In September, we heard that local band 5440 was playing downtown Vancouver at the Commodore Ballroom in October… and we decided to try for them! IF they said yes, this would really be our ‘first’ band – Caedmon’s Call and Third Day had been done through the mail and by email at a distance, this would be our first local band.
The letter was sent off to their management (yes letter – remember this was late 2006 and email wasnt that well used yet by average people 😉 ) Then we waited. And waited. And we got an email back saying ‘yes the band would be delighted to do this’ for us. Whoohoo!
5440 are a band that have lasted, and are really somewhat of local celebrities – really good, clean, fun tunes from a hard working band that loves what it does. The meeting was set up, and the hardest part was waiting for the day to arrive. I knitted the doll, got the autograph card printed up, bought new film for my camera (still using film at this point), and waited some more. The day arrived, and I went down to the venue at the appointed time – did I say the hardest part was waiting? I lied! The hardest part was standing in front of these four great musicians and trying to explain what the doll was, who I was, what our project was all about etc… while not shaking like a leaf from nervousness. AND trying to look somewhat semi professional with my camera!
The guys were amazing… put me at ease right off the bat. Super nice, calm, soft spoken. And the fellow who looked the scariest when I walked in, turned out to be the one who asked the most questions about our project! (and no I won’t tell you who it is hehe). It was relaxing, unstressful and unhurried, and I was able to give as much info about our project as the guys wanted to know – very cool. The funny thing is the one fellow automatically picked up the doll after they all signed the card, and was about to take it with him, when he ‘realized’ what he was doing and brought it back to me. We had early on decided that all participants would keep the doll as a token of our appreciation so the look of delight on his face when I told him this, was great.
The photo was done, I let myself out – stood in the crowd to listen to two songs – ‘Ocean Pearl’, and ‘Casual Viewing’ – my fav 5440 songs of all time. Then it was time to head home and hope that I got a decent shot amongst the 5 or 6 that they allowed me to snap. (I did). We only had one band photo, so decided to wait and do another band or two and combine them into our next auction – so 5440 went on the backburner for the time being while we scouted for our next participant.
(we combined 5440‘s photo with a new friend, Frankie Whyte and the Dead Idols, and it became our 8th auction and helped raise $70.00 for World Vision )
