Blog Post #4: I'm Wide Awake Again

Hello everyone!

At this moment, I am freaking out in my dorm room because my favorite band released their new album early on Pandora Radio Station. The band, Parachute, is not well-known, but holds a special place in my heart.

I went to my first concert ever freshmen year of college. I saw Parachute and the Plain White Tee's perform at Higher Ground in South Burlington. We got there wicked early and stood so close to the stage I could almost touch it. Both bands put on an incredible show. I had only heard one Parachute song before the concert, but I fell in love with them that night. Since then, I've been to two other concerts and have VIP tickets to a concert April 1st in Boston. I'm stoked.

Here's a little background on the band. It was started by Will Anderson (pictured to the left) and Johnny Stubblefield while they were in high school (both of them are still in the band). Kit French, an amazing saxophone player, joined soon after. Their music is classified as pop rock, and their songs range from upbeat to slow and soft. Their fourth album, Wide Awake, releases next Friday before they start a cross-country tour. Unfortunately the closest location to Burlington is Boston, but it will be well worth the trip.

Although Parachute doesn't have a fan base of someone like Justin Beiber, they have a strong marketing campaign that targets well to their fan base, which consists of younger people (teens to late 20's). They use nearly every social media platform possible to connect with their fans. I follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Every so often, the leader singer, Will, performs live shows from his bedroom in Tennessee that fans can live stream through Facebook. Recently with the release of their new album, Will has been tweeting and Instagraming to get fans excited for the album. In the past few days, he has been sending his fans Snapchat previews of the new songs. I was one of the lucky recipients the other day and I couldn't be more excited for the new album.

I think Parachute connects with their fans on a whole other level than many celebrities nowadays. Just the fact that they Snapchat their fans means they care a lot and want their fans to be excited about the new album. Will doesn't just use Twitter to promote the band; he talks about his personal life, too. The way they interact with fans is genuine, and makes them seem like real people too, not crazy-famous celebrities.

A few weeks ago, Parachute held a contest: the fans with the best music video clip of their new song "Without You" would get a live acoustic performance in their living room! The winner was an ice skating team from Massachusetts, so Parachute flew out and performed in their living room. How insane is that?! I can't name one other celebrity that would do this for their fans. I wish I had the time to produce a music video for this contest, because an experience like that is once in a lifetime.

Exactly 7 days until the release of their album on iTunes and 28 days until the concert in Boston. That's plenty of time to learn all the lyrics of their 12 new songs.  I hope everyone has a great weekend and I'll check back soon!

Courtney






Sources

weareparachute.com 

http://www.josepvinaixa.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Parachute-Wide-Awake-2016-2480x2480.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute_(band)