Tea Party and Dfest


Tea Party
Originally uploaded by snoweyes.
So I forgot to mention anything about our Dfest performance last Saturday.
I am being a bit dramatic just to make the tale interesting....Remember to read on to the good parts because, well, you should!

Let's start off with what went wrong:

1. No CDs from our label

We emailed our contact at our label, Strange Attractors nearly a month before our performance, with no response at all. So we email again. No response. So we email again. Finally four days before the show we get a message saying that there isn't enough time to get CDs to us in time for the show. No, four days before is indeed not enough time!

2. Not enough rehearsal time
We had planned to have everyone (six people) in the band practice for a few weeks before the show. Due to a never ending scheduling conflicts we had two near-great rehearsals, but with no drummer. We never had a rehearsal with the drummer.

3. No communications from Dfest
The entire lead-up to the concert was filled with bounced emails from our "official" correspondence email, no responses from faxes, no responses from any other email I could find, and no responses from the only phone number I had as contact. I did get one email saying that everything was coming together about four weeks before the show though. So, How did we find out our venue and time slot (Saturday at midnight)? We actually found out from another artist that was going to be playing that night. I never got any communication about that one, but sure enough the bounced information was correct!

4. On the night of the show, the sound in the room was terrible.

Apparently the two previous bands showcasing before us canceled out due to noise issues with the venue next door. The only thing separating the two stages was a wall, probably made of cardboard from the sound of things. On our stage was the singer-songwriter / folk bands. On the other side was the death-metal stage. The band playing next to us was BANG BANG BANG.

5. Our band mates had disappeared
Our lovely cellist and her boyfriend drummer were delayed, stuck down at the river's edge finishing up a show they had committed to.

6. Parking was hell
I literally drive through three blocks, filled to the brim with people on the street for me to load out at our venue. Everyone was drunk and slow to respond, if at all. It was like driving through a herd of drunk, sleepy cattle.

So that was the basic set of problems that we had. Us being a SUPER TEAM, we made short work of this situation. We had five CDs of Ezra Moon (our current 2007 album) left in our stock, so we made good with an old-school CD-R burn session of our first album, Grandfather's Attic (Our first release in 2003) because, by golly, we were going to sell some merch that night!

So yea, I drove through massive crowds of people and I must say, for the lack of communication the Dfest folks were infinitely helpful with getting my car through the crowd, and we got to go to some incredible conferences and the FLAMING LIPS were awesome the night before our show!... back to our show....

Now to the venue. The noise coming from our neighbor stage was just terrible. Most acts playing here was very soft and folksy, they didn't stand a chance against next door, but our band had SIX people to bring the noise! Unfortunately...our sound guy didn't have enough inputs for six people, because he wasn't notified about what to bring with him. He was also limited to how loud he could bring up the speakers! How ironic, considering the BANG BANG BANG heavy death metal next door.

Our cellist and drummer came in just in time! The crowd really was bubbling near a hundred around midnight so I got started with my huge painting, an oil on canvas about four feet high. It took about ten minutes after midnight until the sound was as ready as could be, so I was happy to have the attention from the audience as I painted.

And then....
It was wonderful. Perfect. The crowd so so very attentive and the music was spot on. Our drummer, whom we never rehearsed with was blazing and had all the right rhythms, he had indeed been practicing to our album for the last few days leading up to the show. We had a thunderous applause with each passing song and I had loads of accolades for my artful painting after and during the band's performance. Best of all, we sold enough Grandfather's Attic CDs to make me very happy and to pay insurance :)

We ended up with some new fans, seeing old friends, running around until 2am, and having the greatest time a band could have.

What did I learn?

We have a band with new band mates that will grow and create some great music in the future. We will be playing many more shows than we have been. It feels too good not to. I will be painting with Autumn Shade and other choice bands, I am addicted to creating live abstract art.

And to the Dfest crew, I say this closing thought to you:
You really did a bang up job this year, it was really incredible and the bands were great. Your lack of two-way communication made us as nervous as hell though :)

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