Monday, November 23, 2009

Pisces @ The Engine Room 20/11/2009

Success! The show went off without a hitch. The entire night was a success (as you can see by my smiling face in the accompanying picture!). I decided to play sans a distortion pedal & not having the added complication made life a lot easier. Stu the soundman had my acoustic plugged directly into the P.A so that was another thing I didn't need to worry about. It meant I could leave my electric plugged directly into my amp & just leave the tuner on while I was playing my acoustic.

Overall it was an amazing day & I'm just so stoked with the way it all came together. Being a Friday meant I was in mufti at work which always makes the day a bit more pleasant. I knocked off at 12 & met Mum & Wayne for lunch. From there we met Graeme up at our place & we loaded the gear up & took it down to the Engine room. Just walking into the venue was exciting, Bonnie came down & we started setting up. There were a few hiccups (I forgot my amp! : ) so a few round trips were needed, but by 5pm eveything was good to go so it was home to eat & change & come back for soundcheck at 6.

People started arriving about 6.30 & the place slowly filled, it was a steady stream of people until it was standing room only. Bonnie kicked the night off with a solo set of her own songs & a couple of nice covers, Radiohead & Ryan Adams from memory. It was good set & was ideal to get things started. Eva Prowse was up next accompanied by her father on guitar & a bass player. She played a country tinged singer/songwriter set. It was another step up & the crowd warmed to her. I had a lot of positive feedback about her set so I guess she managed to reach people, which is what it's all about. Euphony were third on, a five piece band fronted by a jazz school friend of Bonnies. Caitlin was her name I think. They suffered from bad sound due to their numbers & the
limited P.A capabilities. It's a shame cause Caitlin had a nice voice but her songs got lost in the mix. I'd like to see them in a more user friendly environment cause it was hard to get a grasp of their tunes under the circumstances.
We hit the stage at about 9.45pm & kicked off with a new track, Comin home. It's a blues/rock song which needs to be belted out but due to my voice issues from screaming at the All White game last week I held back to try to get through the entire set. I thought it sounded awful having the vocal sung so low but the instrumentation made up for it. We hit our marks & managed to get through fine considering it was our first time playing it. From there the set took off, we played:

Comin home
Secret Garden
Lover
It's just a joke
Only a fool
Fallen
Hope
Deja Vu
I'll wait for you
Over you
In the meantime
Highlights were Secret Garden, where we really got going. On Lover I sang the third verse in a stacato style which I'd always wanted to do, it worked & I was stoked. The cut at the end of Only a fool was flawless, it prompted a 'whoa' from Stu on the desk. We tried to do the count during the break in 'In the meantime' & completely screwed it up.. but it was fine & we played through it.
Overall I give the gig a 8/10. It was the best we've ever played & considering it our biggest show & the first time we've headlined & our first paying gig it was better than I could of hoped for. I think congratulations is due to everyone involved in the night. : )

Finally, below is our mystery photographer who took the photos. Angie...

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Two days to go..

Well, in 48 hours I'll have my gear set up at the Engine Room & I'll be counting down the hours till soundcheck at 6. Mum & Wayne are coming down for it so I'll meet up with them before to try to kill some time. Here's the venue, it's a converted tugboat which is parked on Oriental Parade in Wellington.


You enter from the unsighted side & the deck above is a restaurant and below is the venue/bar.

The band is almost ready, we had that rehearsal gig last week at San Fran. It went pretty well, we played 'Fallen' for the first time in a while. Graeme got a bit lost in the middle section but we picked it back up ok. We have our final rehearsal tonight so fingers crossed we can iron out the final kinks. The soundman's also coming over tonight to check my gear, hopefully it's held up ok after a year in my damp wardrobe.. It freakin better have cause I spent about $7K on it & it's the first time it's been used.

I've cut the set down to 12 songs from 14 which is still about an hours worth of material. I wrecked my voice screaming at the All White game on Sat night so I don't want to sing longer than necessary. Here's the setlist:

Comin Home/Secret Garden/Lover/It's just a joke/Jimmy Jones/Only a fool/Fallen/Hope/Deja Vu/I'll wait for you/Control*/Over you/In the meantime

*We'll only play this if things going ok

It's a fairly upbeat set with a good mix of rockers & slow numbers. I'm not gonna play using my distortion pedal just to cut down the chances of things going wrong. I'll just try to find a nice clear tone through my amp & hold on that.

Anyway, I'll see if Ange can take a video & post it on my next entry.


Sunday, November 8, 2009

Pillage & plunder at the tugboat

There's a few things coming up that need commentating on:

San Fran, Thurs 12 Nov.
We have a rehearsal gig at San Fran this Thursday night. Generally speaking we're using it as a chance to go over songs which need work before our big gig at the Engine room on 20/11.

Setlist:
Control
It's all just a joke anyway
Fallen
Hope
Deja Vu
Jimmy Jones
Over you
Our biggest gig is nearing & I'm getting nervous. The show at the tugboat is the first time I'll be playing using my elctric guitars, pedals, amp & PA system. A lot more ways for things to wrong when all I've used in the past is the in house PA. I'm not worried about the performance but I am worried that it's going to sound amateurish & we lose credibility. Apparantly the sound man is coming round this weekend so I'll feel alot better about things once he's seen my gear & we've given it a run through.

Set:
2 Days (First time we've played)
Secret Garden
Lover, what do you take me for?
It's all just a joke anyway
Only a fool
Fallen (lovers lament)
Hope
Deja Vu
I'll wait for you
Jimmy Jones
Portrait of the young man as an artist
Over You
In the meantime
I have a lot vested in this gig, it's the first time we've played a show which is being advertised around town, we're closing the show so there's the pressure of us sending people away happy they've received their money's worth. Mum & wayne are coming down for it. It's the first gig people have to pay to get into that we've played. All I want is to play as well as I know we can & there be no technical difficulties. If that happens then I'll be happy.