REGION RUMBLE 2002:
What a grand day we all had at the Star Plaza Theatre on November
17 for the “Region Rumble 2002” concert.
If you one of the nearly 1,400 people who were there supporting
local music on that day, shame on you.
If you missed it, you can kick yourself hard for missing one hell
of a great time. Don’t just
take my word for it, ask any of the bands who played, any of their fans,
or any of those brave souls to just took a chance and just bought a ticket
and left smiling.
While the advance work that goes into putting this show together
each year is a bitch, I am always sad when the curtain closes for the
final time each year. Because
despite the stress, the long hours and the ten zillion phone calls and
emails – in the end this is the rock ‘n’ roll highlight of my year.
As we have EVERY year thus far, the “Region Rumble 2002” came
in right on time. All the
credit for bringing this 10 band/9-hour music show in on schedule goes to
the wonderful Midwest BEAT crew (under direction from Joey Rega) who have
been with me for the entire five-year run of this annual event.
And to the Star Plaza Theatre’s stage crew (under direction from
Alex Evolga). Thanks to
you all for working your magic again this year and beating the clock,
despite the way Freak, our Beat Babe Heather Peters and I gabbed too much
on the breaks.
Heather dished out many coins that day in the merchandise room so
she could sport a different local band shirt on every break... talk about
“showing” support! And
support never looked quite so good!
Thanks to Bonfire’s Jimmy Hillegonds for the use of his Marshall guitar cabinets, Joey Rega for his SVT bass cabinets and Greg Piaseczny of Grape Soda for donating the use of his cool purple drum kit for the day.
As always...a BIG shout out of thanks to my brother FREAK... for jetting his tired ass and sore back in from New York that morning. He jumped on a jet early just to show his support for Chicagoland’s musicians and help co-host the event for the third year. (Pssst...thanks Tracy for making sure he didn’t miss the plane!)
Kudos to Charles Blum, Mark Bishop and the great staff of Star
Plaza Theatre for allowing us to do this day of musical madness once
again. I am looking
forward to next year’s event guys...have your people call my people!
Thanks to Nick Kutzko at Music Lab, Jeff Wolfe at Black Dog
Studios, Maggie Wang at RCA Records/New York and
Monica Montella of Star Plaza, for the cool prizes awarded to the
bands and the fans that day.
Lastly, thanks to Jesse James Dupree and Jackyl for showing his
support of our are music scene, by graciously inviting the two bands who
sold the most tickets to our event –– Highway Band and Eat A Peach —
the opportunity to jam with them at the Star the following week.
Taking nothing away from the wonderful music and entertaining
performances, the grandest part about hanging out at the “Region Rumble
2002,” was being able to observe 50-plus local musicians slamming out
nine hours of original music without showing so much as a flash of
arrogance, ego or jealousy.
While some players knew each other from having jammed together in
the past and/or from crossing paths over the years, many of these cats met
for the first time that day.
It was cool to see so many of them bond enough to freely loan each
other guitar pedals, snare drums, keyboards and assorted other things to
help their respective sets go off without a hitch.
And grand to further observe them buying stuff from each other’s
merchandise tables, sticking around to watch and cheer on their fellow
groups on the bill, and do what seemed to be a lot of genuine
back-slapping and dialoguing. The moral of this little story is that –– “If it can happen for one day, it can happen every day!” The thousands of local musicians scattered throughout Chicagoland need to take note and follow the exemplary way the members of the these ten diverse bands handled themselves on and off stage at this grand event and apply it to the weekly club scene.
If those 50-plus “Rumble” players and other musicians were to
apply that very same kind of simple camaraderie, work ethic and mutual
respect on a larger scale, then think of how successful the regional club
scene, and more so, the entire Chicago- land music scene in general could
become.
Just a little food for thought.
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One Guy's Opinion
