So, what do you do when everyone has suggested you play a venue and you try to contact them for several months with no return? You go there and force them to let you play…nicely, of course. This was the case with the Brickhouse in Vancouver.
So, if you’re keeping up with the All-In Tour Blog, you’ll remember Day 2. We did an open mic at the Brickhouse and were very successful. What we didn’t tell you was that the host of the open mic, Rick, typically does about an hour set prior to letting artists come on stage and perform. So, we had the idea to give Rick a call and see if we could share that hour with him this past Wednesday. He was more than happy to oblige! I have a lot of enthusiastic family in the area who wanted to see us play again, and Grandma was dying to ride in the tour RV with the band, so we knew we’d bring at least 7 people ourselves. Then, Kim got a message from a long-time friend from college back in Indiana, who had moved to Vancouver and wanted to see her while she was here. She brought another 6 people (who brought us 2 loaves of Dave’s Killer Bread!!). So, before walking in, we already had 15+ people with us!
Rick informed us when we got there that he wasn’t feeling well, so he was only gonna do a couple tunes, and we could play the rest. And the stars kept aligning. By the time Kim got up, the place was almost to capacity. We had gotten a little rehearsal in before the night took off, so we were all ready. Kim launched into her set strong and powerful, and within a tune or so, the place was packed and spellbound! As Kim hit her final chord and left the crowd going nuts, CS bounded onto the stage to cheers applause from people who had seen us all last week. It felt like we’d been playing there for months. We tore the roof off the place and ended with our trio version of “Uptown Funk” only to be demanded an encore. Jared and Kim gave em “Drive My Car”.
Basically, we did what the Big Bad Wolf failed to do…we blew the Brickhouse down! Or, as Kim put it, “We left a steaming pile of soul on the stage!” And…the booking guy was there to see it all. What originally was “We could maybe put you in here on a Thursday.”, quickly became, “We could totally put you in here on a weekend. You guys could pack the place!!” Mission accomplished.
