-Last Saturday CAROLINE BLUE performed at Frank’s Country Roadhouse in E. Syracuse, NY. You can read all the exciting, toe curling details about the show at the CAROLINE BLUE MY SPACE BLOG. We’ve updates the LIVE PICS 2006-2010 & FANS, FRIENDS & FREAKS so go check them out people!
*READ WWJ’s SHOW RECAP IN THE FIRST COMMENT BELOW*
CAROLINE BLUE 
Hey everyone,
-Hope everyone had a great weekend. Here’s a recap of what happened w/ CAROLINE BLUE at our show on 10/25/08 @ Frank’s Country Roadhouse in E. Syracuse,NY-our 1st time here.
-We arrived a few hours early and proceeded to get the gear unloaded & set up. Then we got to relax a little bit before showtime. It was cool to see people here that I haven’t seen in quite awhile.
Check out our FANS, FRIENDS & FREAKS Pics to see if you recognize any of them 🙂
-Before the show started, we received word about a few things. Frank’s CR doesn’t like the bands playing there to be too loud. We heard that the band that was here the night before received a lot of flack for that and that this was one of the reasons they were told to stop playing around 1 AM.I didn’t think that we’d have a problem with this, but as soon as we started sound checking, we were told to turn down. In fact, my guitar had to be mic’d up because of this. I didn’t mind per say-but my guitar’s stage volume was pretty low. John-the sound guy-did the best he could-and he did a good job. I could hear everything in the monitors. If I stepped away from them though, I could still hear my vocals, but my guitar was faint. In addition, there was only 1 light tree w/ 4 cans on it to light up the whole stage, but those things happen and we made due.
-Starting things off was The Pudge Band from Oneida,NY. They play in a Classic Rock style-and do all originals.Here’s something else we found out after the night was done-Frank’s CR prefers bands who play covers.Our music styles might be a little too distant to work effectively on the same bill-but they did a good job. I have to admit, though, I was very surprised when they decided to take a break (?!)-and I wasn’t the only one. I was told that was the old school way of doing it-a break every 10 songs. A modification of that is when you play for an hour, you play for 45 minutes & take a 15 minute break. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really work any more-at least not in CNY. Many of the popular bands in CNY don’t take breaks and people here are used to that. One of the most popular bands in CNY-One Hard Krank-will play 4 hours with no break. The problem is, breaks are usually a time when people leave the bar. This isn’t always the case, but it does happen quite a lot. We have to work on this ourselves. Again, at night’s end, we were told that Frank’s CR had a problem with both bands taking a break.I’m getting ahead of things here, but CB also took a break. In hindsight, I probably would’ve decided to go on as long as we could before taking a break.I’ve already discussed this with the rest of CB & it’s something we’re going to work on.
-Then CB hit the stage. Here’s our set list for the night…
Set 1
Dirty Deeds (Done With Sheep)-Dr.
Demento
Love Me or Leave Me
Sex Type Thing (Stone Temple Pilots)
Deny
Living After Midnight (Judas Priest)
Pain
She (KISS)
Slave to the Hourglass
Paranoid (Black Sabbath)
Won’t Be Home Tonight
Mine,Mine,Mine
Stay
Out of My Life (I Want You)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica)
Set 2
Too Late
-Overall, I have to say we weren’t playing up to par this night. I made my share of mistakes- I messed up the lyrics to “Sex Type Thing” initially (sorry Alain!) and during “Mine,Mine,Mine” my voice cracked like a whip on the 2nd chorus. We usually do a cover/original/cover/original etc. format for our sets but we had to temporarily switch that for reasons I won’t mention here (see “WAYNE-THE BOOK” for the real story-soon available where better books are sold-HA!). Given what I mentioned earlier about how we were told that Frank’s CR preferred cover material, I’m sure you can imagine how that went over…..John the sound guy even mentioned that, during our set, he was trying to tell us to play more covers. I didn’t hear him though so we did what we did. If I did, we would’ve played more. We still had a number of cover tunes to play-we actually have more covers than originals right now. But anyways…
-As I mentioned earlier, we took a short break around 1 AM. People did clear out when we did, but there were still people in the bar. We started the 2nd set-only to be told by Frank’s CR that we were done. Regardless, we still played 1 song before ending it-hence why Set 2 only has 1 song listed.
-Then came the end of the night. This is where things got a little heated. John the sound guy told me he’s works here a lot and knows the guys so he offered to get the money from our guarantee for us. Fair enough-especially in light of the problems that happened as well as being told the previous night the bar tried to short the band that played here. When he returned, we were told that Frank’s CR shorted us $50 from our guarantee-and that they initially wanted to short us $150 of that. We were told about all the previously mentioned problems with the bands as well as a few more. One the one hand, we were told that he said that The Pudge Band carried us, cause there were more people here for them than for us. On the other hand, we were told that he said that The Pudge Band was driving people out of the bar and their break really had people leaving. We were also told that he said CB would never play at Frank’s CR again. Considering all the flak & hassle that happened this night, it’s just as well. Getting shorted on our guarantee sealed the fate of us ever playing there again anyways.Just another day in the music business….
-I want to thank Shelly for getting us this show, John for running sound, The Pudge Band for opening, Ria for taking pics and being our mobile CD shop :), and all the people who came out to see/support the bands. Special Thanks to Jason for being such a good sport in taking all those “sheep” shots (HA!).
Hey-at least you got a CD right? 🙂
-Next Stop-Halloween night (Friday 10/31) in Phoenix,NY. CAROLINE BLUE will be opening for Bad Alice @ Schultzies and performing a set of KISS songs and in KISS makeup.
Hope to see you there!
WWJ