Follow-up: Temple 8 @ Clinton Art & Music Fest

[Kurt Tischer]

Well, it was a long trip, but we finally got there. I felt sorry for Dean Anshutz, who was gracious enough to take up the drum duties on this show. He had been working lots of hours and doing lots of other gigs. The guy was running on about 3 hours of sleep and by the time we got back home, I was seriously worried that he'd wind up driving himself into a ditch. Thanks, Dean. Your effort is much appreciated and I probably can't say it enough.

The gig was in a little art house that was converted from an old church. It was a relatively small and really live/loud sounding room.

As we were unloading the truck, the rain started coming down in buckets. I want to thank Pastor KR for closing up my truck and moving it during the downpour so we could concentrate on setting up the gear. That was way cool.

No time to change, so I played the set in soaking wet clothing. Yippee! The closest I came to "dry" (until much later) was the dishrag we found that I used on my hair [... and out you go, you dirty little dish rag, you ...] Yeah!

A crowd of about 50 passionate and appreciative people showed and stayed for our entire set, which under the circumstances, had its share of glitches. The backing tracks we've been using in place of a bona fide keyboard player, were out of order. What's worse is that sometimes, in the middle of a song where we were not using them, they would start up without command, casting pieces of some other song and arrangement into the one we were currently performing. Talk about some Ashlee Simpson moments. OUCH! But the real "ouch" was the combination of ground loops and damp clothing which made for an electrifying experience whenever my lips touched the microphone. Zzzzt!

The audience really didn't seem to care, though, and those problems weren't quite as bad as it may seem. Everyone really dug the set. We made some new fans, sold some t-shirts and CDs, and were even asked to autograph a few, which was an honor. We also made a great contact in the band that followed us, The Spectacle. It was refreshing to have an act on the same bill that is quite philosophically aligned with respect to what I'm trying to do with Temple 8. We're talking about a possible gig swap sometime in the near future.

So thanks to everyone who came out. Thanks to Dean and Ivan for playing their best, as always. Thanks to Pastor KR, and of course thanks to Nick Katona and his wife Jennifer, everyone at the Clinton Art & Music Fest, and Melodic Revolution Records. It was a good time and I hope to be back that way again in the future!