[Harp-L] Was: Buckeye Cancelled, Now: Personal Connection?

[Tom Albanese <reedwrecker@xxxxxxxxx>]

Not to take exception with anything that's been written and I may be taking
it out of context, but here's a little story. Last week I played at a local
high school event called "Focus On The Arts". It was at a large suburban
high school just north of Chicago. A very well organized three day event
that included music, poetry, visual arts, dance and other performance art.
The band I played with could be loosely defined as "blues rock", for lack of
a better term, and without dropping names we had several well established
guest musicians who joined us on stage, some of whom were firmly entrenched
in the blues. My expectations going into this show were uncertain at best
but a gig's a gig and I tried to approach it with an open mind. The audience
was made up of at least 90% students from the school, and I would guess most
had very little prior knowledge of what blues music was actually about. They
turned out to be one of the most enthusiastic and appreciative audiences
I've ever played for. They cheered like crazy after every song, stood and
danced in the aisles and seemed to be having the time of their lives. There
was definitely a personal connection there and I'm sure that there were more
than just a few newly converted young blues lovers who walked out of the
auditorium with smiles on their faces that afternoon.

FWIW

tom albanese

On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:59 AM, Mike Fugazzi
<mikefugazzi@xxxxxxxxx>wrote: <snip>

>
> <If you aren't playing music familiar to them, for example playing pre war
> blues to teens, then you better find another way to make a personal
> connection.  If you are in a band that plays what the crowd wants to hear,
> the personal connection is less crucial to the success of that event, but
> I'd argue the lack of connection would not net long-term sustainability
> with
> that audience.>
>
>