The Petra Zone

We just got home from a pretty good show tonight! A Midddle School about 150 kids.

God pulled one of His miracles! Gretchen (who was to headline) called 30 hours before showtime to say that their drummer was missing and they had to cancel (bad situation there, I know they would appreciate the prayers).

They had all of the PA. Discouraged, I was going to give one last ditch effort to try and rent gear find someone to run it and extend our opening set by 25 min.

Then God stepped in. One of the teachers at the school has a husband who does sound on the side, as a hobby. That is an understatement. It isn't his full time job, but that's where it ends being a hobby. He was the most professional sound guy I have ever worked with. Fun to be around, and top line gear. And he basically donated his time and service.

We pulled out a P&W set and filled our time. Things went smoother than I have ever experienced before. We debuted several new songs, which are somewhat different from our demo on soundclick. Kind of our new three piece and new style.

So. Tomorrow we head to Mt. Juliet, TN to play at the Cafe Express. It is a Christian Teen club. Supposed to have a really good PA set-up. There are two other bands playing as well, and we go on last. I think the whole thing gets started at about 8pm.

Anybody from around there that would like to show up and support us would be greatly appreciated. Plus, I'd get to meet some Pet-Heads!
(We do a kick-butt cover of Judas Kiss!)

http://www.cafeexpress.net

I actually tried to make this show, and I'm sorry I didn't. I called the cafe express to see what time Crimson Truth was playing and the lady there (Marlena?) just told me to get down there at 8PM if I wanted to see all the bands. I told her I didn't want to see all the bands... I wanted to see Crimson Truth. She said to get there at 8PM. I sad 'oh cool, Crimson Truth is playing at 8PM then.' She said 'well, no'. I said 'why get there at 8PM?' She said 'because you wouldn't want to miss the band you're trying to see.'. One last time... 'So they ARE playing at 8PM, then?' She said 'no'.

Due to my low patience threshold, I had to end the call... abruptly. No, I did not hang up on her. I wanted to, and as I looked down at my trendy WWJD bracelet, I almost think it's what Jesus would have done...

So I looked at the cafe express website and it said that you guys were playing... and that doors opened at... when else? 8PM. Having just got back from Orlando spending three nights away from the wife and Mini-Me, I didn't think it would have been cool to go to the concert and not know how long I would be gone since once again I would be skipping out on family time.

Anyway, I'm sure you guys had a great show, and I'll try to catch you guys another time.

FYI... don't know exactly whereabouts TN you live, but you can catch us in Six Flags over Georgia for Christian Music Weekend on Saturday (we're opening for Reliant K!) and then we have a GMA showcase in downtown Nashville on April 12th.

Hope to see ya...

She probably didn't know what time the bands were actually supposed to be playing and just didn't want to admit it... There are so many things that could change a concert schedule too.

It must be hard to be away from the family while you're on the road. You were wise to go ahead and stay home.

The show was really good. And Marlana? was very frantic.

The place is very cool. Lots of kids hanging out - a great opportunity to witness.

But the manager (Marlana) overbooked the show. So 5 bands had to play in the space where three should have played. It was rush, rush, rush. All the bands were pretty good. The sound guy had an awesome live set up and recording situation. We played around 9ish (I think) And we got about 2/3's through our set when the manager came out saying we needed to wrap it up, but the crowd asked for us to keep playing and the sound guy said from the back "finish your set". So I think we did ok .

They really liked Judas Kiss, and a couple of our originals. The club is a Christian club, though she does allow secular groups to play there. At one point I mentioned from the stage that we were a band who loved Jesus and that He was our purpose and motivation behind the music. At first I thought "maybe that was a bit much", you know kind of Bible thumperish. But afterwards the response to our lyrics and that statement was completely and unexpectedly positive.

So at the end of the night the manager said she had a bad night at the door and couldn't pay everyone. Some of the bands got upset, but I just kept quiet and hung back a bit. She later told me of all the struggles in keeping the place open (angry nieghbors, landlords, bills, etc) She said she was very sorry not to be able to pay us, but that if we insisted she would come up with something.

While we were talking I could hear the soundguy playing back our live set that he had recorded. So I said that if we could get a cd of the recording (high quality, Pro-tools) that I would consider it a good night. The sound guy and she agreed and booked us for June 4th.

The whole thing really worked out well.

I will try to make the Kainos show if possible. Maybe the GMA showcase. I was thinking about going down there for that.

Check out our new website - just launched.


http://www.crimsontruth.com

Wow, I was just down in Nashville, March 17-23rd for the CIA Summit, (Christian Independent Artist), the Indie Heaven thing.

By the way, if any of you are interested who Indie Heaven is, and you are an artist that needs to get more exposure, wants to have some fellowship, get help, advice, network with other artists, gig share and so on, go to my website: http://www.SamScales.com scroll down on the homepage and click on the yellow banner that's down on the bottom. It'll take you directly to the Indie Heaven site.

We just had a great conference. Lots of friendships were formed, met most of the people I talk to on that message board there (just like it was with some of you guys, who I have the pleasure to meet from this message board).

At the conference, we had speakers like Tom Jackson, Brett Johnson (vocal lessons) and Dawn Jones, for booking and many others. It was very informative, I learned a lot, got encouraged and I'm gonna keep the fire burnin'.

I know many of you are artists and have a hard time with booking. Check us out on Indie Heaven........