A Night of Wonder

We had one of the most exciting nights on Friday. Thanks to Monqui, we had the distinct honor of opening for the Squirrel Nut Zippers at the beautiful Wonder Ballroom in Portland. You may know that TapWater has been a huge fan of theirs: we have been covering their song "Bad Business Man" for years. The night was awesome and let me tell you why.

There were a number of things that struck me. First and foremost, when you play the club level, you deal with oodles of unprofessionalism. Inadequate sound system, late and mean audio engineers, rude waitstaff, dirty and stinky rugs and bathrooms, no green room to gather your thoughts, no food and barely a drink, inadequate set up and sound check time, and of course, lousy pay. And don't get me started on the promotions aspect of the show.

Now the pay for the show was poor, but besides this the experience was worlds apart from the club scene. First of all, the Wonder Ballroom is a concert venue. So, they have stagehands who help you load in and set up your gear. They budget adequate time for sound check, even for the local opener. They let us park our vehicle with trailer in the lot right next to the venue. (I cannot tell you how much of relief this is -- we're talking major.) They give us our own green room with good beers and water. And the audio system was rippin. From the moment we got there, everything unfolded smoothly.

What was also cool was that the Squirrel Nut Zippers were some of the coolest down-to-earth musicians. They took the time to talk with us, they jammed with us backstage, a few of them listened to our set. We were even invited us to do a Samba parade after their set where they jumped in with horns. They treated us very kindly and with respect.

The best part of the night was that the place was full of about 500 music lovers who gave us an open ear. They walked right up to the stage and watched us. they danced, they cheered, they bought CDs. We played very well with the full intention of opening the show right for both the fans who deserved the most for their money, and for a group of musicians who surely deserve our very best performance to start their night.

TapWater delivered. I do love my band. We recorded the show of course and hopefully it came out well so you'll get to hear all about it.