T – 2,160 Day
“Wow! This city is beautiful!”
They brought a tour manager along with them. I was very nervous. I spoke to one of their managers and negotiated bringing this band to Clam for transport, hotel and meal costs … although they considered themselves a mid-level band.
The truth is that although they had three videos showing on MTV, they had NO gigs out of Morgenville.
Both the artist and management agreed to let me take care of this, their first show out of the capital …
That’s the way it was with all the Morgenville acts. They were basically doing a few local club deals and spending time rehearsing, waiting for the phone to ring …
I could use this to further promote my gig project and raise it to the next level, working with acts that have released debut albums.
…
This was one of the most stressful days I have had up to this point.
…
The opening band arrived by train early in the morning from Morgenville. I went to pick them up and take them to the hotel they would be staying at. I had printed time schedules for them to know what I had planned for them, and to talk over so I would be sure everything was OK from their point of view.
The nightmarish day would end 24 hours later, after I would take them back to the train station after appearing on a popular local morning TV show.
That day I would revisit two local radios and a TV station with the band. I had prepared some posters to hand over to them to take home as souvenirs (I didn’t necessarily like the way they looked … but they did their job, and were the cheapest to make).
Of course, I was away from home for almost the whole day. This was one of my most memorable days working with the band. I had the idea of bringing a larger band to open for them and I practically maneuvered this opening band into a marketing trap.
I partially did this to prove once and for all to myself and to the poor artists unknowingly coming here from Morgenville
a) that people in Clam could do to them exactly what others did to us when we made it to Morgenville
b) that a no-name band could attract a larger crowd than a possibly mid-sized artist, promoted daily on MTV
c) that my band could rock and control the crowd with their unknown repertoire / better than the Morgenville act that already had three recent hits currently being promoted on TV and some radio stations
To this day, knowing now what I didn’t know then, I wonder if the same large 500 + crowd would have shown up for the gig had I put a ticket at the entrance … and my answer ultimately is always the same. NO.
…
I lost somewhere around 100 buckaroos but gained further popularity for the artist, bargaining power for the band on a local level, and more experience …
No comments:
Post a Comment