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WELCOME TO THE NEWLY RENOVATED BIG NAME BANKING FACILITY OURSTAGE BLOG

It all started when I was eight-years-old. I’d packed my backpack full of My Little Ponies and snacks, excited to do something different for the evening. I asked my mom excitedly, “When will we be at Grandma’s house?” She looked down at me disapprovingly and said, “It’s called The Starbucks Center now. We’ll be there around six.”

I blinked silently. “What do you mean it’s called The Starbucks Center? It’s Grandma’s house. I’ve always called it Grandma’s house.”

“Well,” replied my mom, “They had to sell the naming rights. It was a financial decision. You can still call it Grandma’s house though. It’s just… technically The Starbucks Center.”

This sounds like a bad dream but it might just be the beginning of a terrible trend soon to spread throughout the US.  At any moment, arenas, concert halls, baseball fields, just about any major recreational facility, could fall victim to the corporate renaming (a.k.a. sterilization) process. Of course the establishments themselves don’t necessarily look at it this way; for them it’s a smart business decision. For the loyal fans and patrons it’s an extraction of a tiny little part of their soul… the part that contains memories made at those concerts, sporting events and even big city senior proms.

g2582580d46bef1b34af93e24f7f4091a28049aae93948bAs a lifetime resident of Massachusetts, I’ve watched Great Woods, one of the biggest and most well-known concert venues in the state, turn first into The Tweeter Center and then The Comcast Center. My beloved Worcester Centrum is now The DCU Center. And worst of all, The Boston Garden, home of the Boston Celtics, is now supposed to be referred to as the TD Banknorth Garden. 

No! I refuse! It’s The Boston Garden! (Gahhh-den if you’re a true Bostonian.) Nobody’s going to ask their buddy if they remember “that Game 5 that went into triple overtime back in 1976 against the Suns at the TD Banknorth Garden.” It just sounds wrong; it sounds impersonal. And it seems to me that banks are taking a hold on quite a bit these days. Houses, high interest loans, overdraft fees. So why our beloved concert venues and stadiums?! fenway_park1Fenway Park is still Fenway Parkfor nowand I pray that never changes. We’ll never call it anything else anyway. But it’s hard enough to watch players we’ve grown to love get moved around the League like their respective trading cards. At least everyone wearing a Red Sox jersey can still call the same place “home.”

Perhaps I’m overreacting. Perhaps I’m not. The way I look at it, these venues are an important part of local culture. They’re one of the few links that can really connect generations, because they’ve been around so long. When the venue names change, it’s like a little piece of that link is chipped away. Of course, an anti-establishment punk band playing at The Dunkin’ Donuts Center —or any big venue for that matter—has a certain air of irony about it.

The point is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In a day and age where constant change is the norm, we rely on the comfort of tradition to get by. And that’s what I think about that!

OurStage Band The Luxury Opens for Coldplay

www.ourstage.com

The dream is a familiar one for anyone who has ever picked up a guitar, switched on a keyboard, or plugged in a microphone: the chance to open for one of the biggest bands on the planet, in front of ten thousand screaming fans, at a sold-out arena. Boston-based OurStage band The Luxury got that chance when they they were chosen by fans on a local radio station to open for mega-stars Coldplay at a sold-out TD Banknorth Garden. The Luxury, with their thick layers of driving piano, swirling guitars, and anthem hooks, sound like they’ve been ready for a show like this for quite a while. Frontman Jason Dunn talked with OurStage about The Luxury’s gig of a lifetime.

OurStage: How did it feel to find out you guys were going to be opening for Coldplay?

Jason Dunn: When I actually got the call that we’d won, I was at work hauling around AV equipment in hotels I can’t even afford to stay in, so the whole situation was pure comedy – I had to get permission to go hide in a storage closet so I could call them back and accept a gig at Boston Garden. Crazy. Made it hard to concentrate on setting up projectors, for sure.

OS: What was the experience like for an up and coming band to play such a huge show?

JD: The show was great. The sound crew were absolute professionals and everyone had their own tailored monitor mix with exactly what they needed, and from audience reports we sounded unbelievable, and obviously that’s what matters. The crowd was about half-full for the local opener, so, you know, only about 10,000 people or so? The response we got was fantastic. It was huge. But it was really comfortable, I mean, these are my boys and this is what we do, it was just projecting to a big arena instead of a mid-sized club. We didn’t feel out of place. In fact, I think we should just play arenas from now on.

OS: Any interesting moments from the night?

JD: A couple – Coldplay left us four bottles of champagne with a hand-written note, and that was really classy and nice of them. Good champagne, too. We ran into Coldplay in the hall behind the stage and chatted for a bit – I’d actually met them a few years previous at a bar in Allston, I was a bit drunk and was going on about wishing them all the luck in the world with their music. I think “Clocks” came out two weeks later. I told Chris Martin about this at the Garden and he said, “Oh! It seems you wished us very well, then.”

Another great moment was when Steve (our drummer) gave Chris a copy of his “Christmas Chickens” record for his kids – it’s an album he made of Christmas songs rewritten about chickens. Chris was reading the song titles and was like, “I might have to run back to the dressing room and learn a cover real quick…”

OS: What’s next for The Luxury?

JD: Well, right now I’m focusing on pushing this AFAM (Advocates For Autism of Massachusetts) we’re playing on Saturday, August 9th. We just had a massive amount of good will and good karma come our way, and I want to bring as many people into this show as possible and give some of that back as fast as I can. Then in September, we’re going to California for a week to tour around the LA and San Francisco areas. I’ve never been there before so I’m thrilled. After that I think it’ll be time to focus on finishing the next album – we’re a good 8 or 9 songs deep into it right now, with another 7 or 8 in pieces or awaiting lyrics. We did the first record ourselves and it did very well for us, and I’d like to have a label involved on the second one if they’re a decent label and know what they’re doing, and they plan to really work with us.

-Matt Watson