Thoughts and Observations

Last night (thursday), Lifehouse played a show in a sold out Webster in Hartford, CT. Just like the rest of their tour, HoneyHoney & Matt Nathanson were their support acts, which is a contractual agreement. However, here comes the trouble, the Webster bookers had also booked two local alternative pop/rock bands, Stealing Jane & Faire Harbour. They were told they could open for Lifehouse, and since Lifehouse is a relatively big name in the States, nationwide, it’s profitable for a local band to open up for them. It gives you a good amount of exposure, especially if a venue’s sold out.

But the Webster did not talk this over with Lifehouse or their management (whoops!) and when the show was about to happen, the trouble started. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know everything that went down, but I did dig up some facts here and there. I know for a fact that the booking mess up was made, that blame can’t be put on Lifehouse or their management, but it was something the Webster didn’t think through completely. Stealing Jane seemed to accept the situation, but Faire Harbour, in their good right, demanded what was promised to them.

Chris Scarmana, guitarist for Fair Harbour posted an angry blog about the situation:
(source: Myspace blog)

“The band Lifehouse doesn’t support local bands – please read

Hey guys, I gotta tell you all one heck of a crazy story. Lifehouse was playing tonight at the Webster Theater in Hartford. We had a written contract with the Webster that if we sold 100 tickets, we would get to open on the main stage for them. Our band had sold over 200 tickets for the show alone. Apparently, Lifehouse had other intentions because they told the venue that if my band played, they’d walk for the night. They don’t support local talent and even though from 7-8 there was absolutely nothing going on (our set was going to be just a half an hour), they refused to let us play.

Kudos goes to the Webster for doing everything humanly possible to make it work. They went above and beyond with us the way a good venue should so once again – kudos to the Webster and there will be many more rocking concerts.

So yes, the short of this all is that Lifehouse, even though they were once a struggling rock/pop act doing whatever they could to get their name out there, are a bunch of divas. They had a chance to make it right several times, the Webster even offered them an additional 1200 dollars (on top of the cut they were already getting) just to let us play and they still refused to let us play a simple set that would have gotten us a lot more exposure and fans – this show was sold out and there were over 1000 people at the venue.

So, if you’re in a band and you’re playing your heart out to get your name out there, don’t buy into national acts like Lifehouse with this mentality. I guess some acts get so used to being “rock stars” they forget about the fans and fellow musicians in the process. Way to go Lifehouse for alienating some of your fans!”

Bryce Soderberg, bassist for Lifehouse responded to this, also because there was chanting during Lifehouse’s performance and bashing on Lifehouse’s official website:
(source: LifehouseMusic Forum)

“I’m going to respond to this thing before it gets out of hand.
Firstly, this whole situation had absolutely nothing to do with our band, our crew or our management. We have had HoneyHoney and Matt Nathanson open up for us contractually since the beginning of the Disarray tour and they will finish the tour with us. The Webster hall’s staff booked local opening bands without checking with us or our booking agent. FACT. Why? I don’t know. It is their fault, bring it up with them.
We apologize to the local bands that got screwed. It totally sucks, we know you worked hard to get people there to see you.
We heard nothing about the situation until after the show when we asked what that chanting for the whole show was, which was part of your crowd chanting a local bands name out of spite, which is not cool at all. Neither is it cool to come on our message board to rip on us and make up the fact that we’d walk rather then let a local open for us. That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
Just remember that the music industry is a small business. We respect everyone we work (or don’t) work with and expect the same. You should too

Bryce”

And Tim Ketterer, drummer for Faire Harbour came with this response:
(source: LifehouseMusic Forum)

“We do not support this kind of action either. We were told (and had it written in a contract with the Theater) that we were opening on the main stage in the hour of dead time if we had sold 100+ tickets to the show, we sold over 200. We understand that this is not the bands fault and regret that it has gotten this far, from the chanting last night to this outlash in the forums. We are fans of Lifehouse as well and stayed the whole concert. We did hear the chanting and did what we could to calm it down. We’re very sorry for what had happened, but please understand our fans being upset, we sold tickets to them with the impression we were on the main stage. Our fans were upset, much like yours would be if something like this happened to you. We sincerely apologize for how this has turned out and we understand it is not your fault. We were trying to get to the parties involved all night and we got to as many as we could. All of this needs to end, its the theaters fault.

-Tim”

this all kinda sucked and the situation and its aftermath are bad for everyone. No one benefits from this. I’ll re-post what I posted before on LifehouseMusic’s Forum:

“I’ve been following this story for awhile, and I’ve been conducting some research of my own. I am a fan of Lifehouse, and people who know me are aware that I have been doing a lot of work for local bands everywhere to get the promoted and to help them out whichever way I can. I probably am a little biased but I tried to stay as objective as I can.

As far as I can tell the venue had a booking screw up and they were trying to fix their own mistakes. It’s not fair to put the blame on either band. Both Lifehouse & Faire Harbour just wanted whatever was promised to them. I can’t say for sure, but I do trust Bryce when he says that they didn’t even know exactly what was going on until after the show. I don’t know about the management or whoever, if they might have known a bit earlier or not. But the venue should have communicated with Lifehouse’s management/booking agent way earlier than the night of the concert.

