As an enrichment part of our second project, we decided as a class to put on a Christmas performance, carrying on with the brand we set up for project One’s live show, thus calling it Live Wire at Christmas! I rebranded the social media sites to give them a Christmas theme and made sure to promote the show extensively on the different platforms we used. I then set up another ticketing site for people to get their tickets on. I and Lucy made the programme with the help of a graphic design tutor and I then started work on a poster to use in college. We wanted to keep similar branding to our last performance promotional material as it will be more recognizable and ‘Live Wire’ will get a name for itself better if the aesthetic stays similar. This is the final design:
Rehearsals
- We didn’t have access to the live room, so I am still yet to rehearse drums on this song with the group.
- We made good progress with the song as this is the first time we played it together with vocals.
- Each band member needs to work on memorising their parts after this so we don’t have to use tabs/lyrics in future rehearsals.
- We have all worked hard to memorise our parts and lyrics, which seems to be working well.
- Need to work on timing and togetherness, some are swaying in and out of tempo which throws the rest of the group off.
- I need to work on dynamics, making sure I play quieter where needed.
- I think Taunt’s set sounded really good, given that I am not a bass player, I still look confident and have memorised the majority of my parts, especially for ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ as this has a fairly advanced bassline. I think this song could be played more fluently on my part, however.
- We sound tight in these songs, but the timing could still be better. If the drums fall out of time, it makes the rest of the band do the same.
- We all need to work on the structure, when the form changes and know the cues to drop out/come in etc.
- To say not everyone in the group sings, we sounded fairly good when we all sang together as a group for the main chorus part, which is the plan for the final performance!
- I have managed to learn the structure plus the fills fairly quickly, which helps give the rest of the band cues. I really like playing off-beat hi-hat lick and the crescendo on the snare.
- We need to work on the ending structure, specifically how many times round we play the final chorus and working on the rall ending we created.
Mock Performance
Overall, I think the mock performance went really well. The sound could have been better and I feel didn’t do the performance justice, however, we still played confidently. The main thing my groups need to work on would probably be timing, as with both bands we seem to be rushing whilst other members of the band are still playing to the tempo which makes the songs sound messy. We could also work on crowd interaction and engagement to give the performance a personal level for Sunday chaos’ set. I think the final song sounds really good, I think improving on this would just be everyone working independently on their parts so we perform better as a group for the final performance.