The feature film.
Well its not Hollywierd, but it is our only real college graduate friend Brian, finally putting his film degree to work.
This film is footage made up from stuff he shot the night before the concert, before the show, and some lady talking about us, and the illuminati.... She was weird. He used our original music, rather then the show sound, which is a shame cause the set was nice. He worked for months doing it, and really what it shows is us having a good time in hell. The following is journal like entry of our experience at Rolling Thunder where this was filmed.
Six months before Rolling Thunder, our friend and fan, Sabrina Taylor, heard our music from one of the many free cd's we give away on Broadway in Seattle. She was in charge of some PR work on the Rolling Thunder Tour, http://www.rollingthundertour.org. The tour had decided they had no young voice, and needed more local talent. She told the tour people about AT Kommand, and they said great.
Suddenly there were needs. They wanted a promo photo.. so we did one, they wanted a logo icon thing of our name, so we made one. Then they kept adjusting our times moving us around. We went along. After all we were some no body punk kids from Walla Walla with self made cd's out of our mom's basement. Then they asked us for equipment specks, we delivered, then they asked again.. we delivered and again... Finally they told us we didn't deliver but who cares.. this kind of chaos makes it fun.
In comes a call from home. Brian our good friend, says he wants to film us on stage as a film project. We think sure sounds great. So we tell our rolling thunder contact. And we are told they can only film us. Sounded fine. Finally the fliers came out and we were quick to volunteer, especially after we went through the effort of having a logo made, and getting our picture taken. We were excited to find us listed at the very bottom right under, "...and many others" Well screw it we thought we were after all nobody's.
The day of the concert drew near. And we were excited. The people from the concert told us that they had decided to make a new local stage and we would get one of the prime slots. Well it wasn't the main stage but it sounded good. So the day came, and we had told them that we would need at least two free tickets for our girlfriends since we were broke punks who had spent all our money on gas to show up. But we figured no big deal the fliers say its donation and that no one will be turned away. But we were informed that our girlfriends could not get in free we had to buy them a ticket. Well we figured they must be just being stingy no big deal. We would just hustle them in.
When we arrived to unload our gear we were told there would be a place to park our van nearby. It was reserved for artist to load and unload. That was kinda true, I showed around 7:00am exited with a DJ coffin, it was the largest portion of our gear. I went to the main guy, he sneered at me and said something very smug and quaint and pointed me to some girl that was suppose to take care of local acts. I suppose that's what rock concert promoters do to local acts. I nodded, feeling over whelmed by the shear size of the event. I wondered around looking at the main stage I felt very excited, however after twenty minutes I was unable to find the local stage our this mysterious lady. Finally some guy in a green military coat told me the main stage was on the other side of the carnival.. I walked to the carnival, and on the other side was a large desert like soccer field and beyond that; a hundred yards out was a RV with some creates in front of it. That was the local stage.
I unloaded the tables in the dirt, since there was no equipment storage for local bands. I went home and I grabbed Andy and our girls along with fifteen fans who had driven up from Walla Walla to see us. Upon our returned we were told there was no parking for local artist and we would have to park in a lot and take a bus in. This did not start us off well, but we did it, we pled on to busses with our gear, being glared at by hippy's and anti-republicans. When we arrived we had planned to fandangle our girl in, but they would not have it. They could not have artist passes, or guest passes, they would have to pay. All this was said to us while we watched several people just walk up and say, "hey its donations, right?" and the guy at the door say "yep go on in we won't refuse anyone." He should have finished with "... anyone but artists girlfriends family members and friends...." Finally we paid to get in , as for Brian or documentary guy.. He had hustlers talent and went right through with a media pass.
Through out the day we learned many things, first of all we were not artist, we were locals, just like anyone else there attending the show. The local stage wasn't actually suppose to be a concert it was part of the carnival, one of the rides and we should have been honored to have been allowed to be on it. Proof of this was when we were told that our artist badges did not work to get us into the VIP area, or to get free food or water, like the real artists and the real guests. Yes we were simply people off the street who signed up early for the "be a rock star ride" located one hundred yards from any where.
This really bummed out my mood, however Andy was great he just took it with stride and said "this is great" We went to the local stage and waited as we watched disappointed local performer after disappointed local performer play on the rickety crates to no one. Empty broken bleachers and a sound guy were their only audience. Finally we saw the Donkey dancers and we decided if they could do it we could do it.
Our turn came and there was no table for our gear. So we decided to steal trash cans. And just as it looked like that what we would have to do Sabrina our friend showed up with a table. We looked out at the bleachers only to see our loyal Walla Walla fan base out there staring back and we looked at each other and said fuckit.
We began to play. Right away we knew we were doomed, the stage was so dangerous and weak it could barely hold our weight it was like playing on a water bed. The ramp broke as we walked up to the stage. However our sound guy gave us the best words of the day.... "It's rock n' roll" then he shrugged.
We played and we played LOUD. So loud that the main stage could hear us and something had to be said. But by that time we and the sound guy didn't care. We were dirt and what were they going to do? Put us in rock n' roll hell where you perform on rickety crates in front of empty bleacher's in the middle of the desert next to a real concert? Too late!
When we started no one was there. When we ended there were 30 people there and other standing around, two other artist had shown up during our set looked at the stage looked at us having fun and decided to give up their sets and let us just keep going which we did.
After we played suddenly people were a lot nicer and we found ourselves getting wasted in the tint next to Fishbone.. That was great but we were a little nervous so we kept to ourselves and later left so we could get to the Northgate for a rave.
So would we ever do it again after all that shit... Sure, after all "its rock n' roll"