Rock for Peace

Well it's been a few days, but I figured I needed to write that paper before tackling the good old blog.

So, looking back and digesting and debriefing, I would have to say that the entire experience has been exceptional. I still can't believe that this vision in my head became a reality. I can try to take as much credit for it as I want, but the way that everything worked out, well God and I both know that He had His hand in it. In a major, major way.

Anyway. The afternoon of the concert was really busy, but somehow not stressful. I was stressed for the entire week leading UP to it, and then on Saturday I was running around and yet calm. Go figure. I'm really glad about that though, because there was a LOT to do. Chris and Trevor showed up nice and early and got to work on setting up the stage and the equipment. They rock. They really, really do. We yanked the guardrails out in the Pit and some sort of digusting creature / meatball / hairball fell out and made the entire place smell like... death. I was thankful to be in and out and not in the pub for the whole afternoon!

I think I probably used about 20 bucks worth of minutes on my phone... it was ringing like crazy and I am even more convinced that I need to search for a better ringtone. Something like "ring, ring" would do me just fine.

One of the speakers ran into an emergency so he had to cancel. Cara was trying to print out the info sheet that one of the other speakers had emailed her; Gina was buying stuff, and Garang... I don't know where he was, but everything was still coming together. Gina arrived and we got the green rooms set up.

Chris and Trevor had the tech thing so under control. It relieved me in a major way. I'm not sure what kind of role I was supposed to play in that aspect of things. I figured I should just leave them alone, so I did... other than bringing down some Kleenex. The bartender was such a sweetheart and kept my glass full of cold water and lemon. Colleen (the assistant manager whose title conveniently abbreviates to Ass. Manager) wasn’t going to be showing up until later.

Stabilo came a little bit late (but when do people arrive on time? It never happens), and I got them set up with their tickets and gave them all the info they needed. I'm such... Hmm. They're my favorite band, right? So it's really strange taking a role where I'm... doing "business" with them. Does that make sense? It struck me that while this was my *ahem* 19th time seeing them, this wasn't the time to be a crazy shrieky girl. So I tried to be professional. Sara Macdonald. Concert Organizer. Hmm!

Sarah Latheron showed up a while after and likewise I got her set up with parking passes, blah blah blah. Again. One of my favorite artists. Weird.


Colleen arrived about 6 o'clock and let me tell you I was NOT looking forward to dealing with her. She had been a real piece of work throughout the entire process. Was I ever shocked on Saturday! She was sweet and really flattering and kept telling me how impressed she was by my organization skills (ummm WHAT?). This is the same woman who told me that I shouldn’t try to book the Pit because she didn’t think it would draw enough people… Oh well! I’m not complaining! Maybe she had just had a bad… month. I’m really, really glad that I got to see this side of her. She introduced me to her supervisor for the evening, who was going to be managing things because she had to work at the Gallery. Sean was very nice, and I set up the tab, and then the coat check room. Then I got some cash to pay for some meals.

Hmm, what else did I do? Looking back I didn’t do a whole lot and yet I did. Again. Even though I was running around and everything was happening, I didn’t feel like I was overwhelmingly busy. I have a sneaky suspicion that there were a few people praying for some level-headedness on my part!!! Heck, even Ashlee made a comment to me on the drive home:

“You’d better be happy. I prayed for you today. Me. Praying. I had a nice little chat with God and I told Him that He should make everything go smoothly or I’d be pissed off. Minus the pissed off thing. I was scared He would hit me with lightning or something.”

That’s cute ;).

Cara got the info sheet under control and showed up flustered at about 6:30. I went over the schedule with her and Gina. The schedule that I worked so carefully on and that was rendered completely useless before I even woke up on Saturday.

Myke Madison came in and I spotted him buying a beer. I scooted up there and told the bartender to put it on the tab and Myke looked thrilled, like a kid in a candy store, or maybe a former frat boy getting free beer ;). It just goes to show you that a little bit can go a long way, you know? That’s one of the over-all lessons that were stressed in my heart and mind throughout this whole process. Even if you can’t pay people, you can let them know that you appreciate them. I did the standard passes / beer tickets / schedule spiel with him, but I’ve only seen him a couple times, so I had no problem being “professional”.

The best part of the evening was when people started showing up. And when people continued to show up. And when they didn’t stop showing up. :D.

Can you believe it, despite not sticking to my precious, precious schedule, we were ready to go on time? It was freakin’ awesome.

The worst part of the evening was MC-ing. I am definitely not a public speaker. Not good at it. Don’t like it. I didn’t screw up or anything, but I would much rather be working behind the scenes. I introduced the lovely Sarah and her band went on up and did their thing.

Man, did they ever do their thing… I love them. They sounded so good. And after those fooz working the burger bar turned off the bleeping pager, people seemed to be paying attention. If I’d had it MY way, Sarah wouldn’t have been first. I firmly believe that more people need to be exposed to her. But sometimes politics gets in the way of MY WAY. There were still a good number of people to enjoy her set. My favorite number was Flight 407. About 10 people came up to me and asked me where I’d found them and that they sounded awesome.

Speaking of sound – Chris did such a great job mixing them!!!!! Again, the problem with booking bands that you love and getting really talented people to mix is that sometimes you forget that you shouldn’t really just be standing there letting the beauty of the music hit you like a breeze.

I did some schmoozing… made sure the volunteers were doing ok, got juice for a couple of them (who knew juice could make someone happily sit in a coat check room for like 5 hours?). I saw so many of my friends there. I don’t think I mentioned that it was snowing at this point. And yet there they were, many in all their White Rockean glory. I know that some of them hate live music. I am so lucky to have them. Church friends (great turn out from the YA-ers), UBC friends, high school friends, Kwomais friends, people I’d harassed on the street (ok maybe not so much). Another one of the things that I learned is that my friends kick ass and I have been so blessed to be able to surround myself with such rad folks.

