Welcome to the hard world of the touring unsigned band. If you've never gone on tour, then this'll be new to you. Touring bands who aren't yet well known have a difficult time getting people out in a strange new town. Nobody's heard your stuff, so why would they come see you? Good pr and a good promoter both help. But usually it's best to get nestled onto a ticket before a local likeminded band. That way you're sure to meet a lot of their fans who will most likely dig your stuff.
It's usually a bad scenario for an out-of-town band to close out an evening. So I was pensive when locals The Happies insisted on playing first. They set up, then started at ten and proceeded to play their upbeat set of originals for about an hour--pretty long. Then, they took a long time tearing down their gear. Crickets were chirping, locals were leaving. By the time we got our gear set up and sound checked, their crowd was long gone. We played a room of four, with about five more people in the removed bar area. Came a long way for this...
On the positive side, we saw stunning scenery on the drive through Grand Junction, Colorado and then Utah--that prehistoric-looking state with grand crumbling mesas as far as the eye can see. Bronson, known as Professor Crumb (our relief bass player for the tour) enlightened us on the wonderful world of ghouda cheeses. We got in some fancy skateboarding (we've got three boards on tour) and Nerf football playing at the truck stops along the way. And the Dalloways are toughening up and insisting on a few things from here on out.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment