Photo by Chris Sands. He’s the best Chris Sands in the world and you can follow him on Instagram here.
We don’t want to belabor the point too much. We also don’t want to run through another list of things that we walked away with after Saturday’s Frederick Fall Festival. And God knows we’ve already waxed sentimental about everything leading up to the event. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least acknowledge what went down. I mean … man.
Like, really. Man.
There aren’t enough thank-yous in the world to truly express our gratitude for this small city’s support. Without it, 7/11 doesn’t happen. 8/8 doesn’t happen. 9/5 doesn’t happen. And holy cow, 10/10 could have never even been dreamt up. You guys have established Frederick as an amazing tiny place on the globe that stands toe to toe with any other emerging artistic community around. It’s easy to take that stuff for granted and it’s easy to dismiss it, arguing that it’s not worth the work, not worth the time, not worth the money, not worth the attention.
But if there’s nothing else that these past four months at 200 East have proven, it’s that every drop of blood or tears is worth it, as long as people like you continue to support these local artists – musical or otherwise. Don’t lie: The City of Frederick has some pretty great stuff. Those bands you saw on Saturday deserved to be on that stage. That art you saw hung in that building deserved to be pondered. Those DJs you danced to inside deserved your attention.
And that’s not even close to being all. There are tons of other local musicians, local artists, local everything that we hope to collaborate with sooner rather than later. Many of them, we saw in the crowd on Saturday. And, conversely, should the situation present itself, we know that the same people on stage Saturday will eventually be out in the crowd to support the people who were cheering them on somewhere else down the line. That’s why we’re here. That’s what makes this possible.
For now, though, there are a few people who absolutely need to be recognized. That compilation you heard in the studio area? All of the credit in the world goes to Derek Salazar for essentially living in that old crusty room for a summer, working with every soul we could fit in it and making sure we got it done on time (a few flip-outs along the way, notwithstanding). And then there’s Ryan Nicholson, whose help and support and advice through all of everything has been invaluable. It also doesn’t hurt that we love their band, Heavy Lights, who we also can’t thank enough for playing Saturday.
And speaking of that, the other two local bands – Seaknuckle and Old Indian … how great were they? It was important to us to have Seaknuckle open the show, considering how they essentially helped open the building back on July 11 (we’ll have a review of their CD, “Get Over It,” later this week). And then Old Indian? Shoot, those guys are the best, and we feel honored to have this be one of their final shows before taking a break.
Another band who doesn’t get enough credit from us? Silent Old Mtns. There wasn’t an event that at least one of them didn’t help us out with. We owe them 20,000 somethings for all their hard work and support. From bartending to spotting to cleaning up to just generally being fantastically nice people, our love for them knows no bounds. We can only hope to plan some amazing things with them somewhere down the line.
You also can’t forget Flying Dog. We had an idea and they helped us see it through. It’s one thing to offer support and belief, but it’s another to blindly listen to some guy who’s losing his hair and sweats through his clothes half the time (AKA, the person writing this). They’ve been a tremendous help all summer and without their guidance and collaboration, who knows how far we could have taken it?
Oh, and about how far we’ve taken it? It’s true: The first Frederick Fall Fest was the largest private event ever held within the Frederick city limits. We made history. Or, more accurately, you made history. So now? Well, now, we’re going to take some time to try and figure out where the hell we go and what the hell we could possibly even follow that up with. But in the meantime … THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU and THANK YOU.
Indeed, let the record show that on Saturday, October 10, 2015, Frederick, Maryland, had itself a night. And it was all thanks to you.
