Last summer while I was enjoying the aural delights of Iron
and Wine at the 2012 Twilight Concert Series, I started wondering who had made
it all possible. I paid $35 to be entertained every Thursday evening for seven
weeks. I mean, I don’t even pretend to be good at math, but exactly how is this
working? Is there a fire sale for concerts? Perhaps some sort of fabulous
auction where you can bid on artists who happen to be passing through town to
come play a show for you and 15,000 of your closest friends? Who is/are the
great and powerful people who not only brought these tunes live to my backyard,
but who also happen to have the same taste in music as I do, and the capability
to convince both globally prolific bands, like MGMT, and relatively unknown,
but nonetheless, amazing musicians, like Joshua James, to come play in a park
in Salt Lake City in the middle of the summer.
I first discovered the Twilight Concert Series about ten years
ago when it was still at the Gallivan Center. By golly, I thought I was on to
something really cool, unique, and new. As it turns out The Series has been
around for 26 years, so um, not really new, but still very cool and unique. I
don’t recall which band was playing the first time I went, but I do recall that
we could bring our own drinks into the show and we thought that was pretty neat.
Even though now I have to pay $5+ for a drink at the shows, I certainly don’t
miss trying to cross the packed bridge, which I forever refer to as The Gauntlet,
at the Gallivan Center while trying to meet up with friends who had made the
somewhat poor choice of entering the venue through the other side. The series
actually began at the Salt Lake City Arts Council and the first year, 13 bands
played for about 2,500 people. In 1991, construction in the area forced the
shows to be moved to the Gallivan Center. Its popularity necessitated the move
to its current location at Pioneer Park. Making quite an entrance to its new
home in 2010, crowds pummeled the gates in a feverish attempt to get a glimpse
of Modest Mouse, who opened the series that year.
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| Casey Jarman |
After not that much sleuthing at all, I discovered none
other than Casey Jarman, founder and director of the Twilight Concert Series. I
sat down with him to see if I could get him to answer the many, many questions
I had about his magical powers of persuasion. You can imagine my disappointment when
I discovered pretty quickly that this guy isn’t using any kind of special Jedi
mind tricks to convince the artists to play at this community event, he just
knows what he’s doing and he’s well connected.
Every year, Jarman creates a
wish list of bands he wants to have play at TCS, and then sure enough five or
six years later, there they are on stage crooning for all of us show-goers. He
doesn’t care that people don’t realize how much work it takes for his team to
make it happen--he does it because he believes it’s interesting, fun,
challenging, and he likes to share his diverse music interests with this community
of audiophiles. For every 20 bands Jarman attempts to present, maybe three or
four come through. Considering all of the factors, it’s nothing short of
amazing that, logistically speaking, every show has succeeded. Passion Pit is
the only band to have ever canceled and it had nothing to do with TCS. They
canceled many other shows last summer too. There are so many factors involving
schedules and agencies, but he says, “Sometimes the hardest part is convincing
the band’s management that playing a community event in a park will be a truly
rewarding experience for them.” Though he admits that it has become easier over
the years because artists talk with each other and encourage others to play for
TCS, it’s still a lot of hard work that has a really sweet, shareable reward.
Their goal is to create a great event and take care of the artist who they are
honored to have perform at the concerts for our community.
Jarman is a man with
a lot of great stories and if you get the chance to meet him, be sure to thank
him, and then ask him to tell you his funny stories about hoop-jumping for rap stars.
2013 Concert Lineup
July 18: Belle and Sebastian
July 25: Flaming Lips
August 1: The National
August 7: Grizzly Bear
August 8: Eryka Badu
August 15: TBA
August 22: Kid Cudi
August 29: Empire of the Sun
September 5: MGMT
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