Gig review: Bartender's Challenge@Zapp's Park
At the risk of drawing ire for not pre-promoting events, this is a review of Creative Fresno's Bartender's Challenge that I mentioned last week.
As a barkeep: I floundered for the first 20 minutes or so, even though there wasn't much of a crowd and people were making it totally easy for me, I still felt out of place. At any moment I was going to turn around and put an elbow into one of the bottles and send whole shelves of alcohol crashing to the ground. I was timid behind the bar. As the night drew on I felt better, though if there was ever a real crowd (like people pushing up to the bar) I would have folded for sure.
And Ska beat Punk on this one, sorry guys.
It'll Grow Back: This was one of those odd gigs where we thought we might have to play bass less, but somehow everyone showed up just before showtime and plugged in and turned up and the whole thing rolled off quite nicely. Two points: 1.) Zapp's Park is cozy. The band plays right in front of the bar, eye-to-eye with the patrons. Some bands might get weirded out by that. I kinda like it. 2.) Remind me to bring a longer mic cord, next time. There's something comforting in having 40-plus ft of cord to whip around, and flail about with. I almost pulled the PA off of the stand. Twice. Good hands in the audience saved me. Much thanks on that.
Rademacher: So, Rademacher is working in a new lineup and there was some talk about how it would go. Ed Stewart has a pretty in-depth review over at his site, so I'll just say this: For the first year or so, Rademacher didn't have a steady lineup for more than two months. One of the things I always enjoyed about the band was hearing the songs as they were reworked for various member change-ups. That was the case here again.
Fay Wrays: Again, check out Ed's review if you want more. I'll say this: Fay Wrays are a good, loud rock band. And I like my rock good and loud.
Overall thoughts: This was the first bartender's challenge in this format (on a Saturday night, with bands playing and whatnot) and I'm not sure if it worked as well as everyone would have wished (in terms of tips and headcount at the door, etc. Maybe some people got scared off by the flier
Bartender Challenge
I thought it was a good time.
I was mostly going for the music, so I left for a bit until that got going, but I did
get in an order for F.Whitewater--and he handled it very well indeed. I think it was
"I'll have a Pepsi". --and he totally nailed it.
I took off for a bit and heard Roger Perry do a few tunes over at Full Circle and thus missed all but the end of It'll Grow Back's set---the bit I did hear was tight and powerful.
I liked what Rademacher had going on---some interesting bits between the bass and guitar.
Good Reviews
I heard good things about you as a bartender, Josh! Although you may have lost by a few dollars, word was, you did a great job!
I wish I could've been there but had mommy duty so had to skip it!
Congrats!
good times
hey, i missed the challenge aspect, but i heard you did well josh. i also missed your band :(
but, i'm glad i could do several things that night: talk to josh & the fresnan; hear good music; walk to and fro the show.
It was a good time. . .
I thought it was a good time and a good showing for a new format on a holiday weekend.
The folks that were there were enjoying themselves and all the bands were awesome. We'll take a look at what we felt worked and what we think we can do better with and try this again.
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