It was just about a week ago this morning. Driving home from Damascus, VA at three in the morning, windows down with the early spring morning keeping me awake, I couldn’t help but think about all of the blog entries from most of my performances over the past few years. I suppose writing about my experiences as a musician would be nothing but cheer leading if I didn’t tell the truth, but I think everyone in the band agrees last Saturday’s performance at the Old Mill was discouraging. Greg used the adjective “hollow” and even though the performance wasn’t bad, the music was loud and it wasn’t enough to hold anyone late into the night.
On the other hand, the opening band, The Bus Band (formerly the Big Pretty) from Chapel Hill blew us away with their energetic and socially conscious blend of hip hop acoustic music. Seriously and that’s a tough thing to swallow too, but we’re sober enough now to admit the short-comings and the band has plenty to consider and it’s unsure as to what will become of Clear in the next several weeks. My hope is that we’ll learn from this experience.
I remember at one time in the middle of our set and looking back at everyone during one of our songs. It was obvious that we all say what was happening and there was nothing we could do about at the time. We started the night with a packed house with The Bus warming everything up for us and it seemed after each song, the room slowly emptied until it was 1.00 and the only ones left were our closest friends and Kenny – the manager of The Old Mill.
Last Saturday was St. Patrick’s Day and my plane was late arriving from Orlando. My few days of travel was interrupted by an ice storm and the east coast shut down for the most part. I was lucky to get back to TriCities by 5.00. That left me just enough time to take a shower, pack my gear and drive North on Interstate 81 to Damascus.
The weather was a bit nippy when I arrived, but it was still daylight and a wedding was underway in the music hall. The guys in the band were gathered around the bar having dinner, except for Greg – I found him upstairs. The Old Mill always treats us to nice rooms upstairs and Vanderbilt was winning a spot in the sweet-sixteen in the NCAA championship game (that’s Greg’s Alma Mater). Later on, Jared surprised us with a bottle of Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey and considering it was my first experience with Irish Whiskey – I like it and will make sure to have a bottle around for future Irish holidays.
It was getting late, the wedding party was finally over and we started to unload our gear onto the stage. I had parked the Jeep behind an old yellow school bus with the words, “the Bus” hand-painted on the outside. This had to be the opening act and not to long after I parked to unload my keyboards, the guys with The Bus gave me a hand hauling my keyboards in and I always appreciate the courtesy.
We set up the stage and moved out of the way for The Bus somewhere around 10 o’clock. These young musicians from Chapel Hill had brought a lot of friends to hear them at The Old Mill and I believe they made some new friends that night too. They were without a drummer, but had a young girl on accordion and piano, a cello player, an acoustic guitar, bass and singer. What I especially enjoyed about the band was their enthusiasm and their set list.
“They’re a great band!” I heard Stacy tell one of her friends who just arrived near the end of their set. No doubt about either – she was right. This band of young players performing sort of a groovy, bluegrass laced hip-hop were entertaining. They started the show with team pow-wow, a unison “ooh-ra” and for little more than an hour, they performed an entertaining set of original music and popular hip-hop songs. Their lead vocalist hopped for most of the night from the microphone, their cellist was an extraordinary soloist. His Asian intensity, extraordinary melody and tones brought back an immediate response from his early solos and things only got better from there.
I went to the room and sipped another glass of Irish Whiskey and talked with Tim Perritti, Lance and Greg. Tim is a former member of Clear and spent several minutes discussing the nuances of both Irish Whiskey and Scotch. We had a few minutes to relax before the show and when we came back down, the room was jumping as The Bus was running through everything from Snoop Dog to Bob Marley. They had a good crowd on the dance floor and I commented to Lance. How do you follow this up? “Keep em moving, he said. I wish we could have.
I’ve reviewed plenty of performances over the past several years – others as well as my own and it’s important I believe for me to be honest. At the same time, it’s equally as significant to communicate these moments are where you learn the most. Just because we’ve played music for years and have a group of accomplished players, doesn’t mean we can keep an audience. Playing at loud levels in an acoustic room is almost an unpardonable sin and although we’re not as young as we once used to be and have trouble pulling off the hip-hop routine at this stage, it was obvious noone on the stage was having having as much fun as we had hoped.
It could have been late too, but I’m not interested in finding the one reason because there were several reasons why we lost this audience and even though we did a good job keeping our heads up, by the time our set was over, everyone was gone with the exception of our friends. Some said song selection, another said volume, but although we did a good job on most of our songs, we just weren’t that interesting and everyone new it too.
We played about an hour and half till a little after 1am without a break and delivered all the old Clear material with two new covers and it seemed to drag on and on. I think Jared did a great job with the vocals. Along with Lance, there were times when they sounded like brothers. My own sound was hard to hear above the music and most of the evening was spent on ten just to hear my chords. By the end of our set, we were beat and discouraged and it didn’t take long for us to tear down our gear. Last time we played at the Old Mill, we had a good time and everyone was interested in staying up late for a few more drinks, but Willie and Lance were gone as soon as the gear was packed leaving Jared, Greg and myself to recap the night.
We sat in the bar with a cold beer while Kenny counted the money for the night. Fortunately, he had a good one. “Best yet,” he said, but our clean-up act wasn’t the reason I’m sure. We made our way back up to the Irish Whiskey and although we laughed and told stories till close to 2.30 am. We didn’t specifically talk about the gig – that would play out over the next few days in email. I remember Greg going to bed and Jared and a few others looking tired too, so I drove out into the Damascus morning and headed back to the house.
A couple of days went by and everyone must have thought about what happened on Saint Patrick’s Day. It wasn’t a massacre, but it was hardly satisfying. Greg was the first to send out an email to discuss “the situation” and the hows and whys about what happened and we shared some honest responses from both Lance and Jared and I’m not sure where the band will go from here. These events are shape-shifters and can easily change the direction of the musicians and friends involved, but I remain optimistic. This isn’t the old Clear band. All those fans have grown up, raised children and for the most part, only get out a few times a year. Besides, everyone is gonna have some bum gigs now and then.
It’s hard for a band or musicians to get the attention they deserve these days without tuning into what the audience likes. We’re still pretty good at deciding what we like, but with karaoke, high-end entertainment, video games and a thousand cable channels – you’ve got to work to attract any attention on stage. What lessons we learned here will only make us better or stronger, or mix the personalities into new ventures ahead.
For me, I enjoy playing with all the guys. I specifically enjoy performing with Jared Bentley and consider his voice to be one of the most resonating and soulful voices to come from the Tri-Cities and I’ll be there whenever he’s ready to play some music. Same holds true for the other guys too, but I’ve got to get to work on my own efforts and spend a bit more time practicing and I’m considering a new Fender Rhodes to lighten my load a bit. I’m not convinced the key is being loud anymore – you’ve got to be entertaining too and we missed the mark on Saint Patrick’s Day.
Our opportunity for redemption will occur in a couple of weeks when we have the chance to perform at Halo in Johnson City and despite what I’ve said here, my hope is that some of our friends will join us as we continue to make music as CLEAR.