Brian Bergeron

So many of my entries lately have been me thinking about big picture things: purpose, whether or not pursuing music is worth it, what music means to me…and I can understand it coming off as less than positive. This entry is all about GOOD VIBES. This has been a fantastic year for me (personally as well as musically) and I’m choosing to reflect on some of the better moments:

1. Towards the end of 2006, I put together a band (the band as it stands now + Scott O’Brien of Cahill on guitar) for two purposes:

a. I was planning on recording my first EP in two years starting early in 2007 and instead of using session musicians, I decided that it was time to put a band together for the first time in four years.

b. i was competing in a competition called the Rice and Beanpot Battle of The Bands. It is based on the hockey beanpot, pitting four Boston-area schools (Northeastern, BC, BU and Harvard–I was from Northeastern) against one another.

There was a text message vote and the winning band from each school got to play at The Paradise. Now, the prospect of playing at the Paradise was like goal Numero Uno at this time, and the idea of making the finals was like the biggest thing in the world for me. I remember getting the initial email about the competition and though it was a joke. To be only one step away from playing at one of the best concert venues in the city, it was ridiculous.

We crushed the competition at Northeastern, receiving more text message votes than pretty much all of the other bands combined. We didn’t win the final competition. It came down to crowd cheering and we didn’t bring as money people as everybody else (more on that later…) but we had a great time and it was like the best feeling ever. We got to play three songs, jump around like idiots, eat free nachos and tacos (the event was sponsored by Qdoba, a local Mexican fast food chain), and we dressed up like “Late Greats”–I dressed as Abe Lincoln…

The only hitch in the whole night (besides the fact that we lost) was that I ALMOST couldn’t play guitar. The day before, I was working at Starbucks and I was cleaning a refrigerator in the store. I was running a towel through one of the vents and sliced the tip of the index finger of my fretting hand on something jagged that was sticking out of the crack. That sucked. It hurt so bad to put pressure on the finger and I couldn’t play guitar. I didn’t know what I would be able to do for the event. I ended up getting liquid bandaid and superglue. I put all that stuff all over my finger trying to fortify it. Luckily for me, during the night of the event, adrenaline or whatever kicked in and I didn’t even really feel anything with my finger. It was a little tender but I didn’t get the shooting pains that I had been getting all day. The super glue and liquid bandaid didn’t hold though and it cut through and I bled all over the fretboard of my guitar…How’s THAT for rock star?

The next night I had a show in Lowell and had to play guitar for two hours. It hurt much worse that night…yikes

All in all, the Rice and Beanpot Battle of the Bands was a great night. It helped prepare us for an even BIGGER event the next month.

2. A couple weeks before the Battle I received a call from Will Dailey. Will is a local singer-songwriter, whom has helped me out a couple of times since I’ve been in Boston. He’s my favorite local songwriter and a guy I looked up to. He had recently signed a major record deal and things were on the up-and-up with him. He was calling because his band was headlining The Paradise in March and he was calling to ask me to open with another band. We’d be playing second during the evening, which is prime time. I was absolutely over the moon that I had received the call. Not only was it an opening slot at the Paradise for one of my favorite songwriters, it showed that he thought enough of me to ask me to play. My interaction with Will up until then was as a frequenter at an open mic that he used to host and a frequent attender at his gigs. I always seemed like I was more of a fan than a peer but he knew that I was a ‘hustler’ and that I’d help sell a lot of tickets.

We prepped like crazy for the show and because of it, the amount of people we brough to the Rice and Beanpot suffered…but it’s no big deal. The night went great. I think the show sold-out and the place was packed. We had a great crowd of friends, fans, and family and felt like kings for the night.

This also meant that I played at The Paradise TWICE in the matter of a month, which is crazy considering I had never played there up until then. It was fantastic and a dream come true…

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So that’s enough for now. This entry was to show that great things DO happen sometimes haha and I’m not always complaining.

So yea.