10th May 2019, concert at The Underground live music venue.
We were playing to open for two bands on tour, Cities of mars (from Sweden) and High priestess (from LA), both of these bands are signed to Ripple Music, which is an American record label. We were asked to play the gig through a new company called Iron Boar bookings. As the support band, we played a 30-minute set which consisted of 5 songs, including our tacks from our upcoming EP with a short promotional word beforehand. The setlist was as follows: Intro Track, Long Time, Potential, Smackhead, Bad Habit, Colossal. As we were the only band from Bradford, the promotion of the gig was put heavily on our shoulders, as a band we then started a social media campaign to try get as many people down the gig as possible. This included inviting a lot of Facebook friends to the event page which had all of the relevant information, and sharing the event to various local music promotion pages on Facebook in order to get as wide an audience as possible. In addition to this, we also promoted on Instagram by posting content about the gig on both the band page and our respective personal pages. This resulted in an overall audience turnout of roughly 60 people. We used the other band’s backline gear, although I used my own breakables and stands as is the standard. The Bassist and Guitarist used their own amps but used the other band’s cabinets.
One strength of this gig was that we were well rehearsed, We performed the same set that we did at the TRASH gig and had a full rehearsal the same week. We knew all of the songs back to back and played fluently without any mistakes. This lead to us receiving a positive reaction from everyone who was there who told us how much they enjoyed our set.
One weakness of this gig was the fact that since the drums were behind the amps and my monitor wasn’t working, I really struggled to hear what the other instruments were playing. I ended up having to take out my hearing protection which could’ve damaged my ears. I was able to hear what the other instruments were playing through their front of stage monitors although I had to focus really hard. Even though this was a big problem, according to the audience, we were tight overall and you couldn’t tell that we were having trouble on stage.
Due to these factors, I think that this was a successful performance. We got to play with some fantastic bands around the world and we really enjoyed the performance. A lesson to take from this would be maybe looking at my own in-ear monitoring system in the future to make sure I can always hear the rest of my band
Below are some pictures that the gig photographer took:
