markd21
New Member
In November my band, Demented Truth, had our first appearance at the annual Deland Original Music & Art Festival. It was a cool day, overall - especially since we had been nominated for some awards - "song of the year" and I was personally nominated for "musician of the year". I got a bit of a chuckle out of my personal nomination - I am a good rock guitarist, but certainly not "musician of the year" caliber, lol - though it was fun.
The gig itself was a bit weird. The concept is awesome - the organization gathers bands from all over FL and the SE United States. They set up 28 stages around downtown DeLand, FL and have live music and art displays from 1 pm until midnight. This year there were 150 bands playing in various indoor and outdoor locations throughout the city. ALL original music, too - which is always cool!!
Here's the "weird/funny" part. While there are several "big" stages, we - being a new act - got placed on a little "stage" in a large alley between two office complexes. I put stage in quotes, because this "stage" was PLYWOOD ON CINDER BLOCKS, lol!!!!! The AWESOME part? We were next to the Food Court and main Beer Garden - automatic traffic!!!!!
Upon arrival and laughing/groaning about the stage, we looked at the positives and decided to have a GREAT attitude. We were taking the stage at 6:20pm, it was 1pm when we arrived...so we walked around and checked things out. It was a lot of fun...we saw some cool bands, ate some good food, drank some neat craft beers....
Here's a composite video of the highlights of our set. PA support was weak, the stage was wonky....BUT we had one of the biggest consistent crowds of the day - average between 30 and 50 people at any given moment. The Food Court angle WAS a good one, lol. My Paul's Guitar performed admirably (as usual)!!! I had quite a few people asking me about it when we finished - most musicians I came into contact with had never actually SEEN one (or a "good" PRS is person, for that matter)!!!
Hope you enjoy!!!
The gig itself was a bit weird. The concept is awesome - the organization gathers bands from all over FL and the SE United States. They set up 28 stages around downtown DeLand, FL and have live music and art displays from 1 pm until midnight. This year there were 150 bands playing in various indoor and outdoor locations throughout the city. ALL original music, too - which is always cool!!
Here's the "weird/funny" part. While there are several "big" stages, we - being a new act - got placed on a little "stage" in a large alley between two office complexes. I put stage in quotes, because this "stage" was PLYWOOD ON CINDER BLOCKS, lol!!!!! The AWESOME part? We were next to the Food Court and main Beer Garden - automatic traffic!!!!!
Upon arrival and laughing/groaning about the stage, we looked at the positives and decided to have a GREAT attitude. We were taking the stage at 6:20pm, it was 1pm when we arrived...so we walked around and checked things out. It was a lot of fun...we saw some cool bands, ate some good food, drank some neat craft beers....
Here's a composite video of the highlights of our set. PA support was weak, the stage was wonky....BUT we had one of the biggest consistent crowds of the day - average between 30 and 50 people at any given moment. The Food Court angle WAS a good one, lol. My Paul's Guitar performed admirably (as usual)!!! I had quite a few people asking me about it when we finished - most musicians I came into contact with had never actually SEEN one (or a "good" PRS is person, for that matter)!!!
Hope you enjoy!!!
