Well, we’re home now from our January “Rainy Days and Sleepless Nights NW Tour”. I have great memories of listening to Radiohead, Nilsson, Death Cab, Arcade Fire... while driving through the ruggedly beautiful and snowy PNW, scurrying us along to play a total of 3 shows: Thursday in Sacramento at the Fox and Goose, Friday the 13th in Eugene at the Black Forest Tavern and Saturday night at Portland’s Alberta Street Pub. I really feel like this has been the best tour yet. I know, I know some of you are thinking that 3 days on the road hardly qualifies as a tour, but for little old Felsen it does. Plus 3 days is all we can afford (at this point). Here’s the Math: Minivan rental=$227,Gas=$216, Food=$200. Not gonna disclose how much the total revenue from merch+the money from the venues. I will say this, it’s never enough, but in the low, low music biz rung that is Indie Rock we didn’t do too bad. We saved a bunch this time around by not staying at motels. We stayed with friends and used couchsurf.com to hook us up a free spot one of the nights.
But that’s just the facts and figures. What really constitutes as a good tour is how we connect with the audiences. I can’t just accept that we’re a small band, with no big hit song on the radio and hope that we’re gonna wow ‘em with our fantastic songs (that they’ve never heard) and musicianship. Trust me, we’ve done our homework in both of those areas. We’ve spent HUNDREDS OF HOURS REHEARSING!!! But that’s not enough to engage a room full of strangers. As they say in the theater world, you’ve got to break down the 3rd wall between the stage and the audience or more appropriately the band’s lofty ambitions and the audience’s inhibitions. The band has got to get the party started. My good pal Vic Krummenacher of Camper Van Beethoven told me that they (the audience) want to love you. They’ve come though the door of that saloon on a Thursday night in Sacramento and they want entertainment. So give it go them and don’t hold back. Shed some blood. Engage them, somehow. How bout dancing on a table top? That’s an attention getter--sometimes. Or how bout recruiting a volunteer from the audience to wear a giant bunny suit. Maybe if the bunny is a full-time professional break dancer known as poppin Todd, that just might wake up the ambivalents.
I’ve got this thing where I need the audience to be right up front with me. It’s my blood sport: I need them to be close to me. I couldn’t care less if there’s only 25 people at our gig on Tuesday night in Chico, I want it to feel like a concert and for that to happen I need them to be right there, giving it to us. Felsen somehow has developed this strange ability to transform the feng shui of bar rooms full of distant, not-yet-converted-Felsen fans into epic, intimate, genuine rock concert experiences. Give us an inch and we’ll give you a marathon of exorcism. 99% of the people are willing to give you a shot and can be won over. They can be slowly lead by the arm right to the foot of your stage where they will sway with your songs, pump their fists, buy your CDs (and by default fill your mini van’s gas tank) and put a little something in the tip jar. But of course there’s always gonna be that 1% who just won’t temporarily loan you that little bit of their internal real estate to play out your rock and roll fantasies upon; they are the un-entertainable and they are dead to us. This little string of dates was great in that all three nights I got what I needed from the audiences. Thank you Sac, Eugene and Portland.
But that’s just the facts and figures. What really constitutes as a good tour is how we connect with the audiences. I can’t just accept that we’re a small band, with no big hit song on the radio and hope that we’re gonna wow ‘em with our fantastic songs (that they’ve never heard) and musicianship. Trust me, we’ve done our homework in both of those areas. We’ve spent HUNDREDS OF HOURS REHEARSING!!! But that’s not enough to engage a room full of strangers. As they say in the theater world, you’ve got to break down the 3rd wall between the stage and the audience or more appropriately the band’s lofty ambitions and the audience’s inhibitions. The band has got to get the party started. My good pal Vic Krummenacher of Camper Van Beethoven told me that they (the audience) want to love you. They’ve come though the door of that saloon on a Thursday night in Sacramento and they want entertainment. So give it go them and don’t hold back. Shed some blood. Engage them, somehow. How bout dancing on a table top? That’s an attention getter--sometimes. Or how bout recruiting a volunteer from the audience to wear a giant bunny suit. Maybe if the bunny is a full-time professional break dancer known as poppin Todd, that just might wake up the ambivalents.
I’ve got this thing where I need the audience to be right up front with me. It’s my blood sport: I need them to be close to me. I couldn’t care less if there’s only 25 people at our gig on Tuesday night in Chico, I want it to feel like a concert and for that to happen I need them to be right there, giving it to us. Felsen somehow has developed this strange ability to transform the feng shui of bar rooms full of distant, not-yet-converted-Felsen fans into epic, intimate, genuine rock concert experiences. Give us an inch and we’ll give you a marathon of exorcism. 99% of the people are willing to give you a shot and can be won over. They can be slowly lead by the arm right to the foot of your stage where they will sway with your songs, pump their fists, buy your CDs (and by default fill your mini van’s gas tank) and put a little something in the tip jar. But of course there’s always gonna be that 1% who just won’t temporarily loan you that little bit of their internal real estate to play out your rock and roll fantasies upon; they are the un-entertainable and they are dead to us. This little string of dates was great in that all three nights I got what I needed from the audiences. Thank you Sac, Eugene and Portland.
