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Obviously, just like the experiences on the way home, a band could encounter its share of hecklers at the gig itself. Snappy comebacks could disarm the person, but ignoring the heckler worked just as well many times. As in song choice and order, dealing with the audience was a skill to be learned. How the crowd was addressed and interacted with was just as important as how well the band was playing. Knowing how to encourage those in attendance to have fun contributed to the overall enjoyment of everyone–band and audience. It truly was a synergetic experience.
As mentioned earlier there were various ways to promote a band. Newsletters and promo kits were used to get jobs. After those gigs were secured a band had to have a way to advertise the appearance somehow. This was usually done with handbills or posters. These could range from the very simple–band name, venue, date, time and admission cost–to the more complex–all the aforementioned info along with unique art work and perhaps pictures of the group. When a gig had been booked at a school or other establishment these forms of advertisement were usually sent along to be posted. If the group was putting on the dance themselves some of the members would take the posters around the town where the dance was to be held asking various businesses for space to put up the posters. Grocery stores, drug stores with soda fountains, radio and tv stores that sold records and places where kids hung out were all good choices. Surrounding communities were handled the same way. Most businesses at the time didn’t mind putting the posters in their windows. Local printers were used to do up the materials which could be somewhat expensive depending on the needs of the band. Poster design was often done by a band member, friend of the band or even the professional sign makers. On occasion even the place printing the posters would offer design help. Boone County had a number of outlets to handle this end of promotion. The Boone News Republican, the Sundstrom–Miller Press and the Ogden Reporter were among some of the places that printed up posters for bands. |
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Larry Kelley: (on band posters)
We did one poster (I’ve got some of those left) and the Tijuana Brass, all their record albums, they had some guy with his back turned (on) the cover like he was taking a leak. So we did kind of the same thing with that poster. I’ve got my leather jacket on. My chest is showing, standing in front of our Kustom amps that we all had. That roll pleated stuff. We had different pictures all over and then Dick drew a sketch of the bus with smoke and dirt coming out from behind. In my picture I had Ted Nunemaker standing behind this big, tall Kustom amp. You could see him. He had this sombrero on with his back to the audience like he was taking a leak. Nobody ever saw that in that picture. Nobody ever saw. We had big posters back then. These things were 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall. You just don’t get by with posters like that anymore. We had those printed at Carter Press over in Ames. |
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Another consideration to playing out was presentation. Early on the group just brought their gear and themselves. Sometimes the lights where the dance was taking place were left on; sometimes they were dimmed or some turned off and others left on. It became immediately apparent that the band needed some way to light itself and provide the appropriate enviance for the dance. Since as far as any of the groups knew there was no manufactured lighting devices, bands would build their own. They could be as simple as a swivel outdoor light socket mounted on a small piece of wood for a base or as complex as wood columns fitted with several sockets wired to a ‘switchbox’. Sometimes white flood lights were all that were used. Other times, especially in light columns, colored flood lights were used. It was easy to find red, yellow, green and blue floods at the local hardware store. The lights were turned off and on by everything from wall type switches to foot switches whose previous function was to switch car headlights from high beam to low. Some bands incorporated dimmers in the lighting setup.
At first a band might just turn on the lights they had and leave them on for the night. Bands with light columns might change the light colors for certain songs such as turning the blue lights on for a slow song and red and yellow lights on for a faster number. During the early days someone in the band would make any lighting changes from the stage themselves. As time went on a friend of the band would come along to ‘run lights’. This could be simply changing the colors as mentioned earlier or it could entail flashing the lights during the songs to the beat of the tune–or even randomly. The flashing lights and changing colors for mood gave a more polished presentation and hopefully provided a more exciting dance experience. |
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| By the mid Sixties some local bands were being influenced by what was happening with the name groups in the area of lighting. Some of the lighting effects that were showing up on the coasts started to spark local groups imaginations. Folks like the Joshua Light Co. and others were doing some innovative things lighting groups at venues like the Fillmore, Avalon and other ballrooms. While local combos didn’t get that involved, some effects like strobe lights and black lights were incorporated into a bands stage presentation. Later on in the mid 70s some bands even started incorporating projected images into the stage show. |
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