The Bigfellas, at best, have always been a regional little act.
And sometimes more beloved in other places (Guemes Island, WA and Portland, OR to name two) than at home in San Diego.
We'd play frequently and probably too frequently at home.
We weren't worried about saving up gigs to have more people at shows.
On the contrary, we wanted to just play as much as possible.
As Shay always said about the band, "We'd play at the opening of a Coke can."
No weekend series of shows ever illustrated a small band's overreach than our weekend of March 16-18, 2007 all here "at home" in San Diego.
The Schedule
Friday, March 16 - Surf & Saddle in Solana Beach, CA.
Saturday, March 17 - House of Blues in San Diego, CA.
Sunday, March 18 - Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park - San Diego, CA.
I booked the band, so if this was an overreach, it was my fault.
Do you hear actors say that once they first get offered parts after lots of rejection, they haven't learned how to say No yet?
We were the musical version of that.
At this point we were probably playing about 4-8 times a month in San Diego.
With enough low-stakes shows (meaning we just played to a native audience, didn't worry about selling tickets) at places like The Blarney Stone, O'Connell's (R.I.P.), Mission Bay Boat & Ski Club, Dublin Square - most of which deserve their own story posts here on this blog - it was nice to pull a couple of legit venues like House Of Blues and the Starlight Bowl.
Here's where my thinking was about the weekend - convenient just to leave the music gear in the car after each gig each night.
Less gear moving per gig = good.
Friday - Surf & Saddle
This little bar has since been rebranded as The Saddle Bar.
The "Surf" in the name was since it was 60 yards from the ocean and the "Saddle" was for it's proximity to the Del Mar Racetrack.
It's a neighborhood bar that would go off on the weekends and get packed.
One thing we loved about it was that they paid a percentage of the bar sales - I believe 30%.
That's a nice payday for us, especially since our fan demographic was alcoholics.
It was also a tiny stage area with a low ceiling.
Which means that when a drummer smacks the shit out of his snare drum like Shay always does for us (and I mean that as a positive), the sound bounces back hard off of a low ceiling.
I never left that place without my ears ringing and a serious headache from having to sing hard enough to match the overly packed sound energy in that place.
Fairly normal long set from us.
You can tell it was St. Patrick's Day weekend from a few Irish songs in the mix.
About 40% originals for us which is a lot for a bar band gig, but why not.
The joint was jumping.
We left with my ears ringing, head hurting and all of us with a bunch of cash.
Mission accomplished.
Surf & Saddle 2007
House Of Blues
Saturday - House Of Blues
Let me tell you right here, we do not normally headline for House Of Blues or The Belly Up in town unless somebody made a mistake.
I guess somebody made a mistake this night since we were the last of four bands on a big St. Patty's night bill there.
Since we normally play toilets or neighborhood bars, we're not super accustomed to great backstage green rooms.
Or lots of roadies.
But House Of Blues was a first class operation so it's nice to be treated like a touring band even just six miles from home.
We later played the HOB bar a ton since, which is misleading because we get to say we're at "the House of Blues" when we're playing a Friday happy hour to a 30-seat bar.
Downstairs is the main room.
The difference is huge, although we found a great glitch in that ASCAP payments can't differentiate between the two rooms.
As for the gig, I buried the lead.
The three bands before us were all Mexican rock bands.
Some incredible St Patrick's Day counter programming from the House Of Blues, great crowds all night.
Since it was March 17, all of downtown was swarming with people.
The second-to-last band right before us all wore luche libre wrestler masks and were legitimately awesome.
One of the best we ever played with, I wish I could remember their name.
I loved that mostly Mexican crowd.
They were rightfully confused as hell why we were headlining.
But we played loud and enthusiastically but it seemed to work.
A great show.
Step 1 and Step 2 were done and great.
Sunday - Starlight Bowl
Where to begin.
Starlight Bowl.
It's a huge 4,300-seat amphitheater in Balboa Park in San Diego.
It's in the flight path for the airport.
For years they had light musicals and plays there outside and it's a blast; the performers used to freeze in place when a plane came overhead.
It's not really known as a big music venue.
As evidenced by it going dormant for the last 10 years.
Somebody described it lately as an "attractive nuisance."
I can't remember what the benefit was for but it was put on my a nice well-meaning group trying to raise some money for military veterans.
I say a well-meaning group because as it turned out none of them had ever had anything to do with music or promotion or concerts.
I'm not even sure how they rented the venue.
I'll hand it to them, they all personally helped us get our gear in and out on a complicated load-in.
But as for fans there for all three bands?
Bupkus.
I think we'd be lucky to put the crowd FOR THE DAY at 40 people.
In a 4,300 seat venue.
It made Spinal Tap and Puppet Show look like Woodstock.
What a come down.
I suppose the lesson is that when somebody asks you to play Starlight Bowl at our benefit, don't just knee-jerk accept before asking for more details.
Yikes.
Keeping Score For The Weekend
Friday - 100 people at a 100-person bar.
Great.
Saturday - 800 people at a 1000-person venue.
Loving it.
Sunday - 30 people at a 4300-person venue.
Oof.
So much for a game-changing weekend.
Although as I always like to say, if you don't like playing for 20 people, why do you think you'd like playing for 20,000 people.
Sure those two things seem different, but they're not THAT different.
Setlists
SURF & SADDLE (2007-03-16)
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Elephant In The Room
Has Anybody Here Seen Hank
Reinventing The Wheel
Jesus Just Left Chicago
Dollar For Every Dime
Higher Ground
Dirty Old Town
Cortez The Killer
On The Green
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Where It’s At
Johnny Get Out Of The Sky
And A Bang On The Ear
Mustang Sally
Stuff On The Moon
Helpless
When The World Is Running Down
Watching The Detectives
Slow Burning
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Walking On The Moon
She Moved Through The Fair
4:20
Moving Day
Wish You Were Here
Feel Different
Key To A Door
Take The Long Way Home
Sympathy For The Devil
HOUSE OF BLUES (2007-03-17)
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Where It’s At
Reinventing The Wheel
She Moved Through The Fair
4:20
Dirty Old Town
Dollar For Every Dime
On The Green
Slow Burning
STARLIGHT BOWL (2007-03-18)
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Reinventing The Wheel
Where It’s At
Dollar For Every Dime
Johnny Get Out Of The Sky
4:20
Cortez The Killer
She Moved Through The Fair
Slow Burning
Stuff On The Moon
