The Big Weekend
Over the past four years, Fermata Town has had some big weekends. There was the time we had four gigs over a three day span in three different states in December of 2011. Then there were the back-to-back corporate gigs at Emmanuel College during the summer of 2010 where we performed for Mayor Menino, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley and over 1,000 people. Don’t forget the weekend tours we went on to Providence in 2010, Cape Cod in 2011 and New York in 2012. And how could we forget the countless epic Fermata Town weekend parties that were thrown over the years. This past weekend left all of those in the dust…
From this day moving forward, the first weekend in February of 2013 will now always be referred to as ‘The Big Weekend’.
Thursday It started on Thursday evening at 11:59 PM as many of our members anxiously awaited the release of the 2013 Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award (CARA) nominees. Our debut album, Hold That Thought, had been submitted for review and our fingers were crossed that we might see our name on the list for a Contemporary A Cappella League (CAL) nomination.
Friday At 12:00 midnight the list was posted on the CASA website and I was the first one to access the page. When the page loaded I scanned the titles of the awards, looking specifically for the CAL nominations. They were in the middle of the page between the bigger awards and the collegiate awards. I was overjoyed to see that Hold That Thought had been nominated for Best CAL Album and see that our version of Stereo Hearts was nominated for the Best Contemporary A Cappella League Song!
I texted our Co-MD’s Philipp and Katya at the same time…
Dan – GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Philipp – Where the f is itttt
As I scrolled up the page to copy the URL and send it to Philipp, I noticed something at the top of the page. Fermata Town’s name appeared again… in the second nomination… for Best Original Pop/Rock Song… Circus has been nominated and was the first song listed for the category!
(Back to text convo) Dan – hdjjshdvshsisksasydiahaja Dan – Holy sh*t Philipp – Where where where Dan – HOLY SH*T Philipp – Where where where fickyoumxwjqip Dan – We are nominated for best pop/rock song – Circus Philipp – Wheeeeeeeereeee Dan – www.case.org/cara2013n
It was then that I noticed that wasn’t it… that we were listed again, for the first award on the page for Best Pop/Rock Album… in the same category as the likes of Pentatonix, Peter Hollens and Musae.
(Back to text convo)
Dan – hhhooollly shutter Dan – WE GOT NOMINATED FOR BEST ALBUM!!!!!!!!! Dan – Like not just CAL album Dan – Like Dan – EVERYONE Katya – AHhhHhhhhhhhhhhHGHHH Katya – Dude Dan – We are on the same ballot as PTX, P. Hollens & Musae… Dan – Holy ducking shut balls (thank you auto correct for making some of these texts appropriate for the web)
But as you can gather, we were not at all expecting to be nominated for two of the major CARA award categories. To be honest, we were all super nervous about even getting nominated for the CAL categories because earlier in the month we had submitted our tracks to be considered for the Voice Only Forte II compilation album which features post-collegiate a cappella and when we were not selected we thought that getting a CARA nomination might be a long shot as well.
Once the news was out, the phone tree began as we all called members of the group, in the middle of the night, on a work night, multiple times until they woke up and answered the phone… but on this night nothing else mattered. We were on top of the a cappella world and wanted to share this special moment with everyone who had worked so hard in making the album.
The BIG Weekend rolled on as we held a dress rehearsal on Friday evening at the West End House Boys & Girls club in their dance studio. We usually try to get some work in front of the mirrors leading up to any big show we have so that we can take everything about our stage presence into account.
Everyone was excited to see Townie alums Cayla and Joe back for the run through as the two New York transplants would be performing their solos that were tracked on the album during the show! Tim Bongiovanni of Northgate Productions, our sound engineer for Hold That Thought, also came by to give us some advice and words of encouragement for the show in which he’d be running the sound for.
Saturday Back in June when we launched our Kickstarter project to fund Hold That Thought we decided that there would eventually come a time when we would want to celebrate the entire production process. After all of that hard work, this party would be the culmination of the final product and we were so excited to put on a show for our families and friends that helped make it possible.
With a great venue at Church of Boston and Tim running the sound, we knew that this would go down as one of the most memorable Fermata Town shows to date.
After the NEC Vocal Jazz Ensemble opened the show, the Townies took the stage for an 11 song set that included all nine tracks from Hold That Thought, a world premiere of our newest tune (Lonely Boy by the Black Keys) and an alumni song (Momma’s Boy) in which we invited all of our alumni back up on stage to perform with us. A big shout out and thank you to our alums Dave, Nathan, Jen, Joe, Cayla, Amanda and Nicole for being able to make the show and celebrate wit us!
We made the big announcement about the CARA nominations just before the alumni song and got a standing ovation (well they were already standing but shh). Talk about the most incredible feeling in the world… We were so humbled by these nominations that this was just the icing on the cake.
After the show the group would rendezvous later that evening for our #PartyAfterParty in which we celebrated the CD release and CARA nominations, Townie style.
Sunday At midnight, with all of our friends, we did a champagne toast thanking everyone for their hard work on the album and everyone else for their support to make it possible.
We capped the weekend off with a Beyonce Concert viewing party that also featured some hilarious commercials and a wild game in which men threw around a pig skin and tried to jump on one another every 30 seconds… intriguing but not the usual opener we would have expected from B.
What a weekend. Thank you for everyone who made it possible or joined in on the fun. This one is going to be hard to top.
-Dan