Nouveau presents original and new music
YOUNGSTOWN - Judging by the turnout Saturday, local music fans knew the value of The Zou's Rock Nouveau Festival.
It was a night of bringing new and original music to Cedars Lounge. It included performances by new bands like SickAsMe, Fillmore Jive, Sexy Pig Divas and Historians. Nouveau veterans Third Class, The Realtime Digimob, The Sewing Machine War and obviously, The Zou, played.
Khaled Tabbara, lead singer of The Zou, described this year's Rock Nouveau as the best yet - "by far."
"I feel like if this show were in New York and we charged $50, people would've been happy."
He says a lot of this year's bands represented the definition of Nouveau in that they mastered an old genre in a new way.
Among the bands playing Nouveau for the first time was hip-hop group Da Kreek, made up of brothers Dorian DTown and Mello Dee.
"They were one of the best crowds we every played for," DTown says.
Although Da Kreek is no stranger to the local music scene, it was only the second show for Da Kreek to play backed by a full band. Their band members included Zo the Genius was on keys, Nate on the bass, A.Hines on drums and Don Kody was the DJ.
DTown says the backing band brought a different element to their sound.
"It makes the music new," he says.
"Da Kreek was so much fun," Tabbara says. "The band they played with brought a new dimension."
The Zou bassist Murad Shorrab says this year's Nouveau hosted the most new artists the festival has ever seen.
"It's about bringing new bands to the forefront and I think we did that," he says.
Shorrab and Tabbara both noted that there was diversity in the music, but also in gender. They say there was a record number of female performers on stage at Nouveau this year. (Fillmore Jive, Sexy Pig Divas, Historians and SickAsMe have female members.)
"We strived to find female acts that met out quality standards," Tabbara says.
Shorrab says they did that, but it happened more naturally than they expected.
New to the Nouveau stage was The Zou's new member, Bernadette Lim. The 24-year-old Boardman resident played her first show with The Zou for the first time Saturday.
She described the crowd as "mind-blowing."
"It just felt like I belonged up there...I couldn't have asked for a better first show," Lim says.
Lim says her primary role in The Zou will be to enhance keyboard parts.
"Keyboard is king in The Zou in a lot of ways," Tabbara says, noting that "Forget My Name," for example, has four keyboard parts on the album.
The Zou's Rock Nouveau Festival had two stages, using both the venue's traditional stage and one set-up in the side room. As a band would play inside the main room, another would set up in the side room, eliminating, for the most part, any delay between music. Patrons would roam from room to room to see varying bands.
Tabbara says that among bands this year there was an "air of positivity."
"Every band was interactive and responsive," he says.
"Nouveau has always been about hard-working, original, positive acts," Shorrab says.
Josh Good, a member of Braille (which played Nouveau last year), says he came to Cedars to see friends in bands, including the drummer from Panzer Talk (Ian James) and Zo the Genius, who played with Da Kreek. Good says he was also excited to see The Sewing Machine War and Third Class.
The Realtime Digimob played Nouveau again this year. Member Andrew Labedz says it was cool to be a part of the show again, noting that it was also a good night for the venue.
"It was great to see this happening," he says.
Labedz agreed that the night had a positive atmosphere.
Also on Saturday, The Zou guitarist Rob Thorndike played classical guitar, filling a spot that members of The Zou say was created by a last-minute cancellation by La Vérité.
Comments
Ah the Zouveau rock fest comes again. Lets not forget that the Zou pockets ALL of the cash from the door. I believe last year they took somewhere along the lines of $2500.00 from this gig. Did I mention that they dont pay the bands? Why not just make it a free show if youre not going to pay the performers?
We made a great deal of money off of our ticket sales and merch sales.
---DTown
DK ALL DAY
Right but you sold all of those tickets yourselves... And the merch is merch is merch.. You made it. You sell it.
What about all of the people buying tickets at the door? Is it really fair that the entire revenue from the shows door sales goes directly to the Zou? Keep in mind there were 9 other bands putting in just as much work as the them..
Organizing a show like that really isn't all that hard. I mean, how hard it it to send out some facebook event invites anyways and figure out who's playing when?
Not hard enough to justify keeping the entire door sales for yourself when there are 10 bands on the bill.
And if you think all of that door cash is going to pay the sound guys you've got another thing coming because they work at a VERY reasonable rate...
do you not understand how life works you fucking piece of shit? let the zou have their show and do whatever the fuck they want. if you are in one of the bands that played and arent satisfied, dont play again. fuck off and let people do what they want, its certainly not up to you to decide what people want to do. you are scum, bands will do whatever the fuck they want and you wont do shit except bitch on an online website. haha get spit on
The Nouveau Rock Festival is the fairest and most band-oriented festival we’ve ever played, and that’s why we’ve come back every year. This isn’t like many rock-offs and other festivals where the organizers take most of the money from the tickets sales. We had a very easy time selling tickets and made more money from their sales than we make at a lot of the shows we organize ourselves. Really, we think that the fact that the bands (including the Zou) pocket more than a couple dollars from a show with 11 acts is a miracle. Plus, this annual show is worth playing just for the exposure and the increased draws every band on the bill will be enjoying in the following months. Far from scamming them, the Zou is providing a valuable service to these bands, especially the lesser-known ones. Really, all that the other bands (including us) did was show up and play for a half an hour for a lot of people and have fun; the Zou invested hundreds of dollars in the show and had been organizing it for an entire year. I’m not sure who’s complaining, but I don’t think it’s any of the other bands.
PS: It’s you’ve got another think coming, not another thing, and if you think any band is making 2,500 dollars from any bar-show in y-town, well…
^^^ the above comment represents the perspective of Third Class
i just don't understand why cedar's isn't that full every night.
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