I Wish
My personal stage presence is something I have noticed that I’m particularly proud of. I look confident and like I’m having fun because I was bobbing my head and dancing along while playing. I made sure to look out to the audience when I could, which is noticeable in videos I’ve seen from the audience’s perspective.
Overall, our timing as a collective was good, but the song still sounded like it was on the slower side when it would have been better to be on the faster side for more energy. This is something that Nic pointed out throughout rehearsals, mostly to Oliver but also to the whole band. We could have solved this by planning practice outside of normal college hours or using Wednesday afternoon’s time in the live room.
The unison in the outro bit was really well utilised and executed and the stops in-between were clean and timed well. I think we were really strong as a band for this, though it did take a bit of practice with a tutor to get it right.
I think my tone was fine for this performance in accompaniment to Isobel’s wah effect. Really, my part acted as a background bit when it should have been alongside the other guitar part dynamically, especially for those stabs in-between vocal breaks. A higher setting for the wah effect I put on the amp would have been nice, I should have experimented with this more. I need to remember to learn my settings before I go on stage at the next performance.
Robert threw us off by coming in early with a B section in the later half of the song, which Isobel was late to adapt to while me and Ethan noticed almost immediately and adapted so the mistake sounded less noticeable. We stuck to the structure we practiced everywhere else though and we even played the ending as planned, since we decided how we wanted to do the outro during the song before our performance.
We managed to get the audience clapping along to the outro where we had pauses, so the auditory focus was on them and the silence. The fake ending stops were really cool to play around with in regards to including the audience. Robert did really well to get them clapping at that point, I think it was a good choice to do it there of all places.
I couldn’t really hear myself well enough in the monitors, I tried turning myself up a little bit throughout the song but it didn’t do much of anything. Next time I need to speak to the sound technician before the gig or signal them when I need assistance within a song or between songs with hand signals.
Robert often looked to his lyric page but doing so meant he also had to lean over to stop and look. Since his microphone was stationary, this was a problem since the audience couldn’t hear him when he moved away. Because of this, there are awkward silences. To fix this problem he could have spent more time reading over the lyrics, as well as making sure the stand is in an appropriate place of which he can read the lyrics from standing facing the microphone.
During the switchover between songs, albert asked to be turned up in monitors vocally, which I thought would be more appropriate to ask by signalling subtly as it interrupted Robert’s introduction section where we got some audience interaction and made the performance feel a bit more personal. During the introductions section, Robert wasn’t very clear with who people are and what they do, which is why I think I’m the only one that got an applause. This might also partly be because of how short of a pause Robert left between each of us and we hadn’t planned anything to do when introduced individually. Fortunately, I think his nervousness made the gig feel a bit more personal as they were giggling slightly at his awkwardness. I think the introductions went on for a little longer than needed since the band was waiting.
Aeroplane
Our stage presence was still good, it was better overall as a band at this point since we were all feeling more confident on stage. We were still overall a bit stiff but it was visible in some ways that we were enjoying ourselves. I moved a lot less in this song because I needed to focus more on my part, this could have been improved with more practice involving movement on stage while rehearsing as a band.
Our timing was good all the way through the song, we made minimal errors. It dragged a little bit but not too much as it wasn’t too noticeable in my opinion.
Tone seems to be a consistent problem for me. For this song it was too sharp and should have been clear but smooth.
Our understanding of the structure was great. We followed the structure we practiced really well and didn’t have any issues. Previously I had stopped too late during Ethan’s solo, but this wasn’t an issue this time and everyone switched to the bridge cleanly and with no trouble.
I think the audience started clapping in the intro unprompted and some continued throughout the song without us purposely trying to get people involved. This seems like a good sign that people were enjoying the performance.
Our switchover from Aeroplane to Uptown Funk was fine, the speaking was still a little bit awkward but it gave us an appropriate amount of time to set up.
Uptown Funk
Our timing in general was great, but the quick pace stab chords could have been cleaner since we weren’t perfectly in time. We could have solved this by highlighting it as something we need to fix and repeatedly playing it until we got the hang of it.
My tone was fine, my volume was the problem. I’m still too quiet but the level that I’m at was okay for the quieter sections. I’m still audible and I add a nice layer alongside Isobel.
Structurally, we had a slight issue going into the bass and drums only uptown funk bit but no issues moving into the sweet dreams sections. I think either Ollie came in too early with a different part or Ethan started too early with the following bass part. Otherwise no issues, we performed exactly as planned and taught.
We did really good with getting the audience to interact with us, particularly in the uptown funk to sweet dreams bass and drum section. We got the audience clapping immediately and most continued clapping all the way through. Marcel prompted people to continue clapping when he noticed they were dropping out after the first ‘don’t believe me just watch’. We even got people singing along at the end, which surprised me a lot. Robert and Marcel’s energy and attitude helped a lot with prompting this.