Hello Katagorians!
I thought I'd finally take a few minutes and type out how the events unfolded at the Katagory V CD release party.
Before I begin, the band wants to give a big thanks to TJ (Mr. Toast) for doing a tremendous job in getting things set up and running for this show, he has been a huge assest to the band for a long time and we owe him a lot for getting us off our feet. He more or less has been an unofficial, temprorary booking/touring/band manager for us on more than one ocassion here in our home town, and the pay has been absolulte crap... But we don't take any of it for granted, no sir!!! But I think he get's a certain amount of pleasure from it or he would have told us to take a hike long ago.
Also a huge thanks to Dusty, his fine staff and for allowing us to hold this event in their killer establishment. It has been said before, but Club Vegas IS the headbangers ballroom of Utah! It is great to feel welcome and to be good friends with such a great venue - we consider it a second home. Also, another big thanks to Dave, Dan and Troy for helping us out at the show and pulling things together, making sure the trains ran on time and for tolerating us!
On with the show!
I can't speak for the entire band, but days before this show, a majority of our anxiety levels were running very high. The last time we headlined a show (4 years ago?) in our hometown, we had barley 10 people attend, and we were very aprehensive to wanting to do it again as we didn't like the pressure of having to promise those involved with putting it together; that we could bring in a good crowd. Things seemed to take a turn for the worse when there were NO advance ticket sales on our end, and everyone seeemed only interested in paying at the door. What? We're not worth committing to? In fact, One of the other bands on the bill that have a huge local following were even having difficulting in selling tickets as well (due to their fans seeing them in a week with Tesla) - it seemed we were doomed to repeat the past, and it was becoming of great concern to us.
You have to imagine our surprise when the turn out was 10x more than what we've had in the past and what we expected! As the time was creeping up to our set time, We kept walking up to each other saying things like, "where are all these people coming from!?" and "If all these people are still here when we get on stage, I'm going to shit myself!". The place was packed - there was more people in the club than when we played with Helstar and Agent Steel! PINCH ME! Thank god Dokken wasn't playing down the street again! Ha Ha! I think the biggest kicker was the amount of attention the merhcandise booth got. Again, we had lowered expectations in that departments as well. As we were 3 or 4 songs into the show, I looked out at the merch table at the back of the club and could see pop's (my dad) holding up and empty box and his arms, mouthing "SOLD OUT! Do you have any MORE some where else?!" You've got to be kidding me!!! Even at huge festival shows away from home where there is 200+ more people, we never sell out of our merchandise, there must be a rip in the space/time continuum.
The show started a little later than expected, but still ran on time up to the very end. The first band up was our cheer leaders and good friends, Necrophacus. Ironiclly they had a new self-released album out and just got them in that afternoon. Talk about cutting it close! They had a great set, and the accmulating crowd was really getting into their brand of blackened thrash metal, and they did well on merch sales too boot! These guys had been wanting to hook up a show with us for years, and it finally happened. I think it went over better than expected being that they are worlds apart from what we do. It's all metal baby, it's all metal. 2nd band supporting was our brotheres in Shadow out of me & Matt's home town of Ogden. I love what these guys do, and are one of the best melodic rock/metal bands in Utah. I'm surprised these guys do get more recognition outside of their native state - AOR fans would go nuts over their stuff!
I think we are all still suffering shell shock from the crowd response, we're used to high energy crowds when we are away from home, but this was a first for a home show as a headliner. People singing along to the songs? Chanting? Shouting out song titles? Can this really be happening?
After three albums and almost seven years of our bands existance, people in our hometown are actually taking us seriously!? Hooray for the home team!!!
We had our share of hic-ups (thanks to the introduciton of alcahol early in the evening) - we destroyed the begning of "Liberated minds", embarassingly crashed a section on "Drained" and one of us did an unintentional reagge version in one verse in the same song. It was actually hilarious! However the response to the new material was overwheleming, and the sound was loud and huge, as true metal should be.
It was our first time playing almost over an hours worth of our music, the first time we had a full house in our home town (by OUR standards...and NOT being an opening act!), and we cleaned out of our merch! So yes, there is a first for everything I suppose, it was very memorable.
We spent the remainder of the evening at the table signing copies the new album, t-shirts (and bare breasts - WTF Matt!?) meeting many new fans (even a few fans who traveled 4-6 hours just to see the show !!!
THANK YOU !!!)and talking with many, many people that were there to see us. This is why we do what we do, the fact that anyone can get into our music and enjoy it as much as we love to create it, really makes doing it all worth the "Risk and Sacrifice". We don't do this for money, we don't really do it for the fame or popularity either, hell, we sure don't do it for our health - we do it because we want to share something that means a lot to us, with others that might get the same feeling when they hear it.
Thank you to those that made it to the party, and thank you to all of you out there who have supported us!
