Performing for the Stonearch Festival

Last year we were contacted by Stacy Schwartz to perform at the Stonearch Festival of the Arts held on the 'St. Anthony Main' side of the river (that would be the Mississippi river as it wends through Minneapolis). Since my bike route for commuting to work goes over the Stonearch Bridge ( see here) I was intrigued, so we said yes and we had a great time. It was a performance that a lot of our friends could make and we played for a number of new people.

We're playing at the Festival again at 12:15 this Saturday, June 14th at the City Pages Stage again. (This is the acoustic venue by the 3rd Avenue Bridge - right next to the beer and wine area). Lynn located the set list from last year so for this year we are doing mostly different songs, including new songs we've learned in the past year (marked as 'new', although we have performed most of them at Dulono's or a MBOTMA festival). I've given details for most of these before, so I'll just show the tentative set list for this year:

• Ain't Gonna Work Tomorrow
• If I Lose Let Me Lose (new)
• East Virginia Blues (new)
• Milwaukee Blues
• More Pretty Girls Than One (new)
• Baltimore Fire
• Muddy Creek (fiddle/mandolin tune)
• When the Work's All Done this Fall (new arrangement, with mandolin)
  
• Last Gold Dollar
• Bear Creek Blues (new)
• I've Been Dreaming of You Darling

We're the second act to preform on Saturday and scheduled to play from 12:15 to 1:00. The full schedule is here. Since there is a half hour between sets, it may go a little longer, so we have a few more songs and tunes ready.

In addition to 4 or 5 performing stages there are 250 Juried Art Exhibits, a Classic Car exhibit and more - see the official Stonearch Website.

Last year we were able to hang out and listen to a few of the other acts and we got some pictures of me in our friend Frank Howard '74 Lotus. However, this year we'll be leaving shortly after we perform in order to get to my niece's graduation party in Savage, MN.

Dulono's gig on the 4th

It's Sunday and Lynn and I have sort of recovered from playing 4 hours at Dulono's last Friday. We were amazed but ultimately not surprised at the number of people who turned out. Lynn had sent out a 'mark-your-calendars' email in December, and a lot of people told us they had and were planning to come. We put posters up at church and in our neighborhood coffee shops and stores and 1/4 page 'flyers' at Cuppa Java. Tommy was home and distributed posters at places in uptown and in the end brought in over a dozen of his friends. At the end of the night, the manager of Dulono's said that if he had known, he would have upped the staff a bit. He said Al Jesperson usually warns him if a bigger than usual turn out is expected, but he also said that we put on a good show and he'll be glad to have us back (yippee!)

I had come down with a cold earlier in the week and although my voice was recovering by Thursday, I was a little worried that it would affect our performance. However, it stayed strong throughout the night just getting a little rough at the end of the last set. We had prepared 3 sets of 14 songs each and that pretty much filled out the evening. We started the last set at about 5 to 11 and augmented that set with 3 'repeats' from the first set, so did a total of 45 songs and tunes. Both of our sons were 'impressed' that we knew that much stuff and also with the new songs we added since they last heard us. Although there were a few word flubs, I was really pleased with our playing and singing.

Our sound system was adequate, but I did have the master volume cranked over 3/4 of the way toward max. Of course Dulono's is a restaurant and bar - there was lots of crowd noise and 'movement'. I saw a number of people trying to listen and we did turn up the sound after the first set. At the beginning we had Dave Leussler listening and had a pretty good balance, although there were feedback issues with my guitar (which I think got fixed by the 3rd set).

When we were done, we had some help packing up then had a pizza and a coke before loading up the car. We also got paid -- in cash. (This was one of our best paying gigs - the money is similar to a good night at Tapestry, but we get to keep it all; however, I'll still be keeping the day job.) We got home well after 1:00, then unpacked the Van and didn't really get to sleep until 2:00. Although we might have slept in a little more, we had to take Tommy to the airport at 9:00 so didn't get enough sleep and spent Saturday kind of trashed and 'napping'.

