-Hi Everyone! Well, the show has come & gone and now it's time for the recap! Friday night's show was at Schultzies in Phoenix, NY . Set on the bill was Hollow Point, then Helo & then CAROLINE BLUE. Hollow Point never showed up but we anticipated that and Helo went on at 10 PM. They're a young band from Oswego and I feel they did a pretty good job up there. One interesting thing to note was Dustin broke a string within the 1st few songs and ended up borrowing my back-up guitar-a 425 Gibson Explorer. The thing is, it was set to Eb tuning with the low E string being tuned down a whole step further down. Helo plays in standard tuning so it took alittle while to get the strings on the explorer stretched so that it would-for the most part-stay in tune. Overall they did good and hopefully we can do some more shows with them in the future.


-Then CB hit the stage. Now, some long time people might not know this, but we've kinda changed things in the CB camp. I'll be detailing it more in an upcoming blog entry, but when we do our own shows we now do 50/50 covers/originals. Besides the fact that we need to do that to go on for 2 hours or more, it's in part reflective of where we play. Anyway, here's the setlist...

-Love Me or Leave Me
-Love Gun (KISS)
-Hard Life
-You Spin Me Round Like a Record (Dead or Alive)
-I've Seen the Light Tonight
-Sex Type Thing (Stone Temple Pilots)
-Slave to the Hourglass
-Paranoid (Black Sabbath)
-Won't Be Home Tonight
-Dirty Deeds (AC/DC)
-Too Late
-Talk Dirty to Me (Poison)
-Dead or Alive
-Wicked Game (HIM/Chris Issak)
-Stay
-Lick it Up (KISS)
-Pain
-Enter Sandman (Metallica)
-Out of My Life (I Want You)

-Now, this list might seem alittle short for 2 hours. Well, it is :) We had more material, but we stopped alittle early. In addition, I was doing longer than normal stage raps-partly cause we had no bass player here; party cause I didn't know if we had enough songs to cover the time.. At one point, it seemed like I was doing stand up comedy! As strange as it felt to be onstage doing a solo acoustic act last week, it felt just as strange-and empty sounding-with no bassist this night. I played mostly rhythm guitar. Did a few solos but not too many.


-The set went ok for the most part. It wasn't a train wreck, but the lack of a bassist to anchor things in was apparent-plus the band was loose musically so that didn't help either. But we did the best we could with what we had and we pulled it off. I have to admit though-I really don't want to do this without a bass player again.


-A few CDs went out this night. In fact, one of the Helo guys got a free STTH CD (we give out a free CB CD at the beginning of every show), only to have it taken away (wrestled) from him by some older guy who was there! Meanwhile his bandmates just stood there and laughed at him-no,no,no...just kidding. But that older guy did get the CD from him. Just goes to show ya how in demand CAROLINE BLUE CDs are right? Or maybe the guy just needed a new coaster for his den...

-The turnout wasn't the best, but I want to give special thanks to all those who were there. And for those souls who stayed till the end-you guys were awesome! As you can see we added a few new songs into the list. "Talk Dirty to Me" & Paranoid" were fun to pull off. "Enter Sandman" wasn't really ready but we tried it anyways. It needs alittle work, but I think it was ok.This was the 1st time the electric version of "Won't Be Home Tonight" has been played & it went over well. This show also marks the debut of "Out of My Life (I Want You)". I've been hesitant to bring this into the set cause of the distorted vocal parts in the chorus.' I've tried some distortion pedals-even ones made for vocalists-but there's too much feedback involved. I can do some of the "cookie monster" vocal style on my own, but it's easier when you can do stuff like enclosing where your mouth meets the mic with your hand-can't do that while playing guitar at the same time. But we did it and it was fun. One person told me that was the best song of the night! Course, maybe that was cause it was the last song and we were getting off the stage (HA!).


-Strangeland Audio was doing lights/sound again and-once again-did a great job. Check out a show they're doing and see why more & more bands are going with Strangeland-for live sound & recording. Big thanks for Helo and all the people who were there. Keep checking here & the main CAROLINE BLUE website for the latest! Ciao.

