On
Sunday, my girlfriend and I had tickets to see Candlebox (remember Candelbox?
So do we, so we wanted to catch them before they disappear again). At $25, the tickets were relatively
inexpensive (though a little pricier than one would expect for a band that’s
well past their sell-by date). The venue
was close to home though as local radio station 95x and the bar/concert venue
Monirae’s shared sponsorship duties, so at least it wasn’t a long commute. The opening bands for the festivities (which
were supposed to commence at 1230 but started late due to problems setting up)
were basically all local bands, aside from Candlebox and one band that they
brought with them. Let’s do a quick
rundown of everything that was done right on Sunday afternoon:
o
…
o
…
o
…
o They had an ice cream truck?
With
that out of the way, let’s go over what was done wrong:
·
Every piece of promotion I had heard about the
concert up to the event had said that it was at the Oswego County Events Center
at Monirae’s. Imagine my surprise when I
arrived at Monirae’s at 1230 and found absolutely nothing. Apparently I was not the only one as many
people had this complaint throughout the day.
·
When we arrived at the venue, it was just a
fireman’s field with a fence around it and a stage at one end. This was the prevailing feeling throughout
the day as well. It felt like a hastily
assembled, horribly promoted fireman’s field days.
·
To park near the venue, we were required to pay
$5 to park in a field. This was not a
field made for parking either. It was
literally just a field that they had off to the side, and some dude with a mower
just went and cut the grass. It was no
place for cars to park, or people to walk for that matter as there were ruts
and divots all over the place.
·
Being that there was at least a good three hours
until the only local band that we knew (and wanted to see) was going to go on,
we tailgated in the parking lot for a few hours. The security (which were taking their job
waaaaaaay too seriously all day long) told us that our group (of about twelve
people) would have to disperse if it grew much larger. My girlfriend and I went in shortly after
that anyway, but upon meeting up with our friends after their arrival, they
stated that the security guards came out and broke up the tailgating anyway and
made them come in to the “venue” (and I use that term extremely loosely). Apparently the fact that people were outside
eating and drinking and not funneling money to the event was frowned upon. I have no idea what they would have done if the
group had stayed out there longer, but the fact that they needed to make this
point showed how out of touch they were.
·
The food prices seemed relatively cheap, but
water and beer were as expensive as you would expect. $2 for a bottle of water and $5 for maybe
twelve ounces of beer (less than that if you consider that at least a third of
it was foam) while to be expected is still price gouging on a sweltering day,
especially when they advertised pricing beforehand with the tagline saying that
they tried to keep the prices cheap.
·
There were a total of about seventy-five people in
the concert venue, maybe 100 tops including staff. However, the majority of the
people there were members of the various bands that were playing. The local bands didn’t get to hang out
backstage, they were just out mixing amongst the crowd, so the number of people
there was vastly inflated. I felt really
bad for Candlebox. I am sure they are
not what they were twenty years ago, but they are a national act that is
basically playing a fireman’s field days.
How far can you fall?
·
Throughout the day, the mantra was “support
local bands”. This would be all well and
good, except the local bands are horrible. Seriously.
Not counting The Hellfish (the local band that we already knew) there
was maybe one band there that wasn’t totally horrible, but for the most part,
out of nine local bands that played the show, seven of them were terrible. I am all for supporting local bands and local
music, but I can’t put my support behind bad local bands out of some fleeting
sense of loyalty to the Central New York music scene. If this is what Central New York has to offer
the music scene, then no thank you. Some
of the music itself wasn’t terrible, but almost every single singer was
terrible, to the point where they all sounded like they just put the band
together for this event alone and needed anyone that could kind of sing, but
settled on someone that couldn’t.
·
During the intermission when the bands were
setting up (which was relatively brief – the only thing that they got right
that day) they played remix versions of Limp Bizkit hits. I know, that last phrase in and of itself is
an oxymoron. You’re telling me that a
“rock radio” station couldn’t come up with more suitable music than Fred
Durst’s leftovers to entertain their meager crowd between bands? It’s almost like they knew that the local
bands were going to be crap and decided that they would try and make them sound
better by playing the worst music they could find during the intermissions.
·
The bands at the event all pretty much stuck to
original music. One band did not one,
but two covers. “Man in the Box” by
Alice in Chains and “Feed my Frankenstein” by Alice Cooper. And the singer butchered both. His voice couldn’t register either Layne
Staley’s wail or Alice Cooper’s growl and the songs came out as tepid
imitations of the real thing. Something
you might expect at a karaoke bar.
·
The atmosphere felt more like a poorly
constructed Battle of the Bands than it did any kind of real concert where
bands were opening for a national act; from the three to four song set lists
for each band to the poor quality of music on display (seriously, Syracuse,
just give up and do us all a favor) it had an amateur, low quality feel to
it. The worst part is that in a few
weeks Skid Row will be there and they are planning on doing a similar
event! These guys just can’t learn from
their mistakes apparently.
We stayed at the event from 1230
until about 6, suffered through six terrible (plus one good and one merely
okay) local bands and half a set of the piss-poor national act that Candlebox
brought with them, and decided to call it quits. Even seeing Candlebox wasn’t worth this torture,
considering the fact that we had the rest of Candlebox’s opener along with one
more local band before Candlebox took the stage (probably around 7). If we had arrived at 330 for The Hellfish and
stayed through the end it would have been one thing, but terrible local bands
kind of soured our afternoon. If you
follow the same list that 95x and Monirae’s did, you will undoubtedly have a
poorly attended fireman’s field days on your hands just like they did. I know I will avoid patronizing any and all
establishments involved from now on, and just feel bad for Candlebox that they
had to have their name sullied by such a terrible event.
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