Time to get Crackin'

Somewhat of a watershed show for Burn Rome Burn on Friday night at Cubby Bear.

We opened up for Cracker. Or as my mother put it, "Cracker closed for Burn Rome Burn." Anyway, it was an unqualified success on all fronts. First of all, just the opportunity to meet and watch a band like Cracker was informative in itself.

These guys are all in their late 40's and have been musicians for over two decades. They've been in bands as avant garde as Monks of Doom, as indie-popular as Camper van Beethoven, and as commercially successful as Cracker. And there was not one ounce of pretension in any of them. Instead of a tour bus, they rolled up in a Chevy Astro Van with a trailer. They had one roadie/sound guy. They unloaded their gear and their merchandise.

Second of all, over 500 tickets were sold in advance of the show. And I believe the crowd numbered almost 700 when all was said and done, most of whom were there early and saw our set.

Third of all, we played as polished and energetic a show as we have yet and seemed to win the crowd over pretty handily. Not that it was note perfect (the sound was a little strange), but I think we pretty much brought it in terms on conviction and being comfortable in front of a big crowd. It didn't hit me until after our first three songs, when I had to talk.

There were a good 300 plus people packed in the middle of the club, up against the stage. As most of our fans and family were standing back by the soundboard, these people up front were the die-hard Cracker fan variety. They were there to see Cracker, not Burn Rome Burn. And we could have bombed.

But everyone up front was really into it and we would up getting rid of over 300 CDs. After the show, I walked into the crowd to see my family. I'm not the kind of person who goes fishing for eye contact or praise, but I could not walk 5 feet without a stranger approaching me and telling me how much he or she enjoyed our set.

What a great feeling. I was trying to figure out if this show or our House of Blues show was more important to us as a band, and I think each one showed us something about our band. The HOB showed us we can play a place that large and bring enough energy and noise to make it work.

With this Cracker show, I think we proved that we can win over a big audience of people who are completely unfamiliar with our music. Afterwards, I had to cut out before Cracker finished playing because we had an 8:00 am flight to catch on Saturday to go a wedding in Cleveland. But I got to see a bunch of their set. In a weird way (that is, not at all stylistically) they reminded me of a modern version of The Band.

The rest of the band stuck around to the end and hung out a bit with Cracker and had nothing but great things to say about them personally. Couple this show with the fact that Sunday saw the completion and recording of most of the strings for the Burn Rome Burn album, and I think that after slogging away at the recording process for nearly a year, we've stumbled into a new momentum...

jbg