Fuel
- Natural Selection In Store
by Linda Spielman
With the release of their latest album
"Natural Selection" on September 23rd, the guys in Fuel decided to take
their music on the road. This wasn't the typical tour most bands go on,
but a week long stint of Best Buy Stores in the East Coast. The Harrisburg
based band, played their hometown, Philadelphia, Cleveland and made their
way to Pittsburgh via the Robinson Best Buy store.
The tracks are much darker and probably
the most musically hard hitting the band has released to date. All the
song writing done by guitarist Carl Bell was conceived primarily in the
almost two year hiatus the band took from touring. As Bell notes, he was
doing so much writing while out on tour, he wasn't able to live in the
moment and absorb all of highlights of being on tour that were going on
around him and the band. So he put the pen and paper away until he was
back home. The sometimes exhausting days of working out 10 songs at one
time brought forth much of "Natural Selection". The first radio released
single, "Falls" On Me" is by far the cushiest and most mellow of the all
the tracks on the CD. However, VH-1 and most major formats have eagerly
embraced the single with open arms.
So, to do something special for the Fuel
fans who have patiently waited for "Natural Selection" to be released,
the band teamed up with Best Buy for a mini-tour the week of the CD's release.
On the average the week's worth of performances were attracting between
1,000-3,000 fans at each show. In Pittsburgh, the fans started trickling
in to the Robinson Best Buy around 3pm. On-site, the fans who hadn't yet
purchased the CD had the chance to buy it along with the free bonus single
"On The Road Again". By show time at 6pm, over 1,800 fans packed the front
of the Robinson Best Buy and snaked through the aisles of the music department
to hear the band play a half hour acoustic set.
As the band took stage, the played not
only the "Falls On Me" off the new CD, but previous hits such as "Shimmer",
Bittersweet" & "Last Time". Following the mini-concert, the guys in
Fuel remained at the Robinson Best Buy well after 9pm signing copies of
the new CD for all the fans who came out for the promotional appearance.
Following the show, the band invited fans down to a local club to hang
out with them where their friends Sevendust were playing a show the same
night.
The band is currently out on "The Road
To Voodoo Tour" being sponsored by Play Station 2 and House of Blues. This
tour, although dates are random and widely scattered throughout the United
States, and which wraps up in New Orleans Halloween weekend at Voodoo Fest
is only a taste of larger tour the band has planned in the upcoming months.
I have been reassured by the band a Pittsburgh date is definitely on the
agenda of the larger upcoming tour.
More Fuel
Photos by Linda Spielman
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