Autogigography
2007-03-10
ODD’s Female Fronted Metal Night
DB’s studio
Utrecht, NL
My wife and I met Joop at the studio to load things in the Volvo. As incredible as it may sound, we managed to load the Volvo with the following things: 19″ Flightcase 4U, Flightcase Pod & Wireless, 1 Midi keyboard – 88 keys, 1 Korg Triton,1 Jackson USA SL1CS, 1 Jackson Professional EX, 1 Hartke 4×10 combo, 1 EON G-15 G2 Active Speaker, Various stands, Joop’s suitcase ‘o gear, Clothing, Boots, Joop, Wife, me. I love my Volvo.
We didn’t arrive particularly early. We arrived at about 18:15 and unloaded our stuff. When we checked out the venue, I called Kace to tell him to leave the drumkit behind. There was barely enough room to fit a 5-piece drumkit on the drumriser. A few minutes later, the sound engineer entered. We talked to him and we immediately got a feeling of impending doom. (Pronounce: DOOM). He only had 1 monitor group and what I would get on my in-ear would be the same everybody else heard. He immediately threw his hands in the air and said “I only have 16 channels”. Me and Joop looked at the man and said “So?”.
- I only have 10 channels
- So?
- I’ll never be able to fit two stereo instruments on there!
- Whaddayamean? You’ve got 6 mics for the drumkit. That leaves you with 10 channels for 1 bass, 1 keyboard, 1 guitar and 1 vocalist.
- Eh …
- That’s only 10 channels in all
- Well …
- It’ll be allright.
- I DON’T THINK SO
And then he stomped off. We shrugged it off and went to hang out until it was time for us to perform. We did take the time to watch the bands that came before us and I have to admit that they all really did rock!
We had a lot of trouble setting up. The sound engineer just threw a bunch of cables at us and told us that those were the cables we needed. It took another 10 minutes for him to figure out that it would be nice to know which cables were meant for which instrument, then another 10 minutes to figure out which cable was what.
I fiddled around a bit and played a song from Final Fantasy VI on my guitar which got some cheers in the audience! After that, we started the intro which, as usual, progressed into For Hope is Still There. The sound on stage was bad. The sound on my in-ear monitors sucked. After the first song, Carmen asked for more vocals on the monitor and I asked for slightly more guitar on my in-ears. During the second song, I got a distorted guitar on my monitor and I had trouble making out the rest of the band. Apparently though, Carmen had good enough sound on stage to be able to sing.
Halfway through the set, people were chanting our band name. I didn’t notice (sorry guys and girls) because I was too busy not fuming too much over the sound in my ears.
I have no idea how the music came across. People in the audience told us we were great and then we tore down.
Someone I didn’t know was fooling around in the backstage room with a girl on his back. They were constantly standing in front of the door so, after asking nicely for a few times, I sort of flung them over and they eventually got the message. I talked to Willem of A New Dawn and he was just as pissed off about the sound on-stage as I was. At least I knew then that it wasn’t my gear, but the sound engineer that didn’t do a proper job. We’re not playing at DB’s again. Ever. I think …
Setlist:
Intro
For Hope is Still There
Little Girl
Calling out the Gods
Calico Jack
Lieland
After the Storm
Jane Doe
Paradox
Endgame
March 12th, 2007 at 15:21:16
Hurray for in-ear monitor systems, ey?! ;) Sorry, but I slightly know the feeling. Festival, sucky-stage, I’ve been there, believe me! Let me give you my view of the evening: I really liked the place and the atmosphere and the crowd. (it reminded me of a simular place I worked at during the nineties, except it didn’t have a stage to perform on. I really liked some of the bands on there, especially A New Dawn. They kicked severe ass. But NOT as much as you guys did tho. That’s right..you heard right. Everyone saw the problems you guys were having. From the slow setting up, the problems with patching-channels. (rediculous) (hell,even with hanging up your banner!) For some reason the audience appreciated your show even better through all this adversity though. Carmen really pulled it out of the fire for you guys with her act and her powerful voice. Your stage sound might have been bad, but you were the loudest in the mix front stage. We could barely hear René and Kace, except for some kick-drum and cymbals. Joop was somewhere in the mix and Carmen had to fight to be heard. Ok, the sound sucked. But you guys STILL kicked fucking ASS out there. And that’s what it’s all about. You gained some fans on saturday, and I’m one of them! So there. Next time you knock ém dead again…and again…
cya next time!
Joop B
March 14th, 2007 at 19:37:01
DB’s is never a venue where you’ll have perfect sound or space or whatEVER for your gig. DB’s is just for fun :) I mean, I get really nervous for a lot of gigs and I’m sure I would be FAR more nervous if this gig would’ve been in another venue.
But just because it’s DB’s and the atmosphere around there… I barely cared.
We had our problems too, with a microphone that gave feedback and a keyboard that didn’t work, and apart from that a band that was ill but that didn’t stop us from having fun at DB’s, though ;)
Besides, if you can play in a crappy venue, you can definitely play in a good venue :P
~ Linda
March 14th, 2007 at 20:32:15
@Joop: Thanks for the encouragement, it makes me feel a lot better about the evening.
@Linda: That’s sort of my problem … When I “perform” I feel the need to “perform”. The fun for me is in performing and outperforming myself. And I want things to be as near perfect as they can be. I’m slightly neurotic, like that. And I hate it when there are things that stop me from being the best I can be – a mediocre guitar player at best. Still, I really loathe being reduced to a less than mediocre guitar player because I don’t have my mind on the music.
Although I was quite pleased afterwards when we heard what people in the crowd had to say … Even my wife, who speaks her mind and has all the right in the world to do so, told me that after the first number, it wasn’t possible to tell that I was still having sound problems.
Thanks for the feedback, I’ll keep that in mind. Next Saturday: a venue that can hold 350 people … That’s … well, big to us :D