Eruption –
What went well: I thought the very start was accurate and true to how it goes in the original and my over all well played, after the 2nd drum fill i did end up skipping the hardest part of the song as i knew it wasn’t ready yet and made it so the whole thing was a bit better over all. All of my dive bombs, tapping and harmonic parts went really well and over all i am pleased with how the solo went as it was an extremely hard song to choose to perform. I was rather anxious whilst waiting in the green room but as i got on stage i felt a lot better as i knew if i was scared or anxious it would of only hindered my performance
What went wrong: You can’t really hear the into due to the bass being so loud. The 2nd drum part didn’t work out so we’ll due to me and Adam the drummer never rehearsing this song due to me not getting it finished in time. I had to skip out the 3 note finger stretch part thats after the 2nd drum fill as i knew it would go as planned and to make everything go smoother i just skipped it out. Also the tapping part at the end sounded not as clean played/fretted as i wanted and was rushed slightly but not too bad.
What to improve on next time: I was more aware this project of how much i was playing guitar this project as my last project i was playing so much that my fingers were sore 24/7 making it harder to make any progress. So this project i worked out how long i could practice ‘Eruption’ and the band songs so i could play everyday and not too bad of sore finger, but one crucial mistake i did was chopping my finger nails too short which allowed my finger tissue to move more and tear the muscles in my finger and making it so i couldn’t play for 3 days, i truly believe i would of felt a lot more comfortable playing this song and performed this song better if i had those extra 3 days but oh well.
Set list songs –
What went well: Nearly all of the songs were started and finished with the correct time and tempo for the songs accept ‘Take me away’ and ‘Helena’ which i just forgot to play the start of take me away and then i was playing Helena intro a bit fast. For ‘The waiting room’ we had the correct tempo which was great as me and Lukas could play the riff with down strokes only which made it sound a lot tighter and true to the song. Me and and Adam played the breakdown for Helena really well this gig, probably the best we have ever done it to be fair which was nice, normally our tempo are very fast for that part.
What went wrong: I finished the end of my ‘Eruption solo’ a bit strange which confused Amy and i had to wave her onto the stage which wasn’t planned. We cut the breakdown in ‘You really got me’ a whole 4 bars short too which i’ve only just noticed now. I missed the intro as i had loads of my pedals switched on and i was turning them off quickly instead of playing. One complaint i have is the audio is terrible for evaluating, i can just hear my self but cant hear Lukas one it so maybe that should be something to be more aware about as i cant imagine Lukas would have much to say about this performance as he cant hear himself.
What to improve on next time: Personally i’d like to focus more on being careful with checking if i’ve learnt songs properly as i realised 3 weeks before this gig that i was playing ‘Be quiet and drive’ not properly, not on my behalf but the actual video i learnt it from so in the future i’m going to double check if i’m learning properly, also not cutting my nails too short so i don’t damage my fingers! I had a better stage performance this year but i’d like to look more free with my movements. Also using a metronome more as i only used it for some of the songs and think it would be great to incorporate a metronome into every song as i can tell the difference listening to it live.