Funeral: A Tribute to the Arcade Fire
23/11/09 13:01 Filed in: Performance Reviews
All together now --- 1, 2, 3 --- “Wow!” Imagine 70+ musicians cramming into one half of the Fremont Abbey’s Great Hall. That alone would make anyone gasp. Our bows were almost poking eyes out. ;-)
I’m proud to say that the idea for the evening bubbled up on the 1.5 weeks Scott Teske, his brother John, and I spent traveling down to Nevada in September. Scott listened to the “Funeral” album almost nonstop. One morning, after we all zipped ourselves out of our tents he exclaimed, “You know what would be awesome?! A Seattle Rock Orchestra show that featured the Seattle Rock Orchestra. It should be a tribute to the Arcade Fire.”
Simply to finish seeing a friend’s dream and strengths be used and featured in such an inspiring way was beautiful. The journey was wonderful to experience, even if it was from the sidelines as a cheerleader/cellist... and I’d cheer/cello for Scott Teske anyday.
The Seattle Rock Orchestra has a wonderful audience. They were so close that while I was tuning my cello the lady sitting in front of me leaned across and asked me what I was doing. (We had a nice chat about the A-string and what it means to have intonation.) Not many Orchestras are capable of tearing down this great divide between players and audience.
That’s why I love playing with the SRO - all volunteers, all love music simply because they love it, not because they sit first chair and be all competitive and snobby about the quality of their own sound. Although we can TOTALLY be snobby about our sound and ironically I was honored to sit first chair. The SRO players just exude a “get up & go” attitude. They want to play together simply because they really like the music!
Both the concert and the dress rehearsal were held in the Fremont Abbey’s Great Hall (normal capacity of 235.) Our dress rehearsal kicked a Samba class of 25 out within 10 minutes. I had one of the class’ participants tell me afterwards they were “prepared for a few musicians, but had no idea there would be ~80 of them! And the way we all just knew where to stand, sit, play! So perfect it was almost hilarious!” It really was quite amazing how no one needed to say much. All of us just got out our instruments, walked across the room, & started playing...
They said “It was as if someone had coordinated a symphonic “sit-in” of rock music.” Scott simply began the rehearsal with “Okay guys, welcome to the Seattle Rock Orchestra. Let’s play the first song - 1& 2 & 3 & 4 &...” We rehearsed each song only once. Yes, we are that good.
Scott Teske did an amazing job of managing, coordinating the press, photographers, and especially arranging the parts. Although, the Arcade Fire does have some pretty amazing music to begin with -- he didn’t need to “doctor it up” in the least bit!
The Seattle Weekly wrote a magnificent review of the show. As well as Seattle Show Gal, who gave awards for each song. Here are a few videos from the evening... (Whoever was filming got me in most of the shots. On the left, the front-cellist rockin’ out.)
Our next show in the Spring of 2010 will feature the works of David Bowie. I’m totally gonna paint a lightning-bolt across my face..
I’m proud to say that the idea for the evening bubbled up on the 1.5 weeks Scott Teske, his brother John, and I spent traveling down to Nevada in September. Scott listened to the “Funeral” album almost nonstop. One morning, after we all zipped ourselves out of our tents he exclaimed, “You know what would be awesome?! A Seattle Rock Orchestra show that featured the Seattle Rock Orchestra. It should be a tribute to the Arcade Fire.”
Simply to finish seeing a friend’s dream and strengths be used and featured in such an inspiring way was beautiful. The journey was wonderful to experience, even if it was from the sidelines as a cheerleader/cellist... and I’d cheer/cello for Scott Teske anyday.
The Seattle Rock Orchestra has a wonderful audience. They were so close that while I was tuning my cello the lady sitting in front of me leaned across and asked me what I was doing. (We had a nice chat about the A-string and what it means to have intonation.) Not many Orchestras are capable of tearing down this great divide between players and audience.
That’s why I love playing with the SRO - all volunteers, all love music simply because they love it, not because they sit first chair and be all competitive and snobby about the quality of their own sound. Although we can TOTALLY be snobby about our sound and ironically I was honored to sit first chair. The SRO players just exude a “get up & go” attitude. They want to play together simply because they really like the music!
Both the concert and the dress rehearsal were held in the Fremont Abbey’s Great Hall (normal capacity of 235.) Our dress rehearsal kicked a Samba class of 25 out within 10 minutes. I had one of the class’ participants tell me afterwards they were “prepared for a few musicians, but had no idea there would be ~80 of them! And the way we all just knew where to stand, sit, play! So perfect it was almost hilarious!” It really was quite amazing how no one needed to say much. All of us just got out our instruments, walked across the room, & started playing...
They said “It was as if someone had coordinated a symphonic “sit-in” of rock music.” Scott simply began the rehearsal with “Okay guys, welcome to the Seattle Rock Orchestra. Let’s play the first song - 1& 2 & 3 & 4 &...” We rehearsed each song only once. Yes, we are that good.
Scott Teske did an amazing job of managing, coordinating the press, photographers, and especially arranging the parts. Although, the Arcade Fire does have some pretty amazing music to begin with -- he didn’t need to “doctor it up” in the least bit!
The Seattle Weekly wrote a magnificent review of the show. As well as Seattle Show Gal, who gave awards for each song. Here are a few videos from the evening... (Whoever was filming got me in most of the shots. On the left, the front-cellist rockin’ out.)
Our next show in the Spring of 2010 will feature the works of David Bowie. I’m totally gonna paint a lightning-bolt across my face..
