Puzzlebox Music

Read the reviews and favorite memories of the various conventions we've been to during 1999

Back to Conventions Index

1999

8^th Concert: Newark Winter Art & Wine Festival

Where:	NewPark Mall, Fremont, California
When:	February 7, 1999
Duration:	30 minutes
Set List:	$1.50 Movies
	It Ain't Easy
	Persian Rose
	Fly Freedom
	My Jalapeno Man
	The Fall & Fallen of the Golden State
	Caledonia (introduced by Suu)
	Merry Minuet

We were honored to be asked back for the winter version of the Newark Days Art & Wine Festival, which was held inside the NewPark Mall in Fremont this year (just in case it rained!). Paul's former voice teacher, Betty Cole, was again in charge of the entertainment acts. She was gracious enough to move our concert to 4pm on Sunday so that Alisa had time to drive up from Los Angeles where she had been sightseeing with her girlfriend, Suu, who was visiting from Scotland. (They actually drove home at 2am Sunday morning, but needed the extra time to sleep!)

After quickly running through the set list at Paul's house (located just minutes from the mall), we all loaded into three different vehicles and headed off to the concert. We played on the main stage area in the center of the mall. The main challenge of the day was the sound system...or lack thereof. Betty had worked miracles to get a PA system in place, but one of the acts before us had blown both microphones. Luckily, she had contacted Paul, who brought along a mic that he had, and she located another microphone. So, we had two mics for three voices and a guitar. No problem! Taunya and Alisa shared a microphone, and Paul and his guitar shared a microphone. It was somewhat tricky when Alisa needed to play her flute and Paul needed to sing AND play a soft guitar part, but we worked through it.

Giving concerts in a mall atmosphere is something that every group should try once. There is constant activity going on around you, and it's difficult to focus on a core audience when they drift in and out after every song. We discovered that we had a bigger audience on the second floor looking down at us than on the main floor with us! Apparently, the sound was much better up there, or so we were told. It was amusing to watch people come up and stare at us for a few moments, and then mosey over to the schedule of events sign to look up our act name. The songs we were doing seemed to fly by and it was over in no time!

We finished up the set in our alloted time (30 minutes), and then packed everything up. Alisa put our names in for 20 people(!) at the Red Robin in the mall. It took about 20 minutes before they had the tables put together for us, but then we were able to descend on them en masse. There was lots of talking and laughing along with the meal. Things wrapped up around 7pm and we all went our separate ways for the evening.

We would really like to thank Betty Cole and the Newark Days committee for having us back to their festival again! It was great fun.

Special Memories:

Beckett taking pictures with her new camera...look there she is over there! Now over there! Oh boy, look at her way up there with the zoom lens!!
Suu introducing Caledonia. ("Caledonia" is the ancient Roman name for Scotland...the country she is from, and also her middle name. It would be hard to find a more patriotic Scot than Suu!)
Chuck and Paul figuring out the microphone situation before the concert.
Mark showing up as one of our raving fanboys! Taunya and Alisa got a quick run down on his recent trip to India in the minutes before the concert started. Sounded fabulous!
Kayla getting ribbons tied to her hat.
Scott and Amanda Snyder meeting us at Red Robin after the concert for dinner.
Betty and her friend also joining us at Red Robin for dinner.
Alisa disappearing to change and talk on the phone for 20 minutes while everyone else waited for the tables to be ready at Red Robin.

Back to Conventions Index