Well, good friends - the infectious murky fog seems to have somewhat cleared from my general respitory system, so I suppose I'm ready to recap the big OK Go show at Avalon from Thursday night. Now, if my Nyquil-addled brain could only remember anything from the past week...
- As we pulled up to the Avalon on time (we are, after all, New England's most punctual band), there was a sizeable complement of road crew ready for our arrival. They quickly helped us unload our gear and then whisked us to our dressing room area where there was a full spread complimentary food and beer as well as large but adorable anthropomorphic teddy bears to gently lull us to rejuvenating pre-show nappy time.
To say that we are not used to this kind of rock star treatment would be a bit of an understatement. The majority of our gigs usually involve us arriving at the venue at our insanely early load-in time and then spending the next two hours figuring out who the fuck is in charge, what's going on, whether we're soundchecking or not, etc. On one occasion, we actually showed up at our proper call time and had to spend ten minutes cajoling an ornery janitor to let us bring our equipment in out of the rain. In short, I would highly recommend playing Avalon if you are ever so inclined. They do you up right.
- Despite the plethora of free beer and chips, the one thing we didn't have in abundance in our dressing room was privacy. As we were changing into our monkey suits, a veritable who's who of Boston media were streaming in and out of the private band area. Granted, they were completely ignoring us, as they were only interested in schmoozing with OK Go. Still, I felt a little violated. As I stood there in my boxers, changing into my tuxedo pants, I had the following conversation with WFNX DJ Julie Kramer:
Me: I guess this is the privacy level you get if you're the opening act.
Julie: It's okay - I'm not looking.
Me: Well... you don't have to be afraid to look.
Julie: Don't worry - it's nothing I haven't seen before.
Me: Are you sure?
Julie: Pretty sure, yeah.
Me: Are you suuuuuuure?
Nate: Brendo, what are you doing?
Me: (quietly) I don't know.
- Speaking of Nate Diggity, your local rock guitarist took a serious spill on his bike (his bicycle, not the cool kind of bike) earlier in the day, causing the entire right side of his body to be in excruciating pain all day. Not that you could tell from his performance. The little bastard nutted up in a big way and rocked the house.
- The performance itself was predictably a blur. I don't know if it's possible to accurately describe what it's like to play for almost 3000 energetic audience members. It was by far the biggest crowd we'd ever played for and we only had about a half hour set, so foremost in my mind was a) not royally fucking up my bass parts and b) connecting with the audience. I also spent maybe 13% of the time wondering if my fly was down.
But right before I went on stage, I told myself to take a moment and really enjoy it. Too many times for big shows, I end up not even really remembering the performance because I'm concentrating too hard on what I need to get done. I didn't want this to happen this time around. So about midway through the set when I felt we were solidly firing on all cylinders, I specifically took a moment to just stand there and bask in it. It was pretty incredible. I don't know if I've ever felt anything like it.
- Our reverie was quickly broken when the oh-so-efficient Avalon crew insisted that we load our gear out of the venue immediately after our set. Not off stage - out of the venue. The rock star-size ego that I had developed in the previous few hours of royal treatment was immediately punctured down to size. The cute girls that were giving me the googly eyes in the front row during the show quickly shifted their gazes to pity when they saw me lugging a bass amp in the rain only to be locked out of Mike's truck. Rock and fucking roll!
But overall, our experience at Avalon was a great way to cap off an amazing year of Scamper. So thanks to all the great folks we met before and after the show. And to the Phoenix and WFNX and OK Go and the Cinematics and blah blah blah. Thanks to everyone we've ever met. I'm tired.
- As we pulled up to the Avalon on time (we are, after all, New England's most punctual band), there was a sizeable complement of road crew ready for our arrival. They quickly helped us unload our gear and then whisked us to our dressing room area where there was a full spread complimentary food and beer as well as large but adorable anthropomorphic teddy bears to gently lull us to rejuvenating pre-show nappy time.
To say that we are not used to this kind of rock star treatment would be a bit of an understatement. The majority of our gigs usually involve us arriving at the venue at our insanely early load-in time and then spending the next two hours figuring out who the fuck is in charge, what's going on, whether we're soundchecking or not, etc. On one occasion, we actually showed up at our proper call time and had to spend ten minutes cajoling an ornery janitor to let us bring our equipment in out of the rain. In short, I would highly recommend playing Avalon if you are ever so inclined. They do you up right.
