The Grand Event

Thursday morning I woke up with a mixed feeling of dread and excitement. After weeks of planning, much confoundment, a band dropping out very last minute, and a healthy dose of fear, today was the day of our big show. Those of us who built GetIndyKnow.com were putting on a concert to launch the print side which was to debut the day after the concert.

None of us involved in putting it together had much - if any - experience with this sort of thing and I wouldn't be surprised if at any given time one of us wasn't wondering what the hell we'd gotten ourselves into. We secured a venue - a 100 year-old downtown moviehouse called The Grand - and scoured MySpace and other contacts to come up with three bands who would play for gas money and pizza. I think our largest hurdle apart from getting the newspaper to squeeze out a little bit of funding was figuring out how to provide sound for the bands.

For some reason none of us could find someone who could do it for a reasonable (and by reasonable I mean for free or dead cheap) fee. Eventually that was solved though and we got our funding which meant it was time to order tshirts for us and some to give a way, and begin promoting this free concert.

As the days ticked by and we found ourselves 6 days out - one of our bands (the headline one as a matter of fact) dropped out. It was irksome to say the least to find ourselves with only 2 bands after promising three. But with some scrambling we managed to get another one very very last minute.

So cut to the big event. We were at the Grand early to wait for the sound guy and the bands. The guy who looks after the place (it's run by volunteers) gave us a cool tour of the basement and stuff. I spent about a half an hour there all alone waiting. Felt cool.

Sound guy was late but he finally showed. I picked up Shannon who was going to help out. Gave her her tshirt. Pizza came, we all ate, the opening band came and ate then began setting up. Somehow I found myself being the one to let the people in and count them to make sure we didn't violate fire codes. Doing this meant I didn't get to see much of the first two bands which was fine. But I really wanted to have a look at the last band because I'd been listening to their stuff online and I liked it. They were called Straight Outta Junior High - stupid music for smart people.

We definitely weren't going to hit a full house by then but I thought our turnout of around 130 people on a school night was pretty damn good. I got to watch the band's set and they rocked. Shannon had a blast (literally, I'm sure she did some damage to her ears that night having glued herself to the front of the stage.) But she had a brilliant time at her first proper gig (She saw Depeche Mode when she was 10 but she didn't really dig it like she would if she saw them at 14.)

Anyway despite our last-minute band showing up late, the show went well and the feedback we're getting has been pretty good. I don't think IndyKnow came off looking like novices (even though we were) and I just gave away the last IndyKnow tshirt.

We had a lot of fun, a lot of stress, and the bands and the people were great, even though the poor kids couldn't mosh which sucked for them.

I've got to wind this post up but I may yak about the concert more later. Shannon's going to her first Homecoming dance tonight and I have to help her get ready :) Here are some pix from the gig. The band on stage is Straight Outta Junior High.