The dress rehearsal as a whole was quite messy and lots of things went wrong, however all of the performers got to have a little feel of what it was going to be like on the night. The dress rehearsal was messier than past dress rehearsals because of the fact we were in a different venue (the underground). This meant it took longer to set up and Evan and Lewis (sound and light technicians) had get used to the different equipment as well as the performers being on a new and different stage as well as people walking on and off stage whilst performing.
For my first performance (with Lacey), I think it went fairly well considering she asked me to play the lead for her only a few days before the show. A lot of it was improvising on my behalf as I didn’t know exactly how the lead part went but I think it sounded really good. One thing so work on before the gig is Lacey getting her lines ready to say as just saying “Isobel” sounds silly and like she’s afraid. I think the song sounds really beautiful and will have the crowd loving it.
The Smiths tribute also went well to say we’d only done 3 rehearsals prior to the gig and I only had 2 weeks to learn the songs which were harder than I had expected. We did struggle with endings for the songs though as we had to just wing it as we hadn’t really rehearsed how to end the songs. Also Ed the drummer had forgotten what most of the songs sounded like so we had to explain it to him in between the sets which pushed us back for time. Heaven knows I’m miserable now was definitely our messiest song as Eric forgot the structure so the middle sounded very off. The rest of the songs went really well, except for a bad ending on Panic. This will go really well for the crowd.
The Izzy and Faye could have been way better however the battery died in the acoustic at the start of Starman which put me off loads as they had to switch to a mic which changed the sound on stage so I kept messing up on Starman. For the other two songs though it went quite except for the fact the “crowd” wasn’t taking our interactions seriously which made what we had rehearsed to say in between sound very awkward. I think the songs we chose are perfect for the gig as they are very popular songs and are a good build up to the last set, Crimson.
Crimson is definitely going to be the best ending set because of all the songs being so energetic and up beat.
Grace musically sounded absolutely brilliant, especially on stage it was a total different feel to in the practice room. However, Clarkes voice was really damaged as he caught a cold a few days before the gig which really messed with his throat, so not only was he barely able to practice, his voice kept breaking throughout the entire song. He did have a special cough sweet that’s suppose to help but it didn’t help much at all. Apart from that, Grace was amazing. Heart shaped Box definitely is one of the best and I think the crowd will love it. No mistakes were made and it sounded so good, I’ll be happy to play it like that in front of a crowd. Go with the flow also sounded really good, it’s still a bit messy but I think we can come in clutch for the actual gig. My Iron Lung was also quite messy on my behalf because of the fact I wasn’t wearing any shoes as my foot kept cramping up so when i had to click the pedals my foot would hurt more making me mess up. I thought my solo wasn’t too bad, I did mess up a bit but it wasn’t too noticeable and also the end was super on point. My Hero went really well too, no mistakes and all the energy was there, the set list will do really well and I think the crowd will love it, as long as we don’t let the anxiety take over.
Little wing was a disaster. Clarke had only just learnt it the day before and we had no rehearsals together prior to the dress rehearsal, this meant we had all learnt the song slightly differently, the drums were nothing like how me and Clarke had learnt it to meaning our timing was all over the place. I forgot where we were entirely because I had come in at the wrong time and it just sounded like a mess. It’s a shame that we wont be able to perform it on the night because it is such a beautiful song, and if we had one extra day we would have been able to do it.
Altogether, I am playing in 4 different acts and I think if I don’t let the stage fright and anxiety take over it should go really well.