\m/
Dustin
I thought I'd finally take a few minutes and type out how the events unfolded at the Katagory V CD release party.
Before I begin, the band wants to give a big thanks to TJ (Mr. Toast) for doing a tremendous job in getting things set up and running for this show, he has been a huge assest to the band for a long time and we owe him a lot for getting us off our feet. He more or less has been an unofficial, temprorary booking/touring/band manager for us on more than one ocassion here in our home town, and the pay has been absolulte crap... But we don't take any of it for granted, no sir!!! But I think he get's a certain amount of pleasure from it or he would have told us to take a hike long ago.
Also a huge thanks to Dusty, his fine staff and for allowing us to hold this event in their killer establishment. It has been said before, but Club Vegas IS the headbangers ballroom of Utah! It is great to feel welcome and to be good friends with such a great venue - we consider it a second home. Also, another big thanks to Dave, Dan and Troy for helping us out at the show and pulling things together, making sure the trains ran on time and for tolerating us!
On with the show!
I can't speak for the entire band, but days before this show, a majority of our anxiety levels were running very high. The last time we headlined a show (4 years ago?) in our hometown, we had barley 10 people attend, and we were very aprehensive to wanting to do it again as we didn't like the pressure of having to promise those involved with putting it together; that we could bring in a good crowd. Things seemed to take a turn for the worse when there were NO advance ticket sales on our end, and everyone seeemed only interested in paying at the door. What? We're not worth committing to? In fact, One of the other bands on the bill that have a huge local following were even having difficulting in selling tickets as well (due to their fans seeing them in a week with Tesla) - it seemed we were doomed to repeat the past, and it was becoming of great concern to us.
You have to imagine our surprise when the turn out was 10x more than what we've had in the past and what we expected! As the time was creeping up to our set time, We kept walking up to each other saying things like, "where are all these people coming from!?" and "If all these people are still here when we get on stage, I'm going to shit myself!". The place was packed - there was more people in the club than when we played with Helstar and Agent Steel! PINCH ME! Thank god Dokken wasn't playing down the street again! Ha Ha! I think the biggest kicker was the amount of attention the merhcandise booth got. Again, we had lowered expectations in that departments as well. As we were 3 or 4 songs into the show, I looked out at the merch table at the back of the club and could see pop's (my dad) holding up and empty box and his arms, mouthing "SOLD OUT! Do you have any MORE some where else?!" You've got to be kidding me!!! Even at huge festival shows away from home where there is 200+ more people, we never sell out of our merchandise, there must be a rip in the space/time continuum.
The show started a little later than expected, but still ran on time up to the very end. The first band up was our cheer leaders and good friends, Necrophacus. Ironiclly they had a new self-released album out and just got them in that afternoon. Talk about cutting it close! They had a great set, and the accmulating crowd was really getting into their brand of blackened thrash metal, and they did well on merch sales too boot! These guys had been wanting to hook up a show with us for years, and it finally happened. I think it went over better than expected being that they are worlds apart from what we do. It's all metal baby, it's all metal. 2nd band supporting was our brotheres in Shadow out of me & Matt's home town of Ogden. I love what these guys do, and are one of the best melodic rock/metal bands in Utah. I'm surprised these guys do get more recognition outside of their native state - AOR fans would go nuts over their stuff!
I think we are all still suffering shell shock from the crowd response, we're used to high energy crowds when we are away from home, but this was a first for a home show as a headliner. People singing along to the songs? Chanting? Shouting out song titles? Can this really be happening?
After three albums and almost seven years of our bands existance, people in our hometown are actually taking us seriously!? Hooray for the home team!!!
We had our share of hic-ups (thanks to the introduciton of alcahol early in the evening) - we destroyed the begning of "Liberated minds", embarassingly crashed a section on "Drained" and one of us did an unintentional reagge version in one verse in the same song. It was actually hilarious! However the response to the new material was overwheleming, and the sound was loud and huge, as true metal should be.
It was our first time playing almost over an hours worth of our music, the first time we had a full house in our home town (by OUR standards...and NOT being an opening act!), and we cleaned out of our merch! So yes, there is a first for everything I suppose, it was very memorable.
We spent the remainder of the evening at the table signing copies the new album, t-shirts (and bare breasts - WTF Matt!?) meeting many new fans (even a few fans who traveled 4-6 hours just to see the show !!!
THANK YOU !!!)and talking with many, many people that were there to see us. This is why we do what we do, the fact that anyone can get into our music and enjoy it as much as we love to create it, really makes doing it all worth the "Risk and Sacrifice". We don't do this for money, we don't really do it for the fame or popularity either, hell, we sure don't do it for our health - we do it because we want to share something that means a lot to us, with others that might get the same feeling when they hear it.
Thank you to those that made it to the party, and thank you to all of you out there who have supported us!
\m/
Dustin
