strumstrum™

This post is less of an article and more of a story. Last week there was a music festival in my area (Portland, Ore.) that featured indie bands from across the country including the amazing Blitzen Trapper. I was not at the festival myself but I know one of the people behind it and he passed this story on to me.

Things were going smoothly up until the last day of the festival when a band failed to show up on time. Apparently, most of the band was ready to go at the scheduled time, but the bassist had disappeared. Postponing the set for 5, 10 minutes is not a big deal, but pretty soon 20 minutes had gone by and the bassist was still no where to be seen. The bassist had been seen around the festival earlier that day so they suspected that he was still in the vicinity. The band, in an attempt to speed up the search as well as keep people entertained announced the problem to the crowd and got everyone involved in the missing bassist fiasco.

After 30 minutes, my friend who helped put on the event decided that they needed to put someone – something – anything on stage to keep people from getting bored and leaving the festival early. While thinking about this he happened to hear someone playing guitar. He looked around and found a guy in the corner of the lounge singing and strumming his guitar. The guy had never played a major gig in his life. He was just a nice dude that liked to play guitar. The staff member approached him and asked if he would be interested in going on stage. The guitarist didn’t hesitate to think about the offer. He gladly accepted, agreeing to play 2-3 songs until the bassist situation was settled.

The guitarist went on stage and played his heart out, an opportunity he may have never had if he was not prepared for anything. The story has a funny ending, too. While the unknown guitarist rocked out on stage, the bassist was found asleep on a couch. His band, I imagine, was royally pissed off.