- Despite the plethora of free beer and chips, the one thing we didn't have in abundance in our dressing room was privacy. As we were changing into our monkey suits, a veritable who's who of Boston media were streaming in and out of the private band area. Granted, they were completely ignoring us, as they were only interested in schmoozing with OK Go. Still, I felt a little violated. As I stood there in my boxers, changing into my tuxedo pants, I had the following conversation with WFNX DJ Julie Kramer:
Me: I guess this is the privacy level you get if you're the opening act.
Julie: It's okay - I'm not looking.
Me: Well... you don't have to be afraid to look.
Julie: Don't worry - it's nothing I haven't seen before.
Me: Are you sure?
Julie: Pretty sure, yeah.
Me: Are you suuuuuuure?
Nate: Brendo, what are you doing?
Me: (quietly) I don't know.
- Speaking of Nate Diggity, your local rock guitarist took a serious spill on his bike (his bicycle, not the cool kind of bike) earlier in the day, causing the entire right side of his body to be in excruciating pain all day. Not that you could tell from his performance. The little bastard nutted up in a big way and rocked the house.
- The performance itself was predictably a blur. I don't know if it's possible to accurately describe what it's like to play for almost 3000 energetic audience members. It was by far the biggest crowd we'd ever played for and we only had about a half hour set, so foremost in my mind was a) not royally fucking up my bass parts and b) connecting with the audience. I also spent maybe 13% of the time wondering if my fly was down.
But right before I went on stage, I told myself to take a moment and really enjoy it. Too many times for big shows, I end up not even really remembering the performance because I'm concentrating too hard on what I need to get done. I didn't want this to happen this time around. So about midway through the set when I felt we were solidly firing on all cylinders, I specifically took a moment to just stand there and bask in it. It was pretty incredible. I don't know if I've ever felt anything like it.
- Our reverie was quickly broken when the oh-so-efficient Avalon crew insisted that we load our gear out of the venue immediately after our set. Not off stage - out of the venue. The rock star-size ego that I had developed in the previous few hours of royal treatment was immediately punctured down to size. The cute girls that were giving me the googly eyes in the front row during the show quickly shifted their gazes to pity when they saw me lugging a bass amp in the rain only to be locked out of Mike's truck. Rock and fucking roll!
But overall, our experience at Avalon was a great way to cap off an amazing year of Scamper. So thanks to all the great folks we met before and after the show. And to the Phoenix and WFNX and OK Go and the Cinematics and blah blah blah. Thanks to everyone we've ever met. I'm tired.
5 Comments:
Allow me to add:
- The Ok Go guys are some of the most pleasant and down-to-earth people in the world. Their place on the fame meter has gone up considerably since the last time we hovered around them backstage, but they still had absolutely zero rockstar pretension about them, and were more than willing to schmooze with us. When one of their crew blatantly stole our last three beers, Damian actually delayed his stage entrance to be sure we got restocked.
- Sorry to anyone who went through hell to get tickets when in fact all you had to do was show up and be 21. We didn't know.
- Sorry also to the hundreds of disappointed people who didn't get a limited edition OK Go / Scamper hippo shirt.
- Thanks Tracy and Dave for rocking the merch and Stacy for photos.
- It was my left side in all the agony. Now it's mostly just itchy.
I know, I know, get your own blog, diggity. Pow.
Special thanks to the jerky security guard who said that I couldn't get in because I was on the FNX guest list.
Even more special thanks goes to Keith and Alena for saving the day and beating him to a pulp as we walked through the velvet rope.
- It was my left side in all the agony. Now it's mostly just itchy.
Thank heavens you cleared up that crucial piece of misinformation I offered.
I have a theory that if I had written that it was your left side, you would have said it was your right, just so I would be wrong.
Thank heavens you cleared up that crucial piece of misinformation I offered.
You know I'm developmentally impaired with this right/left ballyhoo. I'm trying to rise above my handicap, and that involves precise attention to detail and fact-checking in cases such as this.
So while it may just be casual tossing about of misinformation to you, bub, my sound mind hangs in the balance.
"nutted up"?
That's...umm... an interesting expression...
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