Unless you happen to be Weezer, life as a moderately successful alternative rock act of the ’90s can be challenging. Album sales aren’t going to pay the mortgage, so touring has to be the answer. But what’s the best way to keep your brand in the marketplace: Going for the package route like Live, Collective Soul, and Blues Traveler have this summer, or staying out on your own like the Gin Blossoms? Turns out the places willing to book the pride of Tempe, Ariz., are getting, let’s say, more eclectic. National Cherry Festival, Quick Chek New Jersey Festival Of Ballooning, and Beaudry RV Resort, get ready to rock! [Gin Blossoms]
Venues Are Following The Gin Blossoms Down
July 8th, 2008 // 11 Comments
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Welcome to my life: I had to make an ad for the aforementioned Balloon Festival, and much to the dismay of our Music Director, I am using “Hey Jealousy” as the music bed. It was either that or Kenny Loggins and Menudo. Thankfully it’s the original version and not the one found on New Miserable Experience, so that should give us a nano-ounce of cred.
P.S. if anyone wants tickets to the Balloon Fest, we are giving them away on WPRB.
It’s OK, Gin Blossoms, I’ll defend the quality of New Miserable Experience until the day I die.
I’m holding out for your slot opening up for Puppet Show at Themeland Amusement Park.
Will there be balloons?
Back in 1996, when I was a junior in high school, I won tickets from a local radio station to go to the Gin Blossoms/Dishwalla/Tommy Keene bill at Auburn University. They drove all of the ticket winners there on a bus. It was the coolest thing my 16-year-old self had ever been a part of at the time.
@El-Zilcho: New Miserable Experience is a classic album; Doug Hopkins was a genius. I’ll defend it too.
@dog door: I have tried in vain to argue this to my MD, but oh well.
@MTS: I know it’s impossible to hear a song like Hey Jealousy or Found Out About You after how omnipresent they were (summer 94 I guess?) but those and every Hopkins-penned song on that album is brilliant. If you want to hear what happens to a tight but lame bar band after the one genius gets kicked out of the band, play NME and then Congratulations Im Sorry back to back. It’s sad.
This is a great article on Doug Hopkins’ life. [www.metrotimes.com]
@MTS: Out of curiosity, what’s the difference b/w the original and the one found on Experience? Speaking as a child of the nineties, I didn’t know there were two versions and I’d like to compare them.
@dog door: Dude, I know.
@graeffufighting: The version on Dusted is a little faster, sloppier, less whinier, probably more drunker. Both the glossy NME and Dusted version have their own strength.
Gin Blossoms are noteworthy because they’re the first ’90s act to take the nostalgia route. They toured for, what, four or five years after reuniting before finally putting out a third album?