 

i wish i could have been there. it sounds like you 2 did a great job. i like to see the shows that present you with a challenge...lol. maybe next time. there was no way i could drive last night. i'll just see the pix when you get them posted.


hugs,
terri
 

Wish you could've been there too, Terri! -- we did have fun last Saturday night @Checkpoint Tavern along with you providing a Lap Top slide show atop of the bar! Wayne was right, show wasn't same without a base player .... miss Mr.
Sniper :(
 

Thanks Terri! There weren't too many pics taken-they should be up in a day or 2 though. TTYS & take care.

 

"....Set on the bill was Hollow Point, then Helo & then CAROLINE BLUE. Hollow Point never showed up but we anticipated that and Helo went on at 10 PM....."

How can you say that you never expected them to show? Maybe because you never contacted them to ask them to play? You just posted it late the day before and I happened to see it. They had no time to prepare - the singer needs a few days notice in order to get out of work.


Nice Wayne, real nice, to make them sound like it was planned then they just didn't show.

 

-1st of all Syn, thank you for your comment. However, you are mistaken. We contacted Holow Point about the show on July 22. Below is a copy of the interaction between the 2 bands....


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: ..Hollow Point..
Date: Jul 25, 2008 9:57 PM


yea def if that is a possibility we would absolutely love to do that with you guys, we appreciate you getting back to us so quickly and hope you can get us in.
thanks for the help and hope to hear from you soon

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: ..CAROLINE BLUE..
Date: Jul 24, 2008 8:03 AM


Hi,

-The band Helo from Oswego replied so they're already on the bill. We could put you on the bill as well, but that would mean you guys would have to be on 1st-meaning you'd probably go on sometime between 9 or 9:30 and play for either 45 minutes to an hour. I'll get the times soldified once I know if you guys are on or not. Let me know ASAP if you guys can do it or not. Thanks & TTYS. Take care.


WWJ

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: ..Hollow Point..
Date: Jul 24, 2008 6:46 AM


Wow, i need to check this thing more often!! That would be awsome.
Is that slot still open?



----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: ..CAROLINE BLUE..
Date: Jul 22, 2008 10:47 PM


Hi,

-My name is Wayne-vocalist/guitarist for the band CAROLINE BLUE. I was wondering if you guys would be interested in opening up for us @ Schultzies on Friday 8/1? You'd go on at 10 and end by 11:30. If there's a 3rd band we'll have it so you only have to go on 45 minutes. I can guarrentee you guys $50. Strangeland Audio is also doing the sound. Let me know ASAP if you can do this or not cause I want to get the flyers up as well as get the info to the newspapers. Thanks & TTYS. Take care.


WAYNE
..CAROLINE BLUE..
..CAROLINE BLUE My Space Page..


-So you can see, we did contact the band over a week before the show and they responded that they were interested. If you don't believe this, I can forward you the actual message via My Space. In addition, on July 29 I sent them another email saying things were all set in regards to promotion. The show was advertised in the New Times, The Post Standard, and on My Space-as well as other formats. It would've been very easy for them to contact us to let us know if there were problems with them being there.


-I mentioned that we "anticipated" that they might not be there-I never said the reason why. I don't know why they didn't show up, but because I hadn't heard from them from the last email-as well as the show not being put up on their My Space page on their show dates, I planned for the fact that they might not be there-for whatever reason. I never meant to imply that they purposely stiffed us.
Again, I don't know why they weren't there, but they were definately contacted more than a "few days" before the gig and, on July 25 they said that "we would absolutely love to do that with you guys"

WWJ
 

-I forgot to mention that all messages that I sent the band had been read before the day of the show (when you send messages via My Space you can check your Sent folder to see if messages have been read-one reason alot of people like to communicate via My Space instead of regular email). I do not know who maintains their My Space page, but all messages I'd been sent to them were indeed read before the day of the show....