Marathon gig last night. only slightly shorter post...lol

[Justin V]

I'm still recovering from this one, so if I go off-course in this story/rant, forgive me.

First some background. I'm the concerts manager at my campus radio station and last night we put on a Battle of the Bands in conjunction with a Festival that is happening on-campus next month. The top 2 winners would get paid 300 and 200 bucks respecitively and get to play on the main stage at the festival next month (a pretty big deal around here). The first place band was chosen by a panel of four judges (two from the station, two from the festival) and the second place was decided by audience ballot. In addition to running sound for this thing, my band also played in it. We were hoping that with a win we would be able to finish fund raising for the first run of our new album in the next month or so.

The problems began last week (during Spring Break) when my station manager started talking to me about finalizing the line-up of the show (a week and a half before the date). I told her that I didn't think we should have more than 6 bands. Seven might have been acceptable, but any more would just be asinine. Especially given that none of the bands that submited had particularly strong followings and we'd be relying on the line-up as a whole to get bodies in the door. The line-up I suggested to her was, in my mind, the one with the most accessible bands that would draw from the most varied crowds (a couple of high school bands were key). A couple of days later I get an email from her that we're going to have ten (yes TEN!!!) bands on the bill for the show. Each one would have 20 minutes to play with 2-5 minutes to finish the last song if they went over 20. Only one of the high school bands I suggested putting on were put on the bill and in there place we got a group of old hippies who probably still thought it was 1968.

I went into yesterday knowing that it was going to be a marathon gig, but I don't think I was expecting quite so much drama to ensue. Everything went smoothly up until the second band came in to do sound check. I know all of the people in the band (a 9 piece ska band of all music majors). I get along with 3 of them. Their singer is NOT one of those. I was trying to tell them what I needed during their soundcheck and I kept getting nothing but attitude from this guy and he kept trying to bark orders at me about stuff. I just did my best to ignore it, espeicially since he's the weakest link in that band by far (voice major who has no business singing pop music of ANY kind and thinks he's God's gift to the Earth, forget just music). What was funny was when he started getting on my drummer's nerves while he was setting up side-stage of them. Keep in mind that my drummer is something in the 6'4" range and 360lbs of massive muscle. Nicest guy ever, but you do not want him mad at you. My drummer walks over to me at the board and says "Jim better shut up soon or I think I'm gonna have to rip him in half." This made me laugh.

The rest of the soundchecks were relatively smooth, we had some technical issues with the PA we rented for the second stage, but that was eventually overcome with some help from one of the other bands. I also had some issues with the "circus band" taking way too long to get off stage from their (unscheduled) sound check.

Needless to say, I spent the majority of the show running around trying to keep things moving smoothly. I had some major help from about five people that probably saved the night from going trainwreck on me. I eventually gave myself 20 minutes to catch my breath and calm down before my band went on-stage. We hadn't played a gig for about a month or so because we'd been recording and the drummer went out of town for a week for Spring Break. Our last gig was definately an off-night as my drummer was sick as hell and I wasn't focused hardly at all during our first couple of songs. So I was a little worried about this show going in. Luckily we'd had some really good rehearsals the two nights before, so I knew our set was tight. That helped.

We got on-stage and my drummer did a quick intro thing where we played the verse chords from our first song (and the first single from the album) and he got up from behind the kit to cue the intro riff. The crowd started eating that up way better than I could have hoped. By the end of the first song, I just knew that we had that crowd in the palm of our hands. It was great. They especially went nuts when we did our cover of "Zombie" before our last song. We had by far the best crowd reaction of the night there. After the set, we were all looking at eachother thinking that we had this thing in the bag.

So the end of the show comes around a couple of hours later (midnight) and the winners of the judges vote are the all-female accapella group that almost put me to sleep. They were good, but they were definately appealing to the hippie element of the festival judges. The popular vote went to a group of teenagers who are frighteningly talented but have some serious vocal issues. The best part of the popular vote, we lost to them by ONE FREAKING VOTE!!! After having been working on this show non-stop for about 15 hours at this point, I was asking one of the judges (who's a friend of ours) why they couldn't just throw us a freaking bone and give us second place. Especially since by the judges scoring, we had obliterated everyone but the girls that one and the aforementioned circus band that actually had a circus show going on in front of them. Apparently there was sentiment for that in the judges, but our station manager said that we had to follow the rules of this thing verbatim. So my band gets screwed even though we had the best set by pretty much all accounts. I was mad, but I knew it would be a bad idea to vent publicly while I tore down the PAs.

