As expected, the Brian Vander Ark concert was awesome. The audience was about 20 employees, family, and friends of Farstar. I got to catch up with Cara and Jeff Serber as well as some of the old Farstar crew.
Kevin Lofgren kicked off the evening with a speech about love and unicorns and such (just kidding — it was a good speech). Then Brian played for about 90 minutes from a set list that KL had put together. But maybe the coolest part was when Brian sat down after his set and jammed with 4 of the attendees who had brought their guitars. They went around the circle playing both cover tunes and originals. Jeff’s “Oh My God, I’m an Accountant!” song was hilarious.
It’s pretty amazing to be in such an intimate setting with a musician of Brian’s caliber. This is a guy that has sold over 3 million albums and played to full arenas, but has chosen to buck the system and make music without a label. I talked with him about this and he said it’s actually more profitable for an artist like him to do it that way. He also mentioned that within a couple of weeks of announcing his “Living Rooms and Lawn Chairs” tour idea, he had booked 68 dates. I think more artists will do this sort of thing in the future.
The only downer was that I got a speeding ticket on the way home. So much for my free concert…
Solidarity on the speeding ticket. I thought taking defensive driving resulted in big savings, but after paying $108 to the court, $10 to the DPS and now $30 to the defensive driving class people, I don’t think I’m saving much. At least my record will be clean, though. And I HAVE been trying to slow down…..
WHAT? ANOTHER SPEEDING TICKET? Funny I had to read about this on the BLOG…