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Vol. 2 No. 3 (July 1, 2004) |
An unofficial newsletter for fans of the rock group BETTER THAN EZRA |
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| IN THIS ISSUE:
Fest-Heaven or Festi-Hell? / Birmingham BTE's "Imperfect" / Graham Colton Band Ezra Radio / USAToday Pic Just the Fakts Ma'am The Bootlog The Reviews BTE Caption News & Links TTOY Hall of Fame BTE Impressions
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FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK: My musician buddy George refers to the summer months as the "sheds and tents" season. Instead of playing the club venues, each spring heralds the opening of a host of outdoor venues. The outdoor "festival" type concert experience varies greatly for both fans and bands. There’s both real pros and cons to these types of shows: Consider the cons, or as you might call them, the four "Ss" of outdoor concerts: Seating. Most serious rock fans, including Ezralites, seem to prefer general admission club shows. Sure, a couple of tables and chairs in back is a nice touch, but it’s a more fan-friendly scenario when you get there early and snag a prime upfront spot. Some outdoor gigs are GA, but many have bizarre seating arrangements that befuddle out of town concertgoers. Or, they might feature large gaps between the band and the fans that make for a less intimate experience. Sound. A lot of clubs have less than optimal sound, but compare club sound to your average festival show. It seems there’s always nagging technical problems at outdoor shows. And it gets really bad if you have a multiple band bill where equipment gets switched willy-nilly. We’ve all seen this happen time and time again and it annoys the band even more than it does the fans. Sanitation. Please identify yourself if you are NOT revolted by using a foul smelling port-a-potty? This is probably the most loathsome part of any outdoor show. And let’s not forget the "mud pit" effect when crowds mingle on wet grass. It’s bacteria central, folks... Safety. Rock club staff/security can be over the top, but they’re generally more experienced than the casual "Dirty Harry" types seemingly hired en masse for big outdoor shows. You know who I’m talking about. The guys who want to "control" crowds, rather facilitate a pleasant concert experience. How many times have you seen security people try to outright stop rather than prevent injuries from crowd-surfing etc? What are some of the pros of the outdoor concert experience? Real estate might be all about "location, location, location" but the pros of outdoor concerts are all about "performance, performance, performance." I’ve seen some of my most memorable shows in outdoor festival-type venues. There’s nothing like seeing BTE come on stage in the setting sun greeted by the roar of a (sometimes insanely) enthusiastic crowd. Some examples? Flash back to Hershey Park, Pennsylvania in 1999. The Chris Perez band (yes, the late Selena’s husband) were a fantastic opener. I hadn’t been to many shows back then and I was sure BTE was going to pale in comparison after the Perez band performance. Was I wrong! BTE came out and played so hard and fast they literally blew the crowd out of their seats. KG and Tom were ranging about the stage and Travis was pounding the drums harder than I’d ever seen him play before (or since). This show convinced me that BTE can kick any other bands ass anytime, any place, anywhere. And I’ll never forget Bonne Fete in Baton Rouge in 2001. The venue was basically a stage set up in a giant parking lot near the Mississippi river. KG was most definitely enjoying the "hometown" crowd as he climbed – I mean humped – the stage scaffolding during "Use Me" wearing what I like to call his "Dead Parrot" shirt. He climbed maybe 10 feet in the air, started humping with that crazed look we all know on his face, and suddenly exclaimed: "What am I doing?!" Or how about Providence (Rhode Island) India Bay Park in August 2002? The band was on fire that night. We were all relieved when the show actually came off because Uncle Mike and Kenny Corbett had preventively saran-wrapped Kevin and Tom’s pedal boards because of threatening weather. And I distinctly remember current MTV darling Adam Levine of Maroon 5 standing there green with envy watching KG do this thing. M5 are a good live band, but BTE is a GREAT live band. So my point (and I do actually have one) is that for every bit of Festi-Hell, you’re probably going to get yourself a big old slice of Festi-Heaven. And it doesn’t get any better than that... Cheers, EnglishDave Editor's Note: After I wrote this column, I realized a real journalist had recently written a great column on sort of the same topic. Check it out here. |
ENDURING A LITTLE BIT OF FESTI-HELL FOR BTE IN B’HAM My husband (Charlie), our friend Ray, and I decided to drive over and check out the Crawfish Boil, expecting a fun night. Even though things didn’t turn out quite as we expected we still had a pretty fun night. We got a late start leaving our hometown of Tupelo, MS, but we knew we would at least make it for BTE’s set. Tupelo is located about 3 hours from Birmingham and we had a pleasant journey heading on over to our sister state, Alabama. We arrived at the venue at around 7:45. Not bad timing for a set scheduled to begin at 8:15 (and considering we left pretty late). While we knew that would probably not manage to garner front row spots, we figured that we could get at least get about 5 rows back. Little did we know what we were about to experience…
We got in line and got our tickets in about 5 minutes. We then made our way to the bag check and ticket-taker area. I was sweating bullets when the policeman checked my purse. I had smuggled a disposable camera in the bottom of it. The cop did a really thorough check. He peered, opened and squeezed, but luckily did not discover my camera. As he finally let us through, we all breathed a sigh of relief. My husband and Ray jokingly made a comment that I should have put some "female products" inside my purse so we wouldn’t have had to stand there so long.
As we walked towards the stage we were all taken back at the sight of the crowd. It was MASSIVE. We stood at the back and decided what to do. I told them that I felt I needed to get a couple of shots with the camera for this review and that I would feel much better grabbing them from the throng of people. That way, I would not be as easily noticed and face having my camera confiscated. After I got some shots, the crowd was getting unruly, so we got the heck out of there and headed further back in the crowd. As the events of the night unfolded, I was very thankful Charlie and Ray had agreed to come with me to snap some photos instead of making me go on my own. Anyway, we managed to work our way through the throng and to about row 8-10 on the KG side. That’s only a rough estimate because there were so many people there. The crowd seemed to have no beginning and no end. We stood for a little while in relative comfort, but then some incredibly rude people shoved their way through the crowd and planted themselves in front of us. Now, I know that I am only 5'2" but HELLO?! I am not invisible. One of the guys turned around and said something about "Yeah, it took us an hour to get here" to someone behind us. I promptly said "Yeah, and it took you about two seconds to have utterly no regard to someone behind you!" My husband, ever the diplomat, shot me a look as if to say "Did you just say what I think you said?" That was followed by the "I wonder if this will turn into be a fight?" look. The guy just glared at me and turned around. As I write this one week later, I still wonder if I just used words that were to big for his tiny brain to comprehend (his senses were also probably dulled by all the liquor in his system). Finally, this selfish group moved up even more in the crowd to be rude to yet more people. Thankfully, we had a bit of room to move around. Until some extremely obnoxious people came up beside us and decided this was there "Make Out Spot / Dance Area." I had my toes stomped on and was elbowed about 15 times. And the rest of their behavior just grossed us out. I felt like yelling "get a room!" (More on page 2) |
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