Of course I thought I would have more than three people helping with tearing down the mass of equipment and seperating what was ours and what was rented. We had some help for about ten minutes before people just started disappearing. We eventually got everything put away in the station on the other side of campus.... at 3AM. By that point, I was running on fumes, and still sort of fuming. So I just went home and passed out....18 hours after I started.

Now I get to wait to find out if I'm going to actually get paid $100 for running sound and being de-facto stage manager all day.

Sorry about the epic post, I just needed to vent. I'm still pretty sore physically from this all. Thanks for reading.

[IanStephenson]

Originally Posted by Justin V

So my band gets screwed even though we had the best set by pretty much all accounts.

You mean by all accounts EXCEPT the judges and the audience?

You had a tough night, but can you say comflict of interests? The other band got more votes that you, but you expect to be win because you are on of the organisers...

Ian

[Justin V]

I admit it's irrational thought. I'm getting over it by now. Hopefully last night'll carry over to make our next gig in a couple of weeks a good one.

Sorry if I'm sounding like a sore sport, I just get competetive with things like this.

[Lazylion]

Battles of the bands are almost never fair.

And FYI, some of us old hippies can still rock, sonny.

[enderwaves]

Originally Posted by Lazylion

Battles of the bands are almost never fair.

battle of the bands are almost never fun either. everyone gets so competitive, and steps on toes, and just... blech. we never play them anymore. we play a college 'rock against rape' show every year, because it's a good cause and we get to play outside on the quad. organization is always severely lacking at those shows. i don't know what it is, but usually a couple of teenagers putting on a diy show do a better job than the semi-pros from the college radio station.

but, at least you played a rockin set, and now that the recording is all finished up, you've just got releasing to worry about. cheers!

[Intune]

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back -- in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.
Frederick Buechner

Gotta go tie-dye a shirt & weave some hemp...

[The_D]

+1 to the battle of the bands never being fair.

We played in one at our local and although it was billed as a battle of the bands, we were one of the two actual bands there. The unfair part comes in the night we exited due to the fact that there was only one judge and he clearly wanted in the pants of one of the kareoke singers (who eventually won btw haha).

We never entered another one after that.

[WillBuckingham]

Originally Posted by IanStephenson

can you say comflict of interests?

I dunno, that looks like a tough one!

[bassist15]

A band i was in won a battle of the bands at our high school once. Everyone else palyed metal and emo and our group did some blues rock and reggae and you could acually hear what are vocals were. The next time we played in one at our school the metalheads and emo kids hated us. In my town if you dont play what everyone plays , they dont dig you to much. Its a shame

[Zappstorius]

Originally Posted by bassist15

A band i was in won a battle of the bands at our high school once. Everyone else palyed metal and emo and our group did some blues rock and reggae and you could acually hear what are vocals were. The next time we played in one at our school the metalheads and emo kids hated us. In my town if you dont play what everyone plays , they dont dig you to much. Its a shame

I think you can actually hear metal vocals too. I give you credit for being different than the others, but why bash metal screams or emo whines??? Aren't they just as valid as some reggae "rasta" singing?

[Lazylion]

I was in a big one sponsored by Marlboro, for country bands. Beforehand, we were strictly instructed on the rules, including "don't play Hendrix, or anything like that". Ironically, the winning band's big number was a banjo-hoedown treatment of "Purple Haze"!
That's how fair they are!

[Justin V]

Thanks for the responses guys. After listening to the recordings yesterday and getting in a nice long day of recording for our album, I'm over it. My drummer's still fuming, but I like seeing that kind of energy in a band-mate. Our last drummer was a bit too laid-back when it came to things like this, so I like seeing some energy behind the kit, even it does make songs speed up now and then. lol

And I'd just like to note, I have nothing against the old hippies out there who indeed can still rock. I've seen quite a few. It's the younger hippies that get all preachy and smell bad that get to me. Especially the smelly ones when I'm next to 'em on the bus.