Our Name in Lights
Thursday, August 30, 2007 at 20:58 | 0 screaming fans  
This post is long overdue, so sue me.

Seriously, please don't.

The month of August has been very busy for the members of the band, even if we only managed to get out and play two weekends.

Since the back-to-back weekend, we have been working very hard, by kicking up our heels, sitting on our rear ends, and enjoying what a "normal" work day is supposed to be.

That's right, I'm still catching up on lost sleep.

What an astounding two weekends it was! Once we got the willies out of our system, which I thought, may have crippled us at the beginning. Setting up a new PA from scratch -- not knowing how it will perform or what to expect is always unnerving. I still think there is a little way to go in terms of getting the sound right, but I think we are 90% there in that department.

The first night was nerve-wracking. It seems to be when you haven't played in a while. There were lots of blunders, missed endings, and forgotten lyrics, for example, but no major train wrecks. I took the opportunity to spend Thursday night in my "traditional" Royal Hotel style -- drunk out of my wits. I further punished myself by going to work the next day having only three hours' sleep, I might add a tad hung over.

By Friday, the improvement was immense. It was like a 200% improvement over the previous night's performance. We managed to have packed houses both Friday and Saturday, and I have a sneaking suspicion that we turned a few heads.

The staff and management of the Royal enjoyed our repertoire and professionalism. I am confident that we will be back again soon -- like November, maybe.

The next weekend at the Redcliff Hylton was just as successful. We managed to enjoy busy nights on both Friday and Saturday. Some familiar faces from the weekend before even arrived and stayed a while. Could this be the beginning of a devout local following perhaps?

Thanks to everyone who came out those weekends. Spread the word; we will be back sooner than you can say "Australopithecus".
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Gearing Up
Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 11:07 | 0 screaming fans  

It's been several weeks since any of us has posted an update on this site, but we have been very busy this summer preparing for our upcoming performances.

As longtime readers may have gathered, our first performance at the Redcliff Hylton was a bit premature, in the fact that we did not have enough time to prepare the material necessary to play an entire night. Thus, we had to repeat more than 25% of our material every night that weekend.

What was most important was to test-drive the material and check for crowd response, as well as prove to ourselves that we could actually play a gig, and only suffer minor glitches.

But we really did that show on a whim. We hardly had any of our own equipment at that gig. The PA was rented, the light show was what came stock at the club. Even to some extent some of the back-line gear was mooched from other players.

I'd like to say that now, we are much more prepared.

I have managed to update the song list with a pile of new material we are excited to play in the coming weeks. This brings the song count to about 45, which is more than we need to play an entire night.

We have also been very busy building a (expensive) PA system, which is now 95% complete. We are only missing a few cables and as such, we are at a point where we can make do with what we have. Lighting on the other hand, ended up being a system that MA Jerry-rigged himself, which should get us through a couple gig, that is until we can afford a "real" lighting system.

In less than a week, we will be playing the Royal Hotel for a three-night extravaganza. We are very excited, and we hope to see many of you there.
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