There’s no point in putting the blame on anyone now, the situation sucked and both the situation itself and its aftermath are pretty crappy for everyone involved. So putting out blogs and posting angry comments, I personally don’t see the use in it. Mistakes were made, and maybe a better solution could have been worked out, that’s all true. But it’s not the fault of Lifehouse, and it’s not the fault of Faire Harbour.

So instead of getting on each other’s nerves and starting to alienate from each other, why not try to let this rest (I know how much it sucks to get pushed out of a deal like this, I’ve experienced it myself in similar situations when I was working with other local bands) so I know it’s not easy to just let this go and walk away from it. But it’s the only thing you can do. I think everyone involved wishes it would’ve worked out better, one way or another.

Fact is, we have two bands here that make incredibly cool music, and both bands deserve respect, from their fans, from each other’s fans, and from each other. And we can only do that if we get passed this.”

More responses came and the situation seems to be pretty much resolved.

Becky, a Lifehouse fan messaged with Chris, who posted the initial blog, and this was his response.
(thank you Becky for posting this)
“nothing else can be said except for “apologies” all the way around. Since you did take the time to address this issue with me, I feel it’s only fair that I explain myself.

We had a written contract with our venue that we were opening for the band pending ticket sales. We were all huge Lifehouse fans ourselves and nothing thrilled us more than not only being able to see them perform, but be able to open for them and perform in front of other Lifehouse fans. You’re a fan so you have to understand the appeal, this is the dream gig… opening for one of our favorite bands! “No Name Face” was a well played album when I was in high school, and one of my favorite songs from the band was “Unknown”.

It broke our hearts that this happened, especially after having it promoted not only by college newspaper, but on the radio (and we didn’t do the promoting on it, regardless of what you want to believe). This was our chance to play in front of 1200+ people and we were ecstatic.

After having over 200 fans that purchased tickets to see us get this chance to perform in front of them, we were told Lifehouse refused to let us play. Our entire reputation shot down the drain, people that were looking forward to seeing CT locals play on a main stage just got ruined and it didn’t happen days before the venue, it happened HOURS before the event started. That’s over 200 people that were let down from this situation finding out just as they’re showing up (we had people that were coming from a few states away). Finding out you’re not playing for one of your favorite bands would be tolerable a week in advance, but at 5 pm of the night of the show, things can get out of hand (and they did).

We were livid about the entire situation. Our fans were as well and they let Lifehouse know it inbetween songs. It wasn’t handled well and sometimes you do really stupid things; really stupid things that you regret.

I apologize for the blog that was written the night of the Lifehouse event. At that point, it was based off information that was given to us and it was one side of the story. It was wrong of me to judge Lifehouse without ever hearing it concretely from their mouths. It isn’t fair to the band and to the fans.

I do not know the band personally and cannot attest to their character. All I can do is say “I’m sorry” and I wish somehow that our bands could have had some sort of direct communication to alleviate this misunderstanding. I guess it’s one of those things where the more people you go through, the more the message gets distorted. I was foolish to have just listened to the venue on this before typing what I did and I regret it, but as you can see the damage has already been done.

Tim summed it up well, but I’ll chime in; on behalf of the band, once again, we apologize and hope that fellow Lifehouse fans understand.

Best regards,
Chris (Faire Harbour)”

Then this post appeared on LHMusic Forums:

“Hey all, sorry I was unable to attend the show last night, aparently things didn’t go down as planned!! First of all, Faire Harbour is a very new band that is still learning the ropes of the music business. They are very ambitious, but in the heat of the moment they may have been out of control. For this, I apologize. The Webster Theater has been a mainstay in the Hartford music scene for many years now and has recently suffered the terrible loss of its manager, Ben Wu (RIP). In the wake of his loss, it has been hard for the Webster to get back on its feet, and they accidently double booked Faire Harbour and Lifehouse on the same night. Lifehouse, while I am unfamiliar with the band myself, I hear was not cooperative in their own right, and did not help any by and supposedly refusing to allow Faire Harbour to play before their tour package. There are finer details to all of this, and I would love to arrange a meeting with the powers that be. Please message the Faire Harbour myspace to arrange a meeting: www.myspace.com/faireharbour“

and eventually a blog that should mark the end of the unfortunate situation an discussion was posted by Faire Harbour on their myspace:

“Issues with Lifehouse

We have been contacted by Lifehouse, and know that what happened at the Webster last night was not necesarily their fault. There was a complication between our contract with the Webster and Lifehouse’s agent that’s resting in the hands of the Webster. Both Lifehouse and Faire Harbour were compensated and if didn’t receive what they wanted, they were given enough to make up for it.

Please do not send threatening or negative messages to Lifehouse anymore, or post blogs referring to last nights show on their page.

We appreciate the support, and are glad that even after a problem observed at the Webster, we still had our 200+ fans watching us.

-Faire Harbour”

Links:
Lifehouse
Lifehouse Myspace
Lifehouse Fan Board
Stealing Jane Myspace
Faire Harbour Myspace