South Square – 01/03/2019
Summary
On March the 1st we had a very exciting opportunity to perform at an art exhibition event in south square gallery in Thornton. At this point, our lineup consisted of me on the piano, Fraser on the guitar and Shaun on the drums and we had only had two practice rehearsals prior to this. We were playing a set list consisting of 6 of my compositions with at least 3 being new ones to the band that we hadn’t covered in our rehearsals. This meant that most of our performance was completely reactionary and improvised and despite this it was a huge success and we played almost an hour of entertaining music. Unfortunately I forgot to record the performance, however here are some images and short videos of our performance.
Footage
My Initial Reactions
This gig was a large milestone in the early development of our band and it went incredibly well and gave us a huge boost going forward. Of course there were moments which were not up to the standard we want to play at, however we accomplished a huge achievement that evening and highlighted some important areas to work on. I was also extremely excited to see my compositions develop throughout the set, which is an area that I am really interested in.
Evaluation
The positives of our performance included our ability to perform to a high standard for almost an hour as well as interacting positively with the people around us. We created some very interesting improvisational moments throughout which were well received by the audience. We managed to set up and pack down well and reacted well to any problems that we faced.
An area that wasn’t so good was our communication throughout performing as well as a significant lack of structure which led to some confusing moments when performing. We were also casually dressed, which wasn’t a huge issue but some coordination could have have worked well.
Analysis
For our first performance as a group and after not having played for a long time together , I think that we showed huge amounts of potential as well many points for development. This was a huge step for us to take and I was extremely pleased in the confidence and strength we took when making our desicions and interacting with an unfamiliar audience. This project is very exciting to me and I can’t wait to see what comes from it.
Conclusion
Overall, this experience was overwhelmingly positive however there is always room for improvement. If we had organised more rehearsals prior to this we would have been stronger as a group. We also need to work on creating a strong visual experience as well as reacting with the crowd. As the majority of our music at the end of this project will be instrumental, it is important to engage the audience throughout.
Action Plan
For our next performance, we will be much more well rehearsed as well as strengthening in areas including extra band members, better arrangements and a more coordinated approach. I am hoping to put together a quintet for my final performance which will include the introduction of a bassist as well as a violin/trumpet player which will hugely develop our sound as a band. Through regular rehearsals we will be prepared for the next performance opportunity.
Mock Gig – The 1 in 12 Club – 26/04/2019
On Friday 26th April, we took to the stage of the 1 in 12 club to perform a set comprised of five songs. These were made up of the cover of Afro Blue and four of our original songs being stay easy, let me go or take me with you, the beautiful escape and run and hide. For this gig, we were playing as a six piece as unfortunately Ian couldn’t make the gig. Our lineup consisted of Shaun on drums, Jordan on bass, Fraser on guitar, me on keys and sax and Shy’yan and Ant on vocals. Here are a few images and videos of our gig.
My Initial Reactions
This gig was an amazing experience and went as well as we could have hoped for. In the build up to this gig there had been a lot of questions over the amount of time that we’d had to rehearse and if we were ready to play a set like we did. We were initially meant to headline the gig, however due to us having to shorten our set and the style of the other groups on that night, we decided to play 2nd out of 3 bands. However, I felt that we played the equivalent of a headline set and although we can definitely strengthen in areas going forward, this gig gave me a huge amount of confidence for the project going forward as well as in preparation for our final performance on the 16th May. I was overwhelmed by the amount of people that turned out to support us which was mainly through social media promotion and therefore have no worries for using this technique in promoting our final performance.
Conclusion
Overall so many promising and positive things came out of this performance and I was so glad that we ended up doing it. Evaluating my performance from the night and looking back at the videos , there are points in which we can improve. The first one is just to be a bit more well practiced, a lot of the music was reliant on our skills as musicians and being able to improvise and there were places such as the bridge for stay easy which could be improved by working on our timing and dynamics for the band. The song let me go or take me with you was also very underdeveloped and would have benefited from some more time being spent on refining it. For example as the verse and chorus chords are the same, what I wanted to happen was some rhythmic and dynamic contrast however we just didn’t have the rehearsal time to work on this. A piece of feedback that was given to me was that for future gigs we should leave less of a gap in between our songs for talking and instead basically get on with the performance which made a lot of sense to me and is something that I’ll work on for next performance. Something that I thought we could also improve was our presence on stage as well as our crowd engagement. looking back at the video, it is quite strange to see the vocalists performing with phones for lyrics and this was definitely an oversight for me, therefore for next gig I ill look at supplying printed lyrics on music stands so as to make it look more professional. I enjoyed doing the crowd engagement that I did but it would be nice to somehow get the crowd involved in some of our songs such as singing a part of a chorus and this is something that I’ll try work out over the next couple of weeks. The introduction of Ian on trumpet and violin will also serve to boost the fullness of our sound at the final performance and me and Ian have plans to do some interesting things as a horn section(saxophone and trumpet).
Action Plan
Although our mock performance was really good, there are still a few areas that we can improve upon for the final performance. I have spoken about a few of these in the evaluation of the performance and most of them evolve around my own organisation and developing our stage presence and the the tightness of the band in upcoming rehearsals. I will look to create some parts for Ian in some of the songs and arrange some horn parts as well as organise the lyrics for the final set list. I will also review which songs would be best for our final set. In terms of crowd engagement, I will be looking at what similar bands to ours do so as to engage the crowd.
Baby Fungus – South Square 18/05/2019
The second South Square gig was one that Mother Fungus had again been asked to play, however due to the availability of some of the key members of our band we weren’t able to field the full band. Instead of calling the performance off, me and Ian decided to approach the performance as a duo with a mixture of my compositions and improvised material. Overall we performed six songs which were of mixed quality and which were received really well by the audience. We had an audience of over 30 people which meant that the community space in which we were playing in was almost full and this led to a very special evening overall. The gig was a support slot for the Japanese band Kuunatic who were on their UK tour and we were allocated a 45 minute slot between 6.45pm and 7.30pm. After about 40 minutes we had ran out of material and under the pressure to do an encore I asked the audience to suggest notes for us to improvise around which led to a very special final piece.
Set List
De Ja vu
Noah’s Arc
Blue Yellow Meddow
South Squared
Seven Nation Army
Improvised Piece
Video
Here is the full video of our performance which starts at one minute and thirteen seconds.
My Initial Reactions
Overall the South Square gig was a really lovely experience. Prior to performing we were warned that we might mainly be playing as background music and therefore to have so many people watching us was amazing. Overall for the amount of planning and preparation we put into this gig, I was really happy with the music that we produced. There were of course areas that need improvement and I thought that the attempted cover of seven nation army was much weaker than the other pieces, however I can hear flashes in my playing of some of my favourite musicians and it is definitely a promising sign for the future. The feedback that we had was slightly overwhelming in some parts in that one member of the audience was crying due to the music and a fellow musician at the gig remarking that in parts I sounded like Keith Jarret which is a huge compliment and one that I am probably not yet worthy of.
Action Plan
The action plan for the aftermath of this gig is one to think about for the coming weeks and months and not the rest of my final project. This gig has given me a huge confidence boost in my live improvisation as well as my composition and these too areas will be ones that I continue to explore after this project. I will probably be looking to record some of my compositions in the near future as well as continuing to perform live.
Photos
