Candis Hecking

Recently I had the opportunity to speak with Noelle Scaggs. Noelle is the co-lead singer of the band Fitz And The Tantrums.

Fits And The Tantrums is headlining their own tour this summer while aslo opening some shows for Bruno Mars.

What's the difference between headlining your own show and opening for another artist?

The time slots, its 35 - 40 min when opening when headlining its hours. Also all of our fans buying tickets to see us when headlining and when opening we are trying to gain fan base so its a mixture of fans. There's a difference in fans depending on the city. In New York we have a huge fan base already.

Have you always had a passion for music?

Yeah I kind of stumbled into it. My father had a huge vinyl collection front to back. I listened to Parliament and Temptations while digging through his vinyl collection. I was aloud 1 hour of television a day so I would watch the video channel writing down the lyrics of songs and trying to learn the process of song writing. Trying to learn by singing in my room before performing in front of crowd.

Taylor Swift performed at Quicken Loans Arena on Thursday April 25th. Ed Sheeran opened the show this evening and also performed with Swift during her set.

Taylor appeared on stage in dramatic fashion with an array of dancers, back up singers, and drummers being hoisted to the ceiling. Her bright white smile and red lipstick sparkled on stage. Swift had at least four wardrobe changes throughout the evening.

She opened the show with "State of Grace". After her opening song Swift greeted the crowd and said she was happy to be in Cleveland. She noted that every single seat was sold out at The Q.

Each song was as happy and cheerful as the last. Even if the lyrics were not cheerful Taylor somehow makes the song seem happy. The entire arena sang along to every note sometimes even drowning out Taylor's voice. Everyone had a smile on their face, even parents who brought their young children.

Swift entertained the crowd for nearly two hours. She worked the stage and performed every song with a high level of energy. At one point Taylor was carried through the crowd on someone's shoulders so she could reach a different part of the stage and be closer to some fans.

Another successful Cleveland International Film Festival has ended. After each year I'm grateful for such a wonderful event in our city. The CIFF is always well organized, creative, cultural, entertaining, thought provoking and educational. I'm already looking forward to the 38th Cleveland International Film Festival!

The Exquisite Corpse Project was a funny film written by a group of comedians. They were formally a sketch comedy group called Old English. The writing process of this film is what makes this film so interesting and hilarious. Each writer wrote 15 pages a script. When it was the next writer's turn to add pages they were only allowed to read the previous five pages.

The film has two parts, the documentary portion that shows the writing process and then the movie portion that shows what the script actually created.

I enjoyed this film for its uniqueness. It was a creative way to write a movie and being able to watch the entire process was fun to see. The director Ben Popik was in attendance and spoke to the audience at CIFF

http://www.theexquisitecorpseproject.com/

Little World is an inspirational film. It's focused on a 22 year old man named Albert Casals. Albert is in a wheelchair after suffering from luekemia at a young age.

Without any money or assistance he travels the world. Along his journey's people offer him food, money and places to stay. In Little World we see Albert achieve his greatest travel. With his girlfriend Anna, Albert travels from Barcelona to the farthest point from his house which is a remote lighthouse in New Zealand.

Traveling like this would be a challenge for most healthy people. Not many people would take risks like Albert does. He shows no fear and is incredibly happy and thankful. It's a reminder to be happy with what you're given and to live life to the fullest.

http://www.monpetitfilm.com/

It's always hard to choose which films to see at the Cleveland International Film Festival. I've never been disappointed in my selections but last night I was extremely happy with the film I chose.

The title of the film is "I Do". It was written by David W. Ross and directed by Glenn Gaylord who is originally from the Youngstown area. David is also the star of the film and is attending the Cleveland Film Festival with Glenn. Both Glenn and David greeted the audience before the film and answered questions afterwards.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to see a fantastic band in Chicago. Frightened Rabbit performed at The Riviera Theater. The opening act was The Twilight Sad, also a Scottish band.

The band from Glasgow is currently on tour promoting their new album titled "Pedestrian Verse". Before attending the show I had only been a fan of the band for a couple of months. I was initially surprised to hear the show was sold out. Now, I know why. It was a great show and the band sounded perfect.

To me, every song from Frightened Rabbit has some similarity. That's not a bad thing because they definitely have a unique sound. When you hear a song from Frightened Rabbit you immediately know it's them.

They played a lengthy setlist including 18 songs from all four of their albums. Fans heard many favorites including "Old Old Fashioned", "December's Traditions", and "Backyard Skulls".

There was one very disappointing aspect of the show in Chicago. The venue, was horrible. This was my first time attending a show at The Riviera and I will never go back. It was impossible to see the stage. It's one big room with no elevation in the floor.

Every year the Cleveland Film Festival must raise money to assist the growth of the festival for the following year. Each seat sold costs the ticket holder between $12 - $14 dollars but each seat is actually costing the festival more than $30 a seat.

There are several ways you can contribute to the festival and one of them is the annual Challenge Match.

This year the Challenge Match is $100,000. Funding is provided by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, which is funded by the residents of Cuyahoga County. Every year the festival must make this match. Please contribute to the Challenge Match if you can! You can contribute at the Challenge Match area in Tower City Cinemas.

Every year the Cleveland International Film Festival has a theme. This year the theme is "Be The Applause". Along with the theme a trailer is created. Before every film the trailer is played. This year there are several different trailers running before the films.

The trailers for this year feature Mark & Josh, two friends viewing films. I've only seen a couple so far and they are funny. If you miss them in the theater you can view at http://www.clevelandfilm.org/

Awolnation performed to a sold out crowd on March 27th at the House of Blues in Cleveland. The opening act was Mother Mother.

I wasn't sure what to expect of this show on Wednesday night. It's hard to describe the music of Awolnation so it was hard to imagine what the performance was going to be like.

The crowd seemed very young, which was surprising to me. The opening act, Mother Mother is a Canadian indie rock band. They definitely were unique. Many fans standing near the stage were singing along. They rocked the stage doing their best to engage the audience.

By the time Awolnation appeared on stage the House of Blues was completely full. From the very beginning the crowd was excited. Many fans started crowd surfing and it continued as Aaron Bruno announced "let's see how many girls we can get to crowd surf at one time".

Aaron enthusiastically performed tracks off the popular album Megalithic Symphony. His appearance reminded me of Kurt Cobain. A creative style that is grungy, simple and carefree. As he effortlessly sang through his lyrics he flung his microphone around often wrapping the cord around his arm.