still, we plowed through with our trademark energy, and I didn't hear any complaints from those watching.
The setup of the stage made things a bit interesting, too. There was basically three platforms, and so Tom and Chad took either side, and I literally was Center Stage. I couldn't see either of them very well, and so almost felt like my first show again, where it was just me onstage. If you've never done that before, understand that, for me at least, there's this tremendous pressure to try and hold the crowd's attention. I knew the pressure didn't really exist, but I had to keep turning off the part of my brain that said it did. As always, though, I managed to fuel even that nervousness into the show. I honestly can't even remember pieces of my performance at this point. I'm going to go ahead and assume this means I just lost myself onstage and not that it was so bad I blacked out.
Many thanks also to In Tenebris and Void Stares Back, who also put on fantastic shows, for letting us ride on their coat-tails so to speak. We are still very much the rookie band, not knowing much about booking and no one knowing who we are, so it's good that these excellent bands on the verge of really breaking through have enough faith in us and our music to allow us to share a bit of the spotlight.
I will admit, that's what it feels like right now. . . riding coat-tails. That's the one gripe I have about this situation, and it has nothing to do with the other bands, promoters, anybody but me, really. I hate being the new band. I hate being unknown. Trying to encourage people we've never met to show up early to hear us, and then spending the rest of the show at the merch booth hoping someone noticed. But we're rookies. We're unknowns. And not many people really want to take a chance on us yet. I can understand that, I suppose, but it's tough to sit there, watch people browse over the CDs, pick up everybody's but yours. . . yeah, we sold one CD (and that was to a friend who already had one and wanted to give one to her father) and two buttons. I should be happy with that. At least we touched someone. At least we got some advertising out of it. At least the crowd liked us enough and the club made enough money that we should be asked back. And I know this is the transition point where most new bands die. We've managed to get out there, record an EP with a full-length on the drawing board, and now we just have to keep pushing through. Eventually, if we stick to our guns long enough, the breakthrough happens somewhere. We go from the baby band to the Opening Band, and one day the Headliner. It could take more years than I'm probably ready to admit, and the struggle does seem overwhelming at times.
But I know it will be worth it. I know we can make it through. I believe in my bandmembers. I believe in our music. And I believe we truly can reach people, and they will appreciate what we're doing.
And if that never happens, fine then. WE appreciate what we're doing, and that'll just have to be good enough.