Friday, December 29, 2006
Shea Riley's
performed with: "Odeon"Setlist:
Indecision
Smile
Tonic
Run Away
Laid
Wave Goodbye
1:52
See You Again
Please, Baby, Please
Satisfied
Don't
Take Me Back
Review:
One last show in 2006. It was a good one to end the good year on...standing room only. Actually, it was kind of weird because the place was packed, but everyone was sitting...and the closest table was about twenty feet away from us. Whatever works.
The set was good. We seemed to have good interaction with the crowd. I was pleased with the drum solo, so that's good. And, we seem to be getting shots during Run Away again...and that's always good!
posted by Stein # 11:38 PM
Friday, December 15, 2006
Knickerbockers
performed with: "Icares," "Third Frate," and "Clay Masters Band"Setlist:
Indecision
Satisfied
Don't
Laid
Run Away
Tonic
See You Again
Wave Goodbye
1:52
FHG
Take Me Back
Review:
This was our first show since the Colorado trip (as evident by its placement in the calander) and our first time at Knickerbockers in quite awhile. The people that did manage to show up, we thank you for it, hopefully you enjoyed yourself all night. It was a really good lineup, with Clay Masters starting the show off early playing an acoustic set. Third Frate provided a little drama for the evening. Not drama in the sense that they're pre-madonna's, but more drama like Nate had to borrow Connealy's bass because he forgot his in Omaha. You'd think he'd remember something like that, seeing as how he's the bass player, but that's the great thing about playing shows with friends...you can borrow their stuff and not feel bad about it. Oh and Jeremy broke a string and had to rock his "backup," 1970 Fender Strat for half the set. Must be rough. Icares was up next and played a really good set with some new tunes that are going to be on their upcoming CD. Big thanks to those guys for playing. And then we played. And we played pretty darn well. Thanks to all the fans of the other bands that stuck around to watch the show.
Wait a second...how can I forget the real drama of the evening. The crazy girl...and not the kind that Buckcherry was talking about either. During the course of the evening, she kept looking for Aaron Zimmer...asking people which one he was, where he was at, when was he playing. Well the short answer to that was his show was on the 23rd...a good week and a day after the current date. No big deal, she managed to stick around the entire show and proceed to write a note for the band on our mailing list sheet involving her phone number, a santa hat, and the words "you're hot." Good times...until Ged agreed to give her a ride home because no one else would and he has a problem saying no to people. So that means that I have to follow him to this crazy girls house in "who knows where" Lincoln to make sure that he doesn't get killed and that she doesn't sing that new Ben Lee song to him...you know..."Catch My Disease." Well I'm happy to say that everyone is alive and disease free...which might be more than we can say for one of Third Frate's fans.
posted by Stein # 11:59 PM
Saturday, December 02, 2006
36 Hours Of Keystone
shared the festival stage with: "Saliva," "Railbenders," "Ben Pu and Crew," "Killgore Trout," "Silence the Satellites," "Scott Staten," "Marty Jones," "Nostalgia," "High Five," "Boondok Saints," "Optimal Frequency," "Tortus," and "Straight Creek Drive"Setlist:
Pennsylvania
See You Again
Please, Baby, Please
Wave Goodbye
Laid
Indecision
Smile
Run Away
Sit Down
I Got You
FHG
Don't
Tonic
Satisfied
Knockin'
April
Omaha
1:52
Back Porch
Drive Just To Sleep
Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay
Save Us
Take Me Back
Rockin' In The Free World
Review:
There's so much to talk about and only one internet to display it on...but we'll give it a shot anyways...
So the planning that goes into road tripping to Colorado is a bit more involved than you'd think. About a month before the actual festival we had to call out to Colorado to even find out that we were accepted. The call was fairly reassuring because they were like, "Oh, yeah...you guys are definitely in. We'll get you hooked up with a room and lift tickets for the weekend..." and all that jazz. Now that was pretty exciting for us, but it does illustrate the lack of planning that went on during this festival. The festival itself was called 36 Hours of Keystone, in which Keystone Mountain stayed open for 36 straight hours for skiing and snowboarding, and there was also 36 straight hours of music.
