Fall Frolic Festival - two thumbs UP!
Sep. 23rd, 2007 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
voxwomanSo I'm exhausted, but here I am posting anyway, instead of putting the food away from the farmer's market we stopped in on the way home.
The gig was fantastic! Just when I think to myself this will be my last gig and after I fulfill this obligation I'm going to hang up the gloves and retire from music, something happens to stoke the dying fire inside me and make me think that it's not a waste of time. The concert last night was one such thing. Rich says he's never heard me sing better (honestly, I have, I think - there was one or 2 lyrical glitches and one completely blown line - I hate when I do that!), but I think that last night, I finally "got" the whole audience interaction thing right. I was funny - people laughed. I think giving away t-shirts at the gig was a stroke of brilliance - it got the audience involved (they really wanted the t-shirts - which surprises me because they have never been a "big seller" in the store), and it also gave me a break when I needed one.
The venue was the theater cabin at a girls' summer camp - there were colored lights! And a part of the room that was tricked out as a stage! With a curtain! Oooh! I've never had such fancy digs at a festival gig (well, OK, Starwood did have a real raised stage and lights and some hippie light-show going on on the screen behind us, but we went on at noon at a festival where most people don't get out of bed until 3).
I also think we had the biggest attendance of any of my gigs - about 30 or so people. Maybe the CD release party had more people there, but they didn't seem as "into" it as this crowd. Or maybe it was me. (it probably was me).
Anyway, it was a good gig. I thought I had to play for 90 minutes, but they only scheduled me for 1 hour, so I got to drop some of the more questionable things off the set list and keep it to the best material.
And treating the gig like a magical ritual helped a lot - there was only Rich and another couple in the room when I started and I was convinced it was going to be like all the other gigs I've had in the past 2 or so years - playing to an empty room, but I put the intent in Calling the Quarters to call in the audience, and the room was full by the time the song was over.
I ran into some people I haven't seen in a while, and one woman, an artist, who had done my portrait 25 years ago at a SF convention, when she was just starting out, and it took us till Sunday to figure out why we seemed so familiar to each other. That was really funny. I'm going to have to dig that drawing out and scan it.
No recordings of the gig - I was just singing to backing tracks, and sometimes, especially with magic, you can't capture the moment without spoiling it somehow. That performance was a gift to the Gods and my audience. One of the festival staff members said she though the performance was better than the album. I thought that was slightly weird, since I'm using the exact same music tracks as karaoke tracks to sing along with.
Oh yeah... There was an Asatru fellow who brews mead and he got us all drunk from his drinking horn at the fire circle (which Rich facilitated with facility,if I do say so myself). So today, I am still hung over, and we have 4 bottles of home brewed mead in the house for future celebrations.
The gig was fantastic! Just when I think to myself this will be my last gig and after I fulfill this obligation I'm going to hang up the gloves and retire from music, something happens to stoke the dying fire inside me and make me think that it's not a waste of time. The concert last night was one such thing. Rich says he's never heard me sing better (honestly, I have, I think - there was one or 2 lyrical glitches and one completely blown line - I hate when I do that!), but I think that last night, I finally "got" the whole audience interaction thing right. I was funny - people laughed. I think giving away t-shirts at the gig was a stroke of brilliance - it got the audience involved (they really wanted the t-shirts - which surprises me because they have never been a "big seller" in the store), and it also gave me a break when I needed one.
The venue was the theater cabin at a girls' summer camp - there were colored lights! And a part of the room that was tricked out as a stage! With a curtain! Oooh! I've never had such fancy digs at a festival gig (well, OK, Starwood did have a real raised stage and lights and some hippie light-show going on on the screen behind us, but we went on at noon at a festival where most people don't get out of bed until 3).
I also think we had the biggest attendance of any of my gigs - about 30 or so people. Maybe the CD release party had more people there, but they didn't seem as "into" it as this crowd. Or maybe it was me. (it probably was me).
Anyway, it was a good gig. I thought I had to play for 90 minutes, but they only scheduled me for 1 hour, so I got to drop some of the more questionable things off the set list and keep it to the best material.
And treating the gig like a magical ritual helped a lot - there was only Rich and another couple in the room when I started and I was convinced it was going to be like all the other gigs I've had in the past 2 or so years - playing to an empty room, but I put the intent in Calling the Quarters to call in the audience, and the room was full by the time the song was over.
I ran into some people I haven't seen in a while, and one woman, an artist, who had done my portrait 25 years ago at a SF convention, when she was just starting out, and it took us till Sunday to figure out why we seemed so familiar to each other. That was really funny. I'm going to have to dig that drawing out and scan it.
No recordings of the gig - I was just singing to backing tracks, and sometimes, especially with magic, you can't capture the moment without spoiling it somehow. That performance was a gift to the Gods and my audience. One of the festival staff members said she though the performance was better than the album. I thought that was slightly weird, since I'm using the exact same music tracks as karaoke tracks to sing along with.
Oh yeah... There was an Asatru fellow who brews mead and he got us all drunk from his drinking horn at the fire circle (which Rich facilitated with facility,if I do say so myself). So today, I am still hung over, and we have 4 bottles of home brewed mead in the house for future celebrations.