Lynn said she was going to make a list of everyone she remembered coming. I know a few people came and left before getting tables. It looks like we'll be doing this again, not sure we'll ever get as large a crowd again, but at least for the next one or two bob-i-lynn gigs Dulono's will be staffing up.

This marks another stage of our development as a 'band'. We now know we have the stamina and the repertoire to play a full night at a 'club'; and from feedback from both friends and 'strangers' know that we put on a pretty good show. I guess another lesson is that the music we play is somewhat 'obscure', but a lot of people like it, even if they aren't old-time or bluegrass music fans. We're also pretty sure that one night in the weekend is about all we can handle, we can do a Friday or Saturday Dulono's type gig, but not a whole weekend.

Back from LCO Casino 'Festival' in Hayward, WI

Although we displayed a lot of Deer-in-the-headlights behavior, our first Casino gig went well. As a 'festival', it was a little disappointing. Carl Solander, who was the MBOTMA member who engaged us said that the publicity was badly neglected: there was no mention in any of the MN or other local 'bluegrass' publications. Other than the Casino site, we had found nothing on the Web. One of the other performers, Mike, 'The Banjo Man', said that because the casino was funding the bands, there wasn't much incentive for promotion. In any event, on Saturday I counted less than 100 paying customers so at $15 a head they were barely covering a couple of the local bands (like us), let alone the national groups.

After playing the lounge shows Friday night, our voices were a little rough from the smoke on Saturday. Because of a rain threat which never materialized, the festival (actually more of a concert), was held indoors in the Casino convention center. Fortunately the concert site was non-smoking, and our voices recovered as the day went on. The chairs were around tables so even with a sparse crowd it didn't seem empty. Although the band we replaced was originally scheduled for 2:00, they switched things around so that we opened at 12:00 noon. This worked out for the best., since that allowed 'Handpicked', a bluegrass band to set things up for the Gibson Brothers, the national group playing on Saturday. We moved some songs from a later set and ended up doing all 14 songs & tunes planned. The crowd increased as we played and the sound system was set up pretty well. (The monitors were never perfect, but when I listened to the other bands play it sounded like they got the house mix sounding pretty well). We were followed by Singleton Street, a Minnesota group, and found out that our tastes in music overlapped quite a bit. They focus on gospel (but not exclusively) and did a number of songs in current or past set lists. In our second set we did Otto Wood, which they had apparently planned to play. They did John Hardy which we had performed at the lounge the previous night, as well as Elbow Room, and I'll Fly Away which we'd played in Milbank, SD a couple weeks before. We had seen and met some of the band members before, but spent some more time talking and getting to know them and swapped CD's (we got the better end of that deal).

The Gibson brothers are from upstate New York and have won a number of bluegrass awards. During their set at 3:00 we found out why. They do great vocals and are backed by a tight band. We had the 'honors' of following them at 4:00 - I think we'd did OK but this was my true Deer-in-the-Headlights 1/2 hour set. Most of the crowd had left for a break and what was left was at the Gibson Brothers CD table while we played. However, I did see a couple of folk who seemed into it (one of them reminded me of people I know in the old time music community).

The most disconcerting thing for the 4:00 set was that we didn't do a sound check and the mikes were hot-hot-hot. They used Shure 58s and 57s, which is what I'm used to; however, I ended up standing at least 18 inches further back then I usually do. We also had our first 'heckler': he was actually about the only person we saw all weekend obviously under the influence. He was bugging the sound guy and Lynn at one point thought he was 'official' - he was also the guy who said 'do some country' (I said - we're doing 'old,old country)... The sound guy apologized after I set, but it wasn't a big deal.

We stayed a bit more and had some of the 'entertainers' lunch and left about 6:30 for home since Lynn was subbing for the organist at Church on Sunday. All and all a 'useful' experience, but a bit more nerve-wracking then we anticipated. However, we did get the 'check' before we left - the biggest pay yet for the Bob-i-Lynn Band.