“Please Move Your Gear… We Need to Re-Till the Soil.”

On Sunday, the band had its first gig as a fivesome, opening the day for the Hungry Ghost Bread Festival in downtown Northampton. The gig had more or less fallen into our laps, or Auyon’s lap specifically, and we weren’t entirely sure what to expect, either from the underbelly of the Northampton bread scene or from ourselves in our first public appearance. But, being the adventure-seekers that we are, we loaded up the cars at 10:00am and drove our gear and our girlfriends over to State Street for a day of bread, sunshine, music, and a promised ‘puppet parade’.

(Going into the event, at least most of the band was calling the event a bread festival, presuming that the bakery hosting the event and prefixing its title was the ‘Hungry Ghost’. In learning that the bakery is actually called ‘Hungry Ghost Bread’, we concede now that it may have only been a festival, but at no point during the day did this seem an important distinction to make. Those few things which did not directly relate to bread were at the very least covered in flour, or fueled by complex carbohydrates.)

We set up on a sidewalk in front of the bakery, facing a grassy knoll of sorts and beyond it the streets of downtown, and were introduced around 11:00am. Though we hadn’t expressly talked about it, we all knew this was a moment that would carry a fair amount of weight for us. So, after years of honing our craft as songwriters and musicians, months of dreaming about taking the stage for the first time in front of eager crowds, weeks of setting up our basement with new gear, and days of choosing and rehearsing our best songs, we found ourselves, moments before the show, arguing about whether or not Dave was allowed to wear a scarf on stage before fall equinox (care to weigh in?). Well, that may not be exactly how it went, but the point is that for a band with aspirations to play sold-out arenas some day, we admit to caring a good deal about our little bakery festival gig, even as we played our first songs to an audience consisting primarily of our girlfriends and Sam’s mom.

In all seriousness, the Hungry Ghost didn’t let us down in the least. As the morning went on we grew more and more comfortable with our sound and our setup, and our last songs went over particularly well with the gathering crowd. After the show, we had the chance to mingle with the audience to answer questions, pass out business cards, and check out the unbelievable spread of Hungry Ghost bread and other food from local vendors (if you’ve never had a chance to try any of Hungry Ghost’s stunning baking, drop in next time you’re in the area). At noon the enormous ‘puppets’ began assembling for the parade, while two intent workers asked us politely to relocate from our ad hoc stage so that they could “re-till the soil”. We very happily obliged. (Later, the spot having been thoroughly re-tilled, we joined the crowd in tossing wheat germ into the soil where our monitors had just been).

We stuck around for a while, eating complimentary baked goods (our payment, naturally) and listening to the musical acts that followed the parade, until eventually it seemed time to take our leave and go back home. All in all, it was a wonderful way to start the season and we owe a big thanks to Hungry Ghost Bread for having us. We’ve talked to them about the possibility of playing a few more weekend acoustic gigs on their lawn, so if you missed this one, don’t fret. While it is our estimation that no further tilling will be necessary, there’s always music to be played.

Darlingside