Thursday, October 25, 2007

The day after the day after.

Gig went well, better than I was hoping. We ended up using another bands PA so hired it off them for $125 which was a lot better than the $350 Vidcom was charging us. One of the guys in the band we hired it off 'Noodles' came & set it up for us so that was one headache averted. Almost forgot to cancel the already booked PA & only remembered on the bus home which resulted in a mad 018 call from the bus & missing my stop, thus walking home from the basin making me even more stressed than I already was.
Actually can't remember ever being that nervous. At the beginning of the show when we kicked off with Secret Garden I put my hand up in a rock star pose & realised it was shaking - definately not rock n roll - I put it back down pretty quickly.
Set list was

Secret Garden
Control
City Streets
Lover
Portrait
In the meantime
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade

Over all it was good, started strongly with the first three tracks, lost a bit of momentum, then finished strongly with the last three. Masquerade was the best we've played it, it was a strong way to finish the show. Overall I give it a 8/10. Not perfect but effective in showing what we are & do.

Spoke to Jono the bar manager afterwards, he was happy with the way things went & the crowd we pulled. He offered to get us back but he wants every sixth song to be a cover. That's a compromise I think I can live with, I've been thinking Helter Skelter & Kick out the jams, but we'll wait & see.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Tomorrow night

Looks like we're all set for Blend. It's just me, Graeme & Mike for this gig as Carly's got commitments with a movie. Add's to the challenge of how it's going to sound already being that it's our first time with a vocal PA and through our amps. I haven't set my sights too high for the gig, if we can get through without turning people off the band I'll be happy. The experience is going to be great though & we're going to learn alot about where we're at & what needs to be done to move forward from here. Just hope it's not too painful..

Secret Garden
Control
City Streets
Lover
Fall again
In the meantime
Fallen
Hope
Masquerade
Broken Pieces
I'll wait for you
Only a fool

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Sacre Bleu!

Oops, we did it again. Condolences to the AB's, I thought we played ok, recriminations are useless now. I've avoided the media so far as I don't want to get involved in the blame game which I have no doubt our infantile media commentator's have already started. It was just bad luck, nothinng else. A couple of bad calls, the ball not bouncing our way & then we're out. Bad luck, it's over, get on with it. At least the Aussie's lost as well..

In other news though, on Friday night I was offered a gig up at Blend bar on Wakefield street. The bar manager has offered to pay for whatever we need to hire and pay us well. It's a great step forward for us as we've never had to play this type of bar or crowd before. These types of bars are traditionally covers bars, with a drunken corporate crowd more interested in scoring than listening to music. If we do this well, I'm going to try to turn it into a regular monthly gig, maybe first Wed of each month. Looking forward I'd like to get the night so popular that they end up turning people away from the door because we're packing the place out. It holds about 100-150 people so it's definately acheivable if we play good shows. If we can win over this type of crowd then it'll be a great step for us.

I've been having a lot of discussions with people about marketing. Most people are of the opinion that we need a myspace page or website (which I'm sure we'll get in time) but I'd like to avoid it for the time being. I want this band to be grassroots from the beginning. I want people to feel they've found something that is their secret, something that isn't a mass produced consumer generated product for mass consumption. There has to be intimacy & subtlety & I don't think you get that appealing to us many people as possible without discretion. As the band grows so will our audience, let them follow something which isn't for sale for a change.