Wednesday, September 26, 2007

September 26 - San Fran - Acoustic Lounge

Secret Garden
City Streets
Jimmy Jones
I'm your lover
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade
Picking up the pieces

Show went well, most people we've played to so far. We were a bit rusty in places due to having not rehearsed for a couple of weeks but we got by. It was beautifully lit, the blue curtains behind us, burgundy walls and the dimmed lights make the whole thing look really intimate. I opened the night strumming the opening chords to 'Angie' by the Rolling Stones just as a surprise for my flatmate Ange (which she later confessed to being completely oblivious too..) which morphed into the opening chords to Secret Garden before the band kicked in. It was a pretty cool way to start the show. By the second song people had started to move to the front of the room and were sitting on the ground in front of us. At one stage there were about 4 camera's taking photo's of us, unfortunately it was noone I knew so I'm unable to post any, it was slightly surreal to have camera flashes going through city streets, but very cool.
Carly nailed Jimmy Jones, it's the best she's sung it & the best I've played it. She'd been really nervous earlier in the day due to workmates & family coming along so it was good to see her perform it well. Lover went ok, unfortunately at this point I had switched to a heavier pick & there was no flexibility to it. It meant I had to hold it so tightly my hand started to cramp so I found it difficult to strum properly. It got worse for the next song Fallen which was supposed to be the centrepeice of our performance, but due to my not being able to strum properly and lack of rehearsal it got slighthly hashed. Hope was ok, it's a fairly reliable song as it's structurally quite simple. Carly & I have some beautiful harmonies on this track which is my favourite thing about it. Masquerade was a bit of a carwreck again due to lack of rehearsal and my hand cramping. We finished with Picking up the pieces which was my favourite track of the night, after fighting with my pick and sore hand it's a really easy song to strum and has a great melody to sing so it finished on a high for me. Again the chorus harmonies with Carly on this track always blow me away.
So overall I give it 6/10, we can definately do better but it was another step forward.

On another note, after the show we were having a drink outside with another performer and he pulled his guitar out and sung a song for us. He handed it to me so I played 'that's the way the world goes round' which is an old country track. Dylan took lead vocal & I harmonised the chorus with him, it was a pretty special spontaneous performance, as satisfying as anything we'd done earlier in the night.

Peace.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

The Future

Show went ok. Set list was:

I'll wait for you
Take me home
This old house
Secret Garden
Potrait
Old man
Jimmy Jones

Carly joined me from SG onwards. Again, I couldn't hear anything we played so couldn't get a grasp for how it was sounding. All I could hear was people talking. Had a lot of good feedback which surprised and pleased me as I thought a lot of it was going over peoples heads.

Band plays on the 26th, set list is currently:

Secret Garden
Broken peices
City streets
Jimmy Jones
Lover
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade

Hopefully we get a chance to play all eight. We've been kicked off early in the past.

Have decided to start the recording of the first Pisces album in March next year when my contract finishes at work. I'll continue to work part time but focus on getting the album done. Not sure how I'm going to pay for it, cause it's going to have to be done properly, but I'll think of something. Between now & then we'll have to put on our own show as well, maybe at Happy.