After months of planning, it finally happened. The Nat Osborn Band, an eclectic jazz-funk-pop fusion band from New York City, arrived in early October 2013 to Europe, in preparation for their first European tour. After performing shows in Poland and the Czech Republic, Vienna, Austria was next up on the list. An evening at Albertina Passage, a prestigious dinner club situated right at the doorstep of the Vienna State Opera House, turned into a night to be remembered, but only partially due to the show itself.
With a melodic piano set to open and a jazz-influenced instrumental to truly get the evening started, it was finally time for Nat Osborn Band to take the stage. Is there an high-energy band performing on a Thursday evening in a sophisticated dinner club? Yes. Might the sound levels have been set a bit too high? Yes. But did the audience of wine-ers and dine-ers mind? Sure didn’t seem like it! Tapping their feet and nodding their heads to the music, the audience seemed pretty entranced. And rightly so. Each song acquired more applause than the last, and audience members could be seen taking pictures of the performance. Seemed like a positive foreshadow for the evening!
And then it was done. Barely having made it through the first of their two planned sets, the plug had been pulled. The audience didn’t know why, nor did the band. Word on the street – they were simply too loud for such a venue. Sure, the volume was a bit higher than the normal shows in Albertina Passage, but without any warning or opportunity to fix it? Everyone had been thrown off course…
All in all, it was simply a miscommunication. The band understood that they had been hired to perform their own music, the club correspondence understood that they would adjust their music to suit a dinner lounge environment.
But despite the mix up and an initial case of the blame-game, all was cleared up and pictures and enthusiastic comments started to flood the band’s Facebook profile only shortly after the performance finished. With an after-show beer in the city center with crew and friends cheers-ing, the eventful evening came to a close on a positive (and tasty!) note.
So I suppose, after a night full of its ups and downs, at least there’s a silver lining – whether or not it was the right venue, the people in the audience were the right people. Nat Osborn Band made their presence known and the people loved it. We might not yet know when, but they’ll be back.
Check out the album „The King and the Clown“
– written by Nicole