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We've done some pretty awful gigs in the past - most spectacularly the Mansfield Renaissance Faire ("Mansfield MO, just say NO"!).
But these last two days were definitely in the top 10 worst gigs ever.
Who on earth books "strolling musicians" at a festival where the main stage features hard rock and heavy metal cover bands over-amped on speaker-kits the size of cars!?!?!? Even the small stage in the kids' area where we were had to be miked out of sheer self-defense. And we were supposed to play against that? There were times when we couldn't hear each other standing only inches away.
Then add the temps of over 100F and heat indices above 115 and you have a recipe for pure misery. AND the fact that they wanted us in faire garb ("So that it's clear that you're entertainers, and not, you know....normal people". I resisted pointing out that being mistaken for normal people isn't a problem that we've had very often) didn't make things any easier.
Its also a bit of a problem to find your way around a military base when no one will give you a map and where everyone who is giving you directions seems to forget that not everyone lives there! "Are you over by the main gate? "Umm - I have no idea. We came in gate 5, where our parking pass said we should go. We're kind of next to the ferris wheel - does that help?" Eventually we found out that "Go up there to 1A - there are signs" actually means 'Go up a ways, ask 2 different people in uniform, get lost once and finally discover that what they mean is that lot over there that not only has no signage at all but actually has both entrance and exit blocked by orange traffic cones that you are going to just have to move yourself, since there seems to be no one stationed nearby'. It took us 20 minutes to get off-base that night, partly because we got 3 different sets of directions from the 3 people that we asked, and partly because half of the roads people sent us to were blocked off. We eventually found our way out by driving through a parking lot. Wednesday was a little easier, as when we came to the new roadblock, the rather apologetic young man explained that there had been a "little misfire with the cannon this morning" and that we should just park "over there".
Wednesday we brought spare fabric and blankets and just set up a quiet space in the shade and played for anyone who wandered by. Some of them even sat down. We did each have to go into one of the buildings with AC for a bit on Wednesday to cool down a bit, but we kept well-hydrated and electrolytes. The ventriloquist went down from the heat, so they replaced one of her shows with a muffin-eating contest. Who the hell wants to eat muffins when it's 110 degrees out?
Musically, we did pretty well, all things considered. The people who took the time to sit down and listened for a while loved us, and we could have sold quite a few CDs had we been permitted to. It's just that what we do was sooooo ill-suited to the demands and requirements of the space and the rest of the event. The Morale & Welfare folks really didn't seem to know what was going on and hadn't the faintest idea what to do with us. Ugh.
But these last two days were definitely in the top 10 worst gigs ever.
Who on earth books "strolling musicians" at a festival where the main stage features hard rock and heavy metal cover bands over-amped on speaker-kits the size of cars!?!?!? Even the small stage in the kids' area where we were had to be miked out of sheer self-defense. And we were supposed to play against that? There were times when we couldn't hear each other standing only inches away.
Then add the temps of over 100F and heat indices above 115 and you have a recipe for pure misery. AND the fact that they wanted us in faire garb ("So that it's clear that you're entertainers, and not, you know....normal people". I resisted pointing out that being mistaken for normal people isn't a problem that we've had very often) didn't make things any easier.
Its also a bit of a problem to find your way around a military base when no one will give you a map and where everyone who is giving you directions seems to forget that not everyone lives there! "Are you over by the main gate? "Umm - I have no idea. We came in gate 5, where our parking pass said we should go. We're kind of next to the ferris wheel - does that help?" Eventually we found out that "Go up there to 1A - there are signs" actually means 'Go up a ways, ask 2 different people in uniform, get lost once and finally discover that what they mean is that lot over there that not only has no signage at all but actually has both entrance and exit blocked by orange traffic cones that you are going to just have to move yourself, since there seems to be no one stationed nearby'. It took us 20 minutes to get off-base that night, partly because we got 3 different sets of directions from the 3 people that we asked, and partly because half of the roads people sent us to were blocked off. We eventually found our way out by driving through a parking lot. Wednesday was a little easier, as when we came to the new roadblock, the rather apologetic young man explained that there had been a "little misfire with the cannon this morning" and that we should just park "over there".
Wednesday we brought spare fabric and blankets and just set up a quiet space in the shade and played for anyone who wandered by. Some of them even sat down. We did each have to go into one of the buildings with AC for a bit on Wednesday to cool down a bit, but we kept well-hydrated and electrolytes. The ventriloquist went down from the heat, so they replaced one of her shows with a muffin-eating contest. Who the hell wants to eat muffins when it's 110 degrees out?
Musically, we did pretty well, all things considered. The people who took the time to sit down and listened for a while loved us, and we could have sold quite a few CDs had we been permitted to. It's just that what we do was sooooo ill-suited to the demands and requirements of the space and the rest of the event. The Morale & Welfare folks really didn't seem to know what was going on and hadn't the faintest idea what to do with us. Ugh.
