I went to the Boulder Fireworks show on the 4th to check it out for a possible gig next year. Before the fireworks, they have some acts play to jazz up the crowd. I got there knowing the gates opened at 7:30 and figuring fireworks would start at 9:00 or so. I was wrong.
The first act was a duo of singer song writers from the Department of Parks and Recreation. Their songs were childish. It was hard to sit through. All I think was Guy Pulaski and the Roaming Nomads would have these people on their feet jumping around but instead they have to sit here and be bored.
In the middle of the act I noticed that these kids were throwing paper airplanes down the stands. I looked around and all of the kids in the stands were throwing paper airplanes. I guess it just one of those things kids do.
The duo finally finished their act with a poor rendition of Rocky Mountain High Colorado by John Denver, God rest his soul. The next act was a skip rope team. (They have such things?) The skip rope team was a group of kids that looked like they were in the age range of 6 to 16. They were nervous. While they did some cool tricks they were catching the rope a lot. It was okay but not comparable to some of the lead accordion work one would find in GPATRN. Who could compare skipping rope to an electric accordion solo starting with multiple negative C chord waves bleeding into Lead Zeppelin like cries of pain winding through a valley of reverb and intermittent wa-wa bar effect all being fed to 11 marshal amps? Exactly, no one, that who.
The next act should be arrested. It was the American Pro Volleyball (APV) cheer leaders singing the worst rendition of Good Vibration ever put together. The mistake was they tried to make the song their own without knowing who they were. Instead of just jazzing up the song a little they stripped it of all dignity and beat it until is screamed uncle. I thought we stopped torturing people? These girls made Good Vibrations a Mira Carrie-like piece of formulated dance-O’matic crap. They changed the beat, pumped up the base to were the music was useless and tried to hide every mistake behind tight outfits and dance moves so old I had nightmares of the disco days of the 70’s that night. I can honestly say this was first time I suffered through that song.
The next act, yes folks, the acts just kept coming, was the Shakespeare Festival’s actors doing covers of Arlo Guthrie. At best they were passable. However, the person doing the sound was either drunk or sleeping. Please tell me it was something to that effect because anyone with earshot knew something was going terribly wrong with the sound.
The next act was the duo from the park’s department. They performed sing-along for the kids. They are much better when they stick to the kid’s music. Their second time around wasn’t as bad as the fist but it was still painful.
After the duo’s second act the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra took the stage. At this point I had more two hours invested into this project and figured this was enough. I got up and left. It was 9:40 pm. I got to my car and started home. I heard the fireworks start around 10:00 PM. I pulled over in a parking lot to watch. They were unimpressive and over by 10:17 pm. Yep, I waited more than two hours suffering through horrible act after horrible act to see less than 20 minutes of fireworks. I have friends who put on bigger shows than that.
Anyway, I mailed a copy of our album, Combat Accordion Rock Polkas – Live at the Baby Doll Polka Club, with contact information to the Boulder Events director. I thought they would want to hear what we sound like live. I should be hearing back anytime now. The plan is to be the only act for next year’s 4th of July festivities. Why not have one good act instead of a lot of bad acts?
