It’s that time of year again folks! For a couple of blissful months, you can put aside your news blogs, your streaming of world affairs, your doom scrolling of the state of the government, and you can dive into America with your favorite Glam Folk duo, Champagne Sunday! That’s right! You get to come along with us and experience the highs and lows of the touring musician, and what it is like to be desperately trying to convince the world how amazing and awesome we are, all while remaining humble and grateful that anyone is even listening in the first place! It’s a laugh a minute, full of drama and suspense, and you won’t want to miss the antics these two (sometimes three) crazy Fredeens get into! So let’s get right to it, shall we?
Many of you Gen Xers will remember, probably with fondness, the mysterious call to Kevin Costner in Field Of Dreams, convincing him that, “If you build it. They will come.” In which Kevin’s character built a baseball field for a bunch of ghosts to come play baseball on. It was the kind of magic we could all get behind. It made us all believe that if we heard something deeply and persistently enough, we could follow that voice and all of our dreams would come true. Well, similar to Kevin, Champagne Sunday has been hearing the whisper…”If you play it, they will come.” That is to say that this is a building year for us where we try to infiltrate areas we’ve not played before, hoping to get enough people interested and talking about it that they ask us to come back so we can get more footholds in those new places.
Every year when getting ready for tour, Jared and I will send out several emails to venue owners, music bookers for clubs, or just whoever can say “yes” to a touring act coming through to play at their bar, trying to convince them that we are a dynamite act and we should not only be allowed to play at their venue, but they should pay us well to do so. Even as I sit here and type this up, I have to chortle at the ridiculousness of the request, as it sounds fantastical and laughable at best. We are no strangers to the rejection response, which usually reads something like, “Hi, Champaigne Sundae. Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, we are all booked from now until the end of time and can’t be bothered to even listen to your music, as it is wickedly difficult to click on any one of the many links you included in your email, and even if we did, you are far too uplifting to be playing anywhere near our Uber-artistic, super-broody, overtly-introverted cast of musicians who come through here. Best regards, Mr. Not Interested”
(Jared here: That’s cool! I didn’t realize that Mr. Not Interested even wrote us back. Progress!)
So, on the rare occasion that we garner any interest, and even more rare that that interest is accompanied by an offer of a performance date PLUS some pay, we are over-the-moon thrilled to go there. Of course we always hit up the tried-and-true spots who have been so good to us over the years, and that really helps to off set the new spots. But I have to remind myself that those places were once new as well. We had to do our time in the random cities and small towns to prove we were worth what we asked for, and that we would deliver a special and unforgettable performance each time. This Summer, our newest region is all the way south in a little artist community in Arizona, called Bisbee. A good friend from Tacoma moved there a few years back, and she has been helping to get venues excited for some Champagne Sunday, and we are here for it!!! We got booked three new places in Bisbee, so hopefully the word will spread and we can get into New Mexico and Nevada over the next couple years. It sure would be nice to have some places to go down south when it gets cold up in WA during the winter months. We’ll also be playing some open mics in certain parts of Colorado to at least get heard by someone who may want to book us to come back.
So, follow our journey as we re-visit old haunts, make friends in new ones, and keep connecting in that special way only Champagne Sunday can. We are excited to share it all with you. And hey, keep an eye on our tour schedule and let your friends and family know to come see us and say hi! Also, reach out if you know of places in the areas where we’ll be that we should check out to play. Any informed guidance helps when we’re on the road. Meanwhile, we’ll just be following that mysterious whisper, “If you play it, they will come…” and really hope it’s right.
I have seen the faces of fans , faces of those experiencing CS for the first time, faces wet with tears, and faces smiling with pure joy. Keep it up ! You are amazing !!!!