Salem

Salem – should the only other band on the bill stay for a your show?

Hooch at the capitol in Salem, Oregon

We continued our tour of Oregon by playing a show in the capital, Salem. The town itself is a little small and quaint. Everyone we encountered along the way told us that many people work in Salem and commute from Portland or other nearby towns. We spent maybe 5 hours total in Salem, so I’m not going to act like I really got to know the town, but from what I saw I thought it was cool enough. We played at this small venue called The Space. It was a independently owned venue, purely around to support live music. The cool thing about The Space is that even though its a very small venue, the stage was not small by any means. I always enjoy a venue that puts the music-needs ahead of most everything else. The venue was run by a guy named John (Jean?)- Paul who was dubbed “the Pope of Salem”.

Originally we were slotted to open the night for a local-ish band (I say local-ish because I think members from the band lived all over that part of Oregon) called Jamalia, but they insisted on going first and we obliged. This ended up being a very selfish move on their part. Most of the people who came out to see them, or just to see music, left by the time we started. This was a direct result of Jamalia ending their set late– they fucking played for around an hour and a half. I typically don’t care about this sort of thing, and I didn’t at the time, until all of the people left before our set (almost all at least) and even every member of Jamalia left long before we finished. I don’t know, maybe I live by some higher-code which I’ve fabricated out of the Rock-Lore in my brain, but out of respect to the other bands I think one should hang around for their set unless absolutely necessary. Whatever. For those who did stay, we rocked it as if there were thousands in attendance. We sold a few cds and a t-shirt so I can’t really complain.

I ask you, the reader, musician or not: Is there an unwritten law that says out of respect you should stay for the other bands playing that night? Discuss amongst yourselves…