Last February my band was invited to take part in a local Battle of the Blues Bands. Winners get to play the big stage at the downtown Blues Fest. My expectations were not high at all, I was just glad to get the opportunity to play at a great venue that we were trying to get into. The first gig on March 6th was us and another three bands. Two bands would go onto the semi-finals. I kind of expected us going one and done as we were pretty raw and assumed the other bands would be pretty tight but we had a 50/50 shot. So we took advantage of that night and hired a photographer to snap some photos and set up a video camera to capture our performance. We drew number four so we were going to go on last. It seemed like a really long wait and the other bands were really good.When our turn finally came, it went awesome, we were well received by the audience and even got a standing ovation for our last tune. Wow! We were going onto the semi-finals! How sweet I thought, another chance to play this venue but we will probably be eliminated then. Competition will be tougher plus we only had one week to prepare.
March 13th, again we were pitted against two other good bands plus one of the bands we won with. This time we drew number 1 and would go on first. Yikes! even if we did well I didn't think the judges would remember us after hearing the other three bands. We didn't hold back and kicked it in high gear getting a great audience response. We watched the other three bands perform and the one group was a band of seasoned vets and did some pretty tasty stuff, the band that came with us played third and brought some new tunes and added a sax. The last band was a group of kids with a horn line and they really played well. Part of the scoring was based on audience response and participation and besides the band that won with us, I thought we had really lit the audience up. If it went on band quality, I thought the kids were probably the most prolific that night. Well anyway, two more winners were announced to go onto the finals and the first band called was the band that we won the previous week with. We made friends with these guys and were glad for them. Then we won! Yes! Yes! We were going to the Finals!!! This time we had 3 weeks to prepare.
April 10th - This time we drew number two. Number one was a kid phenom guitar player fresh out of high school who hired musicians to back him up. Vocals were not that great but guitar playing and dynamics were very good. The great thing about him on first is it fired up Al to light up his guitar leads so when we went on, he was on fire! We had a great set. The other two bands were good as well and our friends pulled in a new song for this gig. So the winners get called and we came in third place. The kid came in second and our new friends came in first. We were excited for them but thought their performance was a bit off and sound was harsh so we were surprised they won. I thought we had a good shot at winning and so did a number of unsolicited people who stopped me to give me their opinion so we were disappointed but I was still really happy we made it that far. After reflecting on it overnight I realized it was more about best potential for drawing people to the blues fest. The number one and two winners had a thousand followers on Facebook compared to our two hundred. The guys that came in fourth only had fifty. Anyway it was a really fun experience and special to see my friends come and support me. That was so cool and unexpected.
So move ahead to June and we get a call wondering if we available at this same venue to open for Savoy Brown. Well of course we were! This time was very different as we didn't have enough time to drum up followers to come see us and were going to perform in front of people waiting to see Savoy Brown. This could get ugly if they didn't like us. I am happy to say it actually went really well and the crowd gave us some great applause. No one danced, they were all listeners so to me that tells me we must have a pretty decent sound.
Now tomorrow night we are back again for a "Best of the Battle of the Blues Bands" along with our friends who won it all and another band. It should be a great time.
So there is a recap since January. I'll try to post up in a couple weeks after we go through a few more gigs. Right now I am keeping the venues and bands anonymous. If you recognize the picture, then you'll know the details.
