RIK's Rants
Welcome to RIK's rants.
I will endeavor to revise this page often (it may serve as an incentive for me to update the pages on a regular basis).
Sunday, July 13, 2008
These are taking a long time!
Once again it has taken me an extremely long time to update my rant. What can I say; I've been busy.
When is 'enough' 'enough'?
The band is quickly approaching it's 18th anniversary. It's hard to imagine doing anything for that amount of time but it goes by surprisingly quickly. When I think back to all of the stuff that we have gone through I am shocked and amazed. How many people have we touched with our music? How many different venues have we played? After so long we are bound to forget a few (but we are working on keeping a history of gigs). We've done weddings, parties, charity events and of course our staple, the pub gigs. We have met many colourful people in our travels. I met my wife at a gig/rehearsal 16 years ago.
There are two things that keep us going for this long. First and foremost is our love for music. If I didn't enjoy doing what I do then I would not do it. I have played gigs when I'm sick, when I'm sad, it never mattered. I can proudly say that there is only one time that we have ever had to cancel a gig; that was when my father passed away suddenly two days before we were scheduled to play at Oscars' in Sherwood Park. And even then, I had to be talked into not playing. I wanted the show to go on. We have played gigs with member's missing; once when I was on vacation in Florida, we had just started playing at the Terry Fox Run and did not want to pass up the opportunity to play there so Fintan and Vince performed as a duo. Once, when Fintan was on vacation, Vince and I played at the Pub in McCauley (as the now infamous "2BC"). We were even affected by 9/11; when Vince was grounded in Toronto and Fintan and I played at the Terry Fox Run as a duo. We have always done what is necessary for the show to go on.
The second thing that keeps us going (well, for me any way) is you the audience. I am there to both fulfill my need to play music and to share that music. I have always drawn my energy in performance from the crowd. Give me a good and active audience and I will play forever. For it is partly because of you that I am there.
There is also a bonding element about the band. Sharing this much time with my two band-mates has certainly given us a strong bond. We have been through a lot; good times and bad. Births, deaths, marriages and divorce. But we have always been there for each other. If the band were to end tomorrow I still know that Fintan and Vince would be my friends for the rest of my life. However, that is not always a constant sentiment. Like any "family" we can sometimes get on each other's nerves and we have differing opinions on several things. But then, isn't that what friendship is all about, you have to take the good with the bad.
Now we get to the crux of the matter. Fintan and Vince want to discontinue the practice of soliciting requests from the audience. We have been doing this for a very long time. We originally started using set lists at our shows, but as we played more and more the audience started requesting the songs they wanted to hear. I think it was Fintan who came up with the idea of a request sheet. Being the social butterfly that he is he was the perfect person to go into the crowd, handing out request sheets and chatting up the folk. People would find their favourite songs and put in their check marks in hopes that their request would be next. We even established our now famous tradition of offering to move a request to the top of the list if the band were bought a round of tequila. This was never a ploy to get free drinks (although admittedly it was a side benefit) but a gimmick to get the audience involved. If you did not buy a tequila it there was still a chance that we would play your request and frankly, very often someone simply shouting out a request will get it played right away without the need for a shot. The request sheet became an important part of our show and now is to be expected when you see the Acoustiholics. On one particular handbill that was written for a gig and Jim and Jer's Pub in Red Deer, they lauded our practice of handing our request sheets saying that we were one of the few bands around that did this.
What are some of the results of having request sheets? Well first off, it can stimulate the consumption of alcohol (that would be our consumption). Secondly, it gets the audience involved they have a stake in what will be played through the night. and lastly, certain popular songs get requested over and over again. Are there draw backs? Yes, because the popular songs get requested over and over we tend to play them a lot. Do we sometimes regret playing songs over and over? Yes, some of us do. Also, we have to keep supplying fresh request sheets for each gig and paper doesn't grow on trees you know. Paper actually grows in the Staples store at the photocopying desk. So we have repetition of songs and the added expense of providing request sheets.
Do I think that this should be prohibitive to using request sheets? No, I don't. The cost of producing the request sheets is a cost of business and should be included in our fee. In the case of charity shows we will simply eat this cost. That being said, this makes it the band's responsibility to cover these costs, not just one member. As for playing songs over and over, we never repeat a song on the same night. And our purpose for being there is to entertain the crowd and if they want the same songs over and over then so be it. I don't think that the people that hire us are just hiring us to play what we feel like playing, they are hiring us to play what the people want to hear. We still have some latitude to choose which requests we play; lets face it, if we get 60 or 70 requests in one night we won't be playing all of them any way.
So there it is, my take on the situation; but, I'm not the only person that has a say in this. I think that you the audience should be able to give us your opinion too. I intend to start a thread on the band's Facebook page ( http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9444100662 ), you will need a Facebook account to join, if you don't already have one. Or you can email your opinion to wildrover@acoustiholics.com . Send in your comments and be heard.
A Note of Remembrance
In April of this year we lost my wife's grandfather. Jack Walker was two days shy of his 92nd birthday when he passed away. I feel privileged to have known him as long as I did and sadly wish I could have known him longer and learned more about his life. I was still discovering amazing things about him at his funeral service. He was an inspirational man and will be greatly missed. Rest in peace grandpa.
RIK
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TTFN
RIK