The set change was quick and efficient and it made me happy. Sometimes it takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R to get the bands on and off the stage and it makes me want to gnaw off my own arm and throw it at the sound guys. But no. My guys were so pro.

Adam spoke first. He is so adorable. I am really thrilled that he made it. He was caught in traffic and showed up about 5 minutes before he was scheduled to go on. He was very quick, different than the last time I heard him speak, but I think it was very appropriate for the evening.

Myke Madison was up next. Going back to the vision thing, and how almost EVERYTHING turned out the way that it had been when this idea popped into my head… Myke is the only major exception. To be honest, it wasn’t Myke’s band that was playing in my mind… it was Lotus Child. I was really impressed by him though. This is the best of the three times that I’ve seen him, and I liked that he didn’t have the three violin players. I commented after Richard’s on Richards that I thought he’d do better with just one, because they were always playing the same thing.

Garang spoke second, and I know that he had been so nervous. He told us that he was going to get drunk before going on hahaha. Sounds like something I would do if I had to give a speech. The audience again was really receptive, and they shhhhhed people for talking at first. I like that people have respect. The cool thing about Garang is that he’s actually from the South rather than from Darfur, so he reminded the audience that Darfur is not the only area that is in need in Sudan. Just like the tsunami isn’t the only problem facing the world right now. Speaking of which, I had a lot of people comment that it was neat to see that this was a benefit for something other than the tsunami. Sure, umm, it was planned before the tsunami hit, but regardless, they’re right.

Zahida and Ashlee sold 50-50 tickets for me. No wait let me clarify. Zahida sold 50-50 tickets for me and ASHLEE whored them, exchanging money for my secrets. HAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh dear. What am I going to do with that girl? She did manage to sell one to a festively drunk guy who insisted he would donate his half back to the cause if she fixed it so that he won.

Next up – STABILO. John makes fun of me, calling them Stabilo Freaking Boss until they dropped the Boss. Now I guess he’ll have to call them Sta-freaking-bilo or something like that. Anyway. I digress.

By the time they were up, I was a bit tired from running around for hours and so I propped myself up against a pole. Chris asked me to listen and tell him and Trevor if there were some problems with sound, but I warned him that I would essentially be useless, entranced by the Stabilo. Anyway, like it could possibly sound bad with THE Chris Davies and THE Trevor Meier mixing. So lucky to have scored those two.

I moved for an instant and Brian Crowe was in my spot. Then he left and Trevor took it. I happily allowed it… one had a video camera, the other a camera. Sweet. (Go to www.meiermg.com to see the pics.) I popped over to a bunch of different tables very briefly, but there was a seat beside Zahida near the front of the stage that was beckoning to me. Ahhh, sitting.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe I can’t multi-task very well. When I was just standing there or wandering around I was thinking that it was an awesome event but it wasn’t until I was off my feet that I really started to understand how cool the whole evening was.

Stabilo was amazing. I have so much respect for them as musicians and as people willing to use their talent to support a cause. Karl brought his stand up bass and Nate trimmed his kit a bit, so it had the most beautiful vibe. I don’t know if it was the set-up or the Chris Davies, but it reminded me so much of the Beautiful Madness EP [Chris worked on BM]. I’ll admit it. I may have allowed some tears to form. Not my fault. Pretty things affect me.

I realized, as I was leaning back in my chair, that there was another thing that had been missing from the elusive vision. It was on mute. There was no sound! That didn’t register with me until halfway through Stabilo’s set. The sound was amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

The set list was a treat of oldies and newbies and they did NOT play Everybody (hurrah!). Coffee Spills, Fantasy, Laughing Nervously, Used to Be… and then when they did Ordinary I lost it. I’ve never heard it live. Jesse had said they would play for an hour max. Then when they were on stage they asked how long they had… I told them forever. Forever turned out to be almost an hour and a half. And even then it was because Chris had to use the facilities ;).

After they were done, we did the 50-50 draw and lo and behold, the festively drunk guy that Ashlee had sold a ticket to was the winner. He announced that he would be donating it back. He actually did. I’m glad he won!

And then it was over.

There were a few things that had to be dealt with afterwards, and I went to pay the bar tab. Sean asked me if I was ready, and I winced in preparation.

Sean: $113.20
Sara: What? That’s it?
Sean: Oh. Umm, I can add more if you want.
Sara: No, I promise you, you don’t need to do that.

Sounds like a big number, but I thought it would be a lot bigger. I mean, if I hadn’t had to drive maybe it would have been more like $1132.00 ;). No that’s not really true. I didn’t need the sauce to feel a high on Saturday. We did a bit of cleanup and then that was that. I thanked the staff (who did a GREAT job!) and then it was time to leave…

I can’t believe that Stabilo played this show. I can’t believe Sarh Latheron played this show. They all thanked me afterwards for asking them, and said they’d had a great time playing (ummm….they’re thanking ME?????). It seems unreal to me. Not that these people are superhuman or something. Just that it all happened, and that it all came together (and that they played this show :p).

I really had a lot of fun. I loved the PR aspect of it, the phone calls and the organizing. And I think I would like to do it again. I might pop in to Shea’s office sometime this week to thank him and see if there’s some sort of volunteer committee that does stuff like this. Or I could just go in there and announce my intention to usurp him and take his job:

Sara: Hey Shea thanks so much for picking up the tab for the sound guy and for answering all my questions and for helping me out with all of this! Oh and by the way I want your job so you’d better watch you back. K bye!

Mwuahahaha.