Las Vegas Review

So I need to point out a review of the 9/11/09 show at the Eastside Cannery in Las Vegas. I was checking the comments section of the C&J MySpace site and came across a very nice, and well written (well, she is a pro :)) review of the show by Donna. No, I'm not going to mention her last name, so go to www.myspace.com\chadandjeremy, and look for her avatar/icon (it's Neil Diamond), and check out her blog yourself. Well worth the time.

Donna mentions something that remains as perhaps their biggest challenge, after 40+ years in the business, and that's the problem people have with their identity. She writes that she was surprised about the number of people in the audience who didn't know their material, and I've heard comments at a couple of concerts where people had thought they were coming to hear "World Without Love." (see note below) Some of the confusion obviously came with Peter & Gordon, even though they didn't look alike, or sound alike. Sadly, with Gordon's passing, one would think that would end.

The bigger problem, if indeed it is a problem, is that even after so many years in the business, people still don't always put the faces with the songs, or simply don't recall anything. Two examples, which of course mean nothing in the grand scheme of things; my brother in law, living in CA, my age, has no memory at all of them in the 60's. Two friends of ours, from England, need to be prompted before any remembrance of Yesterday's Gone, though admittedly C&J were much bigger here than there. People have expressed condolences to me about the passing of one of the duo when I tell them I do a small Chad & Jeremy blog.

People no doubt would refer to this as a brand issue. You've got something good to sell, something of value, but people either don't know about it or can't remember its name. Or recall what it does. So, how do you sell it?

I don't know marketing, but I know someone who's very good and successful at it. And very knowledgeable about social media, and has stressed to me, as well as to others in this regard, about the importance of Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, as well as the web site and Yahoo, in keeping their name, their brand, in the mind and eye of the public. I have debated (though that's way to strong a term :))whether or not the real audience of boomers might be missing out on all of these web centric tools, and might be better served with the older tools of magazines and TV. And,oh yes, AARP. Anyway, I thought I would have gotten my wish by now when Jay Leno met with them at Mohegan Sun, but nothing (as yet) has come of that, though I still have hopes. To get back on point, I think this forthcoming DVD, especially if it gets wide play on various PBS outlets, might be key in establishing some kind of brand awareness. And yet, what do I know?

I know I need a beer.



From Stan Denski, http://thesethingstoo.blogspot.com/2009/07/gordon-waller-june-4-1945-july-17-2009.html:

"A year or two ago I interviewed Chad Stuart of the 60s duo Chad and Jeremy and joked that he and Jeremy might add a cover of "World Without Love" to their set as an encore. He laughed; it's the song that a great many people remember when you say "Chad and Jeremy" to them, however, it wasn't theirs, it belongs to the other folk pop duo of the mid 1960s, Peter and Gordon."