We took too long setting up. There shouldn’t have been 3 minutes of all of us being on stage and not starting. We should’ve planned how to go on before we did the gig. We should’ve sent the guitarist and keyboard player out first to figure out his equipment and levels, and then the rest of us will have gone on. It doesn’t look good when the drummer is sat there waiting for something to happen, I specifically should have read the situation and waited till it was sorted before sitting down.
The guitarists pedal wasn’t set up right before we went on. This was part of the setting up at the start. This wasn’t necessarily his fault, as the settings on the pedal were messed with inbetween our sound check and our set. It didn’t sound terrible, as he did what he could in the time before our set to get his pedal right, however it wasn’t the sound that we wanted. For next time, we could put the pedal board away after the sound check, so that it doesn’t get messed with.
Come together was good, I didn’t mess up my part and neither did anyone else. It was probably the cleanest sounding song we have. This would be in the set list if we were to do this again
Second song (college manifesto) is very dynamically simple, only the start of the second verse and the backing vocals in the chorus have any real change to the dynamics. We could’ve put in another part where the instrumentation changed, or the guitar or keys could’ve played a different riff. The song itself is the same throughout, as it is just intro, verse, chorus x3 and outro. There was a little mistake by our rapper at the start of this song, however he recovered it really well. The rest of the performance was good, and it was impressive how he recovered from the small mistake. The song could’ve done with a breakdown or a bridge to make it a bit more interesting. My dynamics could’ve been better on the two long fills that I did, as you can’t really hear the dynamics that I want to get out of it. Also the drumming levels don’t really change during this song, it all sounds relatively the same volume. If I were to do this again, I would practice the fills more so they sound cleaner, and work on my dynamics so the song can sound more interesting. However I didn’t mess up and played my part correctly. As did the rest of the band.
The guitar pedal’s settings being incorrect really stood out on college manifesto as it is the main part of the song. The guitar should’ve sounded clean, instead it had a distortion effect on it. The guitarist should’ve checked his pedal before the song to make sure it was on the right channel, however with the issues he had with his pedal, it was understandable.
Ultralight beam, I really needed to work on my dynamics. As straight as the beat comes in I am playing at quite a loud volume, where as the start of the song was meant to be quiet up until the first rapping section. This is another case of my dynamics not being the best that they could. Something I could do to improve, is to analyse a recording of me playing this song, and compare it with the original as well, so I can really hear how I want play this song. Hearing this song back, I am playing a bit too much on the drum kit, as it sounds like there is too much going on a lot of the time. This is partly my fault as I never really tone down, and even when I do I’m not leaving much space between what I’m doing. When rest of the band is playing quite a full on part, the drummer will want to play more relaxed, feel the groove a bit more, and only play full on when it calls for it(LiveWire80). This is something I need to work on, practice playing with the band more and listening more carefully to what they’re playing. As well as sometimes thinking, less is more. However I didn’t make any mistakes, neither did the rest of the band, there were a couple small mistakes but as it is quite a complicated song to play it is understandable. In the rapping sections, the improvised solos sound well and it is a good way to bring the dynamics down. The rapping sections themselves work well with the rest of the song. The dynamics of the whole song need some work. There should have been some more sections where the instrumentation changes or has less going on. Such as on the third rapping section when the drums play slightly less, or the rapping sections as the guitar and keyboard play different things than in the other parts of the song. The keyboard parts in this song are really nice, there are two different parts for when there is singing and rapping, and they both work quite well. The solo part of the song, this is where the guitar changes, so do the vocals and the keyboard cuts out, while the rhythm section remains the same. This part of the song is a good idea, in the original it does sound quite good, however I don’t think we pulled it off. In the original, the bass, drums and guitar all work together to make this part work. However we found this difficult to do, as it drew all attention away from the vocals, and it didn’t sound amazing as it is a very difficult arrangement, and would’ve taken a lot more time than we had to make it sound good. It isn’t the worst sounding section, but if we spent a bit more time amending it, maybe changing the drums or bass or thinking of a new keyboard part, it could’ve been better.
In Hey Joe, I played it quite well, I only slightly messed up once and it isn’t that noticeable. However my fills were quite standard and I would say they sounded quite sloppy. My dynamics were also the same throughout the song, I should’ve made it louder in bits such as the guitar solos, and quieter when the songs starts. This song was added quite late into our set list, so I didn’t have much time to think about what fills to put in, and as there is a lot of space for fills in this song, I ended up just improvising them. They don’t sound bad, however they could be a lot better, I should’ve put the time in to make the fills stand out instead of every fill sounding similar. Hey Joe, it was quite solid. The organ part played by our keyboardist was a nice touch, as well as the harmonising by our two singers which sounds really nice. There weren’t any big mistakes by anyone during this song, and overall it was sounding quite good.
Stand by me was also quite well done. Everyone played their part correctly without any major mistakes. The dynamics of this song were actually quite good, as the verses sounded quieter and less full than the chorus was. The bits we added also worked well, such as changing the third verse so it was a break down, with it eventually building back into the chorus. The guitarist’s pedal was also noticeable on this track, as similar to our 2nd song, it was meant to be a clean track. However it was quite overpowering. The keyboard was sounding nice, however in the breakdown bit the parts he was playing were a bit too much. However his keyboard was very loud for that song. The last chorus was also good, with the crowd interaction as the vocalists got the audience to clap. We should’ve planned to put more interaction in the set, as it worked really well here.
The end of the set was quite good as well. We did have quite a short set, so the ending added some much needed extra time to it. It could’ve been a bit more planned out and concise, as it was just me and the guitarist that did a solo or showed off in some sort. It could’ve been that everyone a solo or a little lick to play. However it was still a good way to end off the set.
Our stage presence could’ve been better, however there were some positives. The rapper has really good stage presence as him just being himself gives off a good vibe, however the nerves held him back a bit. There wasn’t much communication between us as a band, which adds to the stage presence if you interact with each other during the set. Our bassist also seemed to turn to the side and turn his back to the audience. This could’ve happened due to nerves and due to the fact he wanted to see his band mates so he could tell what was going on. However this is something to be avoided as it doesn’t look very good if your back is to the audience, and the audience don’t feel anything if they can’t see your face. When the singers aren’t doing anything, it looks like they are zoned out. This is to be avoided as you don’t want to look bored at your own show. However, when the rapper and one of the singers interacted, that was quite good and would’ve been nice to have some more of it. Inbetween songs was also quite good, as we didn’t rush into any song or take too long, and the speaking kept the audience engaged. Our guitarist had quite good stage presence, as he was always looking forward and looked like he was having a good time. He also did well when he had to take up the microphone and start signing, even making a little joke to the crowd. Me and the keyboardist had the same issue with our stage presence, as we both didn’t look at the audience or our band mates enough. We were both looking at our instruments or looking at something else instead. This creates a disconnect between the audience as it doesn’t feel like you are performing for them.
Our guitarist had a couple of alcoholic beverages before he went on stage. This was a way to calm down his nerves. However this led to him being a tad bit sloppy and making a couple mistakes. Instead of drinking to calm his nerves, he could’ve done other things such as practicing his breathing to stay calm, accept his nervousness, laugh and smile and focus on the positives instead of the negatives.(https://www.facebook.com/WebMD)