Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 1, 1994 TAG: 9404020016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Freeman is promoting a concert Monday at the Salem Civic Center, and ticket sales aren't going well.
In fact, they're not going anywhere. Fewer than 500 tickets to the show have been sold so far, not enough even to fill some nightclubs, let alone the 7,000-seat Salem Civic Center.
It doesn't take a math whiz then to picture an embarrassingly empty arena. It doesn't help either that the two bands Freeman has booked for the concert are basically unknown: Widespread Panic from Athens, Ga., and Everything from Washington, D.C.
Yet Freeman is remarkably optimistic.
Elsewhere, he says, Widespread Panic is popular, particularly among the college crowd. "The semi-granola type college kids who sort of wish they were back in the '60s," Freeman calls them.
He remembers a few years ago, when he was a semi-granola type college kid at Washington and Lee University, Widespread Panic would draw 1,500 people to shows in Lexington or nearby.
He is banking on his alma mater and other colleges in the region to pull him through. "You've got 50,000 college kids within a 50-minute radius of this place, and I'm thinking 5 percent of them will be interested in this band."
That would bring in a crowd of 2,500.
Freeman says he needs to draw 1,500 just to break even.
He dismisses the importance of a marquee name. "Just because you don't hear them on the radio, that's not necessarily a leading economic indicator."
He cites the Grateful Dead. The Dead have always received limited radio play, but have long been a top concert draw. Of course, the average person at least has heard of the Grateful Dead.
As for Widespread Panic, around Georgia and South Carolina, Freeman boasts that the group regularly draws audiences of 5,000. "Certainly, the closer to Athens you get the more popular they are," he says.
Freeman lives in Spartanburg, S.C.
He says he has bought 42 radio spots to run on Rock-105 in Blacksburg and another 33 spots on WROV-FM in Roanoke to promote the concert. He also has run advertisements in some of the region's college newspapers.
"I'm not particularly worried," he says. "The proof is going to be in how many tickets we will have sold by 8 p.m. Monday."
Widespread Panic was formed in 1985 and recorded one independent album, "Space Wrangler," before being signed to Capricorn Records, the same label that first recorded The Allman Brothers and a slew of other Southern rock outfits in the early 1970s.
The band's style has been described as derivative of Capricorn's Southern rock sound, only without the same boogie, three guitars blazing approach. More like a weird version of the Atlanta Rhythm Section.
For Capricorn, Widespread Panic released a self-titled album in 1991 and a second album, "Everyday," in 1993. It probably gained most notice, however, as part of the H.O.R.D.E. (Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere) Tour in the summer of 1992, playing with acts such as The Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler, Phish and Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit.
Everything, the opening act Monday, is even less known than Widespread Panic. Based in Washington, D.C., the group has yet to be signed by a major record label, although it has released a pair of independent records. Everything opened another concert in Salem last year, and upstaged its headlining act, Toad the Wet Sprocket.
by CNB