Coate here, welcoming you to the very first Reverie update from the tour.
We hit Milwaukee's BBC Upper Level good and hard last night, though we found a few CDs and a camera bag missing by night's end. The joke's on the camera thief though because I had the actual camera on me at the time...unfortunately that means you still need to wait a few days until I can come across a charger for it and can post some of the video I have for you. Sad.
As I'm typing this we're somewhere in Iowa on our way to Des Moines. We have a show at Vaudeville Mews tomorrow night. We decided to head into town today and do some promotion work for the show and dig up some more information about the scene there for future reference.
Aside from letting you know what we're up to, I wanted to fill you in on an interesting conversation we were just having in the van, regarding Reverie's achievements so far this year, and in particular how amazing it was to be a part of something like I AM FEST. For anyone out there who's unfamiliar, Reverie cofounded The Chicago Noise Machine back in November 2008, as one of 9 bands who decided to create better unity in the local scene. Kevin was actually interviewed in a Paste Magazine article about it HERE.
After the overwhelming success of that (sold out) show, the group got even more ambitious and decided to produce I AM FEST which featured 25 bands on 2 stages plus 25+ visual artists and filmmakers as well and saw over 2800 people through the door.
The reason I bring all this up is because Stephen was actually just sitting in the back reading Martin Atkins' fantastic Tour:Smart book and brought up a segment about Jeffrey Swanson who created Gothicfest a while back. When asked by Atkins if the event was successful, Swanson replied
, "A major success! We made history and did something that many industry people thought could never happen. There were over 1,000 attendees..." He also mentioned the event was a year in the making. In a later interview one of the filmmakers at the event described that 1,000 number as a bit inflated when considering the bands, crew and vendors made up about a third of it. However the event, was also considered a success by the filmmaker because SPIN Magazine did a write up on it and from there the event has blown up.Looking at that, without meaning any disrespect to Swanson and the other organizers, the four of us - Stephen, Kevin, Brad and I - couldn't help but point out the numerous ways that I AM FEST was a far greater accomplishment - considering we put it together in a third of the time, with far more elements and people involved to take care of, and that we did it all completely by ourselves!
That got me reflecting on how exciting of a year it's been for my personal creative endeavors in the Chicago music scene, but moreso how exciting it is to be working with Reverie right now. Here we have a band who not only has had an amazing year themselves, playing a huge Metro show last August, putting together Chicago Noise Machine launch party and I AM FEST, playing the Taste of Chicago (video here) and Chicagoland Speedway NASCAR event a few weeks ago, all the while playing small weekend out of town shows across the midwest. Add in the tour we're currently on and any shows ahead of us in 2009 still, and I don't know about you, but I'm ready to be a part of what's next, eh?
All right, s
o it took me long enough to write this, we're in Des Moines. It's time to wake up Brad and I need to pee. More later!`Coate
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