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...