Dear friends,
It has come to my attention from some of our good friends on the "Concert For A Cause" team that many people have been asking in recent days why CFC hasn't gotten involved in any of the flood relief benefits being planned. And although we did do our "Final Show" in April, I want everyone that supported CFC over the years to know that I have indeed offered assistance to such events. I have spoken or corresponded with several organizers of several such benefits and I have explained that while CFC took about nine months of planning, a big part of the reason why was because: 1) The companion CD, which was released three months prior to the show, was a very time-consuming project. 2) We spent a lot of time trying to educate the public each spring about that year's cause.
With a flood benefit, I felt none of that would have been necessary. It didn't need to have a CD and the cause was very clear. And the show itself could have been assembled very quickly, which - given the urgency of the situation - I felt was necessary. With the team we had in place and the infrastructure we had developed over the past 12 years, I thought we might even have been able to put a show together for this upcoming weekend. That offer was made, several days ago, to several event planners.
I was talking to Mitch Kornfeld at The Woodlands the other night when I was there for the "Weekender/Mountaingrown Original Music Series," and he seemed surprised to hear this. He said that even though many people had been asking him about CFC this week, he was uncomfortable and reluctant to ask us if we wanted to do something for the flood victims, because he thought once we bowed out in April, we were done. Understandable. And in reality, we are done. But I let him know that we certainly would have been willing to try and round up some of our CFC troops for this horrible natural disaster that damaged so much of our region, and that such an offer had already been made. There is no doubt that many of the people that supported CFC over the years can now use some help themselves, and again, on all of our behalf, I did offer that help to several flood benefits.
While our offer to help was appreciated, I have not yet heard back from anyone. Still, I saw Facebook postings as recently as Wednesday night that some of these events are still looking for bands and venues. I strongly encourage the people and the bands on the CFC team to assist if you are asked to participate in such events. As I said, I have offered to help make such connections, and have also offered to donate the CFC CDs that we have left over from previous shows to one of the upcoming flood benefits. All sales will benefit flood relief efforts. And, should you organize such a benefit yourself or agree to perform at one, please feel free to post about it on the CFC Facebook page, which has thousands of supporters.
I know I speak for everyone on the CFC team when I say that we are happy to see such events being planned and that the local music community will be assisting in recovery efforts. We applaud the good people putting these shows together and we strongly encourage everyone to support them. And in our own way, some of us here that were involved with CFC can still help.
And we will.
Thank you,
Alan