Fastforward to about a week after the initial phone conversation when we find out we're playing from 6 - 8...AM! Of course I sent them an e-mail back saying something to the effect of "ok, I just want to double check that 6-8AM is the correct time so that there is no confusion on when we're playing." Eventually I received an e-mail back saying, "Yes that is the correct time slot. I know it sounds like a bad one, but the 'Sunrise Time Slot' is really a good one because sunrise on the mountain is a huge deal...and it coincides with the 'Sunrise Breakfast' so there should be plenty of people around the mountain." Believe you me, this will come into play later.
Fastforward again to a few weeks before the show and we get another e-mail from a different person involved with the event. Now this e-mail is supposed to inform us of the sound/stage setup and requirements, but really is more confusing than anything. The e-mail says that "Backline is being provided, guitar amp, bass amp, drum kit, and is required to be used." First of all, that's a horribly written sentence and second, it's pretty tough for the average human to decipher what the hell they're talking about. Now for those of you who don't know, backline refers to the equipment that the band usually provides...guitar amps, bass amps, drums sets, etc. But, for a festival where a lot of bands are sharing the stage with not a lot of setup time, you figure that a "plug and play" situation is ideal. Seemingly that helps us out a lot because we no longer have to haul all the amps and drums to Colorado, and can just take the guitars and call it good. However, to make certain that we don't show up like jackasses with no gear when we were supposed to bring all our stuff, I e-mail them back and ask them if all we need to bring is our guitars since the e-mail said, "backline will be provided...and is required to be used."
Fastforward some more to the day before we leave and I still haven't heard back from these people about the gear situation. So I call out there and ask them what's going on, or if I can get ahold of the sound guy directly. They give me an e-mail address. That's right, the day before we need to leave for Colorado, I'm supposed to e-mail the sound guy to see what in the hell is going to transpire when we get there. So I e-mail him. And I wait. And the next day, I still have no e-mail. So I call back out there and get nothing but answering machines. F-in' great, right? Well, judging from the previous e-mail that said, "backline will be provided," I inform the fellas the day we're supposed to leave that all we need to take is our guitars because, quite frankly, I can't imagine a festival that is having continual back-to-back-to-back-to-back bands having everyone setup and tear down their gear. Plug and play just makes more sense. Well, later that day I'm having lunch at Hooters with some coworkers, which is a story in and of itself, and I get a call from a restricted number. I answer and low and behold it's the sound guy, who did get the detailed diagram of our stage setup that we had to fax him, and proceeds to tell me that we need to bring our own guitar amps and bass amp. "Oh," I say. He says that they're providing drums and a bass amp, but we should bring our bass amp as a backup in case their rig fails.
WTF?! In case their rig fails? What kind of a place provides backline, says it's required to be used, and then says you have to bring your own guitar amps and a backup bass amp?! So now I'm supposed to be heading to work, but instead I have to go borrow my parents Expedition because it's the only car we have that can possibly house three people and all the gear. (At this point, Ryan has already left with a caravan of friends for Colorado with just his guitar...)
So eventually I get to work and leave 8 hours later to go pick up Paul. We head to Lincoln to pick up Connealy and all the amps that are at Ryan's. And, as it turns out, we can't find Connealy's house very well in the dark and end up driving around Lincoln for a half an hour before we find it. Phase one of the trip a resounding success...
We pick up Connealy, head to Ryan's, and realize when we get there that it's going to take all of the Tetris skills we had ever developed to get all the gear and the three of us into the car. And, after taking most of the stuff out and then putting it back in, we manage to get three amps, two guitars, three snowboards, three duffel bags, a suitcase, and our tub of merch all into the vehicle just in time to depart from Ryan's house at 10:09 PM.
Now I have to tell you that it was my idea to drive through the night to get to Keystone. My reasoning behind the whole thing was that we had no place to stay Thursday night (we only had the condo for Friday night), the festival kicked off on Friday morning at 9:00 AM, and we could just get there in the morning and check into our condo and then do whatever. Seemed reasonable, so that's what we did. The drive itself wasn't too bad. We had a portable entertainment center, so we were able to watch Dumb and Dumber and play NCAA Football '07 on PSP. Sidenote: I recommed purchasing a PSP for anytype of overnight trip you're planning on driving...one game of NCAA Football and you're an hour down the road.
