On Monday the 23rd Estelle played at my school. It was a bit annoying at load-in since there were about 10 people there when there are probably 40 or so in the club, but whatever, my boyfriend was there to help out so I was in a pretty good mood until I found out where Jackie was- still doing contracts... Yes, ladies and gentlemen, contracts were not done until day of show. I think we're getting progressively worse on our timelyness of finishing contracts as the year drags on.
They went all out for the light set up which included numerous amounts of mac 300s, 250s and a crazy amount of LED light bars for the risers and by they I m
ean DAI the production company we primarily work with that my roommate Jay works for. So besides the more annoying things on Estelle's Rider- black towels, fresh cut flowers, vanilla scented candles, a red velvet cakes, various vitamins, Throatcoat tea, etc. preparing for the show was fine, except our Hospitality girls forgot to order extra dinner for the DAI crew and so when they got to pick out specific meals from Vincent's Clam Bar I thought it was pretty fucked up no one asked my boyfriend what he wanted considering he did more work that 95% of the people there, including some of DAI and was not getting paid for this show. Seriously, wtf. I bring this up to Jackie and she asks, "Oh, no one asked him what he wanted?" Only later do I find out that she took the orders. Fuck it. It wasn't mad and was fine with the student center sandwhich I got for him.
The show was not bad and thankfully the openers C-4 (who opened for Lupe Fiasco at our show last year) didn't refuse to get off stage like the year before and piss off the artist again. Also, this year I wasn't hospitality so I did get to just sit and enjoy the show once it started.
Estelle was amazing on stage. A great on-stage personality, she sounded great, pulled audience members on stage, joked around, danced, everything you would want to see her do at a show. The crowd somewhat sucked. Only half full, the venue was littered with half -dead bodies, swaying to the music somewhat. And then there were the crazy basketball girls that were dancing around the venue to every song and singing along. I loved it, that's why I like to do shows because it's so fun to watch the people who are really into it.
Load-out wasn't terrible but for some reason everyone started to slow down right before we were almost done, tagging on another hour or so to the process because it was cold, no one wanted to help load the truck and would rather sit around and talk, which is what they did. If I were Jackie I would have asked people to help more rather than sit around so that we could get
out of there but alas, it's not my club and she runs things in a very overly relaxed way.On Thursday we had our weekly executive board meeting for the club. 3 hours and nothing gets accomplished. People try to push their own agendas through for music fest because they want to book a band that they like, only problem is that with 12 people all with pretty diverse music tastes, no one can easily agree. Half the table wants someone named Google or something and everytime I asked who that was all anyone could really do was reapeat his name. (Later Brian told me they fell in the realm of gypsy- rock or gypsy punk-rock. I thought he was kidding, he wasn't) Anyway my rule is that if I have no idea who they are, neither would most of Hofstra's students or alumni because I zealously follow all charts in the general areas (top 40, rock, hip-hop/ r&b / singles / albums and digital downloads... and sometimes soundtracks and country) I read music literature like the rolling stone, ap, blender, billboard, r&r, etc. and pay attention to new and upcomming music on the radio, tv and internet. Basically, I know whats popular. On the other hand, two of our members said they did not know who Lily Allen was... even though her new album is all over the charts and she's been touring, doing interviews/ features and been in numerous tabloids all in the last month or so.
Then the idea came up for a Badfish (sublime cover band) and the wailers headliner. Good music, only problem is that if we shoot that low for our artist we will never gain the press coverage we need to entice companies and our own school into donating money and sponsoring the festival for next year. Unfortunately half of my eboard does not recognize this issue and are all for fucking themselves over next year. I mean, I'm graduating, I shouldn't care as much as I do, but with all the work I've put into this show over the last year I feel that it is necessary to see how big we can make it. A cover band cannot help us in any way. So three hours of bickering and yelling goes on, and then I am told that I shouldn't go (with three of my fellow members) to the MEISA conference in Boston this year because the $550 it will cost would be better suited going towards MusicFest because we need money. I can understand this logic, if it were not for the fact that last year our Prez and VP decided to jet off to SXSW without asking anyone else, spending over $4000 of our budget on the trip. Like seriously, wtf. And now I can't spend $550 on four people because THAT'S too much? Go fuck yourselves.
Oh and when we started talking about opening bands which I were told earlier that day we would ALL have to have a say in, that certain people had already told As Tall As Lions about it. First off, no one's getting paid to play the festival besides the headliners and Lights Resolve. Secondly, Brian, our small show manager said they were dicks to work with. For two weeks he asked for their guestlist for the show they played last semester and then they walk in dos and hand it to us with over 40 names scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper. They were allowed 10.
So, my point is, if they get to be asked to play the festival with no consent from anyone else, that my favorite local band, The Mercurial, get to play too.
Four of us ended up in my car for an additional two hours almost bitching about everything in the aforementioned rants.
The next day at work (Atlantic) there was a listening party for Gorilla Zoe's new album, complete with chicken wings and vodka. I didn't go, seeing as the other two interns went, and decided to catch up on some work. Ross , the asst. publicist who's pretty much the person I work with the most took the opportunity to mention to Anna and Brandon, who of the people very involved with the booking and coordinating of shows/ tours that I was interested in touring and have done shows before and want to go out on Warped Tour. Apparently, Brandon (who just got promoted, yay) is incharge of like everything that has to do with our bands on Warped and told me to send him my resume because VersaEmerge and 3oh!3 are both going out. So so so excited. I'd totally be willing to work for per diem just to get the experience. I can Asst TM, Merch, Crew, Hospitality, Run, pretty much do anything that needs to be done just to be on Warped. Everyone keeps telling me that Warped Tour sucks and I believe them that it's total hell, but I figure if I can make it there I can make it on any tour and will have more credibility to my name. :)
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