130th Concert Weekend

Summer Jam 2023 at The Knitting Factory

Sunday, August, 13th 2023

Join The Band Concert

What a fun day with all the bands on Sunday!

Before I go further about the bands, I need to send out kudos to my amazing team at Join The Band. Trent, Ryan, Taylor, Bianca, David, Miriam, Michael, Scotty, Johnny, and Lynn,

A 7:30 am call time for a rock show is not normal. Everyone on the JTB team showed up with a great attitude and was ready to support all of our amazing Band Members. If you ever want to watch an experienced stage crew at work, show up at “load in time” at a Join The Band concert.

So how was the show?
First, I must say that 25 years into this, I still get excited and nervous on show day. I never assume things will go well by themselves. My team and I put in a lot of effort to make sure everything runs smoothly on show day.

Many years ago, we had a few shows where the venue did not open and “forgot” they booked a show with us. Unbelievable right? So on Sunday morning, when nobody showed up at the booked load-in time, we all got a little nervous. Fortunately, after a few calls, the staff showed up. (Ten minutes late.) Did I mention that “I hate late.” ?

Back to the show…

Our annual “Summer Jam” show was a blast. We had eighteen bands perform! Seven adult, eleven kids, and teen bands performed for a packed house all day. As is normal, we had many breakout performances as well as learning experiences throughout the show. We had tremendous support from the audience to cheer on all our Band Members.

Many first-time performers were experiencing being on stage at a Join The Band show. Watching the support they were receiving from fellow band members was gratifying. Notwithstanding the Band Member support, it was great to see the support from everyone at the show. You could feel the excitement and support in the room from the club staff, JTB staff, the audience, and Band Members.

What to work on:

We had fun performances all day. Here are a few pointers to further improve your experience.

Memorize your music. I say this all the time. You will play better when your music and lyrics are memorized. When you have lyrics and music on stage, all the audience sees is the top of your head while your face is buried in the charts.
Use the same amplifier you rehearsed with at the concert. Guitar players, make note of which side of the room you are in at rehearsal and which amplifier you are using.
Sing directly on the mic. 99% of the time, if we can’t hear the singer, they are not singing directly into the microphone.
1. We coach this all the time in class. Sing on the microphone about the width of a finger length away from the ball of the microphone.
2. If you are reading music and charts on stage, singing into the microphone can be very difficult. Did you memorize your music? Right?
Tune up before you get on stage. Yes, guitar players, I’m talking about you. 🙂
Tuning between songs: Turn your volume down if you have to tune on stage between songs. Nobody in the audience wants to hear you tuning. 🙂
Stand in front of the amplifier you are using. The guitar amplifiers are very directional. They throw the sound out directly in front and not to the sides. We also tilt the amplifiers back so they throw the sound up toward your ears. When you are not in front of your amplifier, the tendency is to overcompensate by playing louder and harder. Neither is a good musical option.
Guitar players: If you have multiple guitars, have a strap for each guitar ready to go. This will speed up your transition time when changing guitars.
Parents: Please do not walk up on the stage to assist. We can appreciate that you want to help your child. Please let our band leaders do their job getting the band members ready to play. 😀 It causes confusion with staging and the equipment the kids were using in rehearsal. 😀