Anyways, we all take turns driving and Connealy ends up with the mountain shift from Denver to Keystone. It's now about 4:45 in the morning (mountain time), it's snowing, and we're taking a back road through the mountains at 20mph. Now yes, I'll admit that I tried to videotape the tretcherous road conditions and ended up blinding Connealy with the camera light...not the best idea I've ever had, but we ended up in Keystone at about 6am. Once there, we located our condo and then called our posse of people who made the trip earlier that day to have a place to crash for a few hours. And that's definitely all it was. About 8:30 we got up, went and got breakfast and then hoped we could check into our condo early. Luckily we were able to get into the room...which wasn't so much a room as it was just a horrible place to set foot into...let alone stay for any extended period of time. I mean two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a huge L-shaped pullout couch, a kitchen, full bar, three TV's, a two minute walk to the ski lift...what are we Stephen Colbert? How can we be expected to live like this. We're rockstars for crying out loud!
Eventually Paul goes to sleep, I tell Connealy that I'm really pumped to go snowboarding, but I look like a zombie from Shaun of the Dead. We decide it's probably better to just take a nap, so four hours later, Connealy and I head for the slopes. Up until now, we've bumped into my parents...who have a hotel room right next to ours...go figure...but they're awesome so it's no big deal, and my dad gives us a bomb-proof case of Patron tequila, so we decide to let them stick around...however, we've had no contact with Ryan. We know he's there...we just haven't seen him...and don't until about 9pm on the top of the mountain. At that point, we'd originally decided to head down the mountain together...but we had a couple rookie snowboarders in our group. We end up losing Connealy...then Ryan goes to catch him and we come to find out that Connealy was following someone down the mountain who he thought was Ryan, gets to the bottom and goes, "Damn, man, that was fast...oh...you're not Ryan." Needless to say we lost eachother, reconveined at the hotel room, and then went to bed at roughly midnight.
Five hours later I got up, took a shower, opened the door expecting to find my band...but found absolutely no one in the hotel room. It was very much like a bad dream. However, the fellas had went to the Greenlight (the venue we were playing at) to check it out while I was in the shower. I called them bastards and we moved on.
So now we're unloading all the gear at the Greenlight and we find out that they have a guitar amp for Paul, a bass amp for Connealy, and a drum set for me...so we basically hauled all our gear all the way there, moved it in and out of hotel rooms, only to find out that we didn't need it in the end. But, at this point, we're just ready to play. While we're unloading the gear Ryan starts making a setlist...which is something we should have done the night before, but oh well. We never follow those anyway.
6 o'clock rolls around and we start playing...well, actually Ryan starts playing the wrong chords to the very first song. Now I thought it was hilarious, and it was six in the morning so no one was really paying attention anyways. Which brings me to another point...no one. "No one" is something that you never want to hear when you're in a band; ie: no one enjoyed the show, no one knows who you are, no one wants to sleep with you...etc. etc. In this case, the "no one" referred to the people that were not there. Sure, there were our own diehard fans, 18 or so people who traveled all the way from Nebraska to see us. But other than that, there were a handful of people, and, of those, only a few were paying attention. "Sunrise is a big time at the mountain" my ass. Whatever, we had fun playing. Some songs went better than others and this was the first show we played "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay" at...so all in all it was fun.
When the show was over it was tough to remember exactly what happened during the middle of the set, and it was a little disappointing to have multiple people come up to us when we were packing up the gear and say, "Aw, sweet...when are you guys playing?" Apparently we missed the good slot by two hours because some people went back in the bar at 8:15 and the place was packed. Ah well, what do you do?
You eat breakfast, take a nap and go snowboarding and skiing...that's what you do. Then you drink tequila all night long while watching Nebraska throw away the Big 12 Championship...you get up in the morning and you drive 10 hours home.
And that's how you play Keystone's 36 Hour Festival with the weirdest sleeping pattern in the history of mankind.
