Brian Bergeron

What a fortunate year this has been for me. Last night, I played at the Paradise Rock Club for the third time this year and opened up for one of my favorite bands/performers: Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers. I had been keeping in touch with Stephen, Boots, and their manager for the last couple years since I became a fan and made a conscious effort to try and open for them. I had received a couple offers in far off places, Buffalo and North Carolina, and would have made it if it was possible, but alas it was not. When I saw that they had posted their fall tour dates a couple months ago, I e-mailed their manager (whose name is also Steve) but he said it wouldn’t work out. Then one day I was sitting around with Scott and Max (Scott my roommate from Cahill, and Max who plays drums for Chad Perrone and Cahill among others) I received and e-mail from Steve (the manager) who asked me if I wanted to be on the bill for a solo set…so of course I agreed.

For some reason, I didn’t get nervous at all before the show. The only thing I was nervous about was breaking a string. For anyone who has seen my guitar, there is a gaping hole where the pickguard should be and I beat the hell out of my instruments…because I’m really tough and like to play rough…jk but I have a tendency to break a lot of strings. I was going to bring a spare Cahill guitar but they went on tour for a couple of days so they took all their instruments. So I guess I just had to pray that I didn’t break a string and if I did, I would have to finish my set short handed. Luckily that wasn’t necessary.

I’d had a busy couple of days and hadn’t been sleeping or eating a ton so I was a little all-over-the-place mentally. I got home from Maine at 1:30 the night before (see previous entry) and woke up at 9:30 to pick up my CDs in Framingham. For some reason, that took an hour-and-a-half and I picked up my intern Austin to come assemble the CDs with me at my place. We had to assemble 500 CDs into window sleeves because I am an extremely independent musician, and by extremely independent I mean kind of poor and I need to find out how to cut costs in any way possible, including assembling my own CDs.

After that was done, we grabbed lunch then I auditioned a new lead guitarist for my band. For those of you just tuning in, I’m in a 3-piece band and we’re looking to expand to a five-piece, which is a lot of work. I think it’s going to be a great direction for us, however.

Anyhow, after that was over, I needed to clean-up, get my act together, and get over to the Paradise. I arrived around 5:30, checked in with Cousin Jessica (SK’s tour manager) and caught Tyrone Wells’ (the other opener) soundcheck. I did my own, thirty second sound check, and i had about an hour-and-a-half to kill. I went and got a falafel roll-up, an issue of the Boston Phoenix, and sat around backstage in the green room and chatted with Tyrone Wells’ band who were a bunch of nice LA dudes.

At 8:30 I went on and played for a half-hour. This is how much the crowd was enjoying me:

Notice the thumbs-up universal sign of enjoyment. That was my idea. They were a nice crowd, and they were participatory and talked back a lot to me, which is nice. Not in a heckling way (I don’t think), but in a friendly way. It’s a weird thing because large crowds are easier to play in front of for me. As long as their not hostile, they’re basically like a vast expanse that I can generally sing and play out to. In Farmington on Wednesday, for example, there were thirty people so I had to interact with everyone but here it was like a big, general mass. I played well. Once again, not spectacularly, but not poorly and I do believe people enjoyed it. By the end of the night I had given out a bunch of CDs, which was my goal so hurrah.

Setlist (maybe): Anna/Strangers/Tell My Story/Have Heart/When The Stars Go Blue (Ryan Adams)/Eventually

One other thing: the last two nights when I’ve played “When The Stars Go Blue,” I’ve given a free t-shirt to anyone who knew who originally wrote the song because it has been more popular when played by Toby Keith, Bono, and The Coors, but few people know that it was written by Ryan Adams. The person in Farmington picked up his t-shirt but the girl who answered the question last night never redeemed it (as far as I know) but the offer still stands if she’s out there anywhere…

After I performed, I felt pretty good and went backstage. I was putting my guitar away and Tyrone’s crew were congratulating me on a good set and I did a stupid thing. I was moving my guitar case and I knocked a chai latte from Starbucks off of the table and onto the floor. Not only onto the floor but it splashed everywhere, including into the little bag where Tyrone Wells’ wife was keeping her dog. I splashed the little dog in the bag, yikes. I felt like a dope and apologized profusely but they were cool with it.

Tyrone’s set was cool. He played his white boy soul music and his band were definitely all players.

After that, Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers played. They’re like live music 101 for performers. They have such a great energy, put on a great show, and have great chemistry as well. It is something that my band has tried to mimic and they were definitely in rare form last night. The material off their new record sounded top notch. Here’s a picture I snapped of them:

After the show I did the meet-and-greet routine where I handed out more CDs and chatted to people. All in all, it was a fantastic night and I enjoyed meeting all the new people. I hope some of them will come out on December 13th when we headline the Paradise Lounge (fingers crossed).

Thanks to SK6 and their management for this awesome opportunity. I hope it’s not the last time and it was definitely a dream come true.

One more picture:

Candice (left) and Lisa (right) roll with b-money in snazzy t-shirts. Amy (center) is an in the closet fan but I hope she’ll come true.

Dig on that. Thanks everyone.