- May 14, 2007
- 946
- 86
- 28
Andreas just posted a wonderful recap and 'Thank you' message on SW's Facebook page:
"Friends!
We are now back in Sweden after our trip to Atlanta. It is a pretty long trip for one or two gigs, but man oh man was it worth it!
The reception we got is overwhelming and just left us stunned. After two hours had passed at the signing table and the line was still around the corner I really started to wonder what was going on. The staff asked us if we wanted to keep going and we felt like as long there is anybody left who wants to see us and we dont mess it up for anybody else - we're game. We don't get out that much you know, so we really wanted to give everybody the chance to say 'hi'.
Well, that was just a side note the music is of course the most important aspect. On Friday night we played through the entire Mercy Falls album front to back, including Intro, overture, twin guitar acoustic version of One Last goodbye and with the help of Heather on stage we tried to compensate for the dialogues that are missing. It was somewhat of a daunting task, this whole thing, let me tell ya.
First to adapt a fully produced album with voice actors, overdubs, acoustics, backing vocal arrangements etc to a live setting, secondly to actually re-learn the entire album some 6 years down the line, including some songs that we never ever played live before (for very good reasons ), third to then perform this 90-minute set on a stage with trans-Atlantic jetlag and no sound check, well enough for a DVD shoot.
Well I am sure you can imagine it was a pretty tough thing to do. Sure there were hickups hell, it is live music played by humans after all, but given the situation as described above I am very proud of the band. Everybody has practiced countless hours these past six months and I can honestly say that we have never been as well rehearsed as when we left for Atlanta - we wanted to be worthy the slot and the fans efforts. I want to especially highlight Stefan, who carried the rest of us geezers through the set with relentless and virtually flawless drumming, after learning our back catalogue from scratch.
Then after a pretty late night after staying around after Stratovarius to re-set the stage, the Saturday started at 8 a.m. when it was time to pack up and get ready to head to the venue again for the Gold Badge show. That turned out to be an easier gig to play, not only because it was only an hour long, but also because we got a chance to do a proper sound check. Given that we felt pretty happy with the Friday performance playing-wise, we decided to exclusively play non-mercy Falls tracks on Saturday so everyone there got a to see a good number of songs rarely played, including The Edge of My Blade, Walking Tall and King of Whitewater.
We also did a little Seventh Wonder Odyssey going through a bunch of choruses from all four albums, starting with What Ive Become off of the Become-album and ending with a five-part harmony a Capella of the Shine Your light-section of The Great Escape song.
All in all this was a momentous occasion for all of us in the band and we really hope it was special for all of you who came out to see us, whether it was for one or both shows. I will now get to work on all post-production issues like mixing, video editing and packaging to be able to bring you a full 2+ hours long live video in the not too distant future.
Before signing off I want to give some shoutouts:
Thank you Glenn Harveston (the promotor) for having us over and working diligently to help us accomplish what we did you bent over backwards several times and we appreciate it.
Thank you to the rest of the ProgPower Crew for backstage services, support, logistics, techs, lights, recording and whatnot without you, no show.
Thank you to Heather Musgrave for stepping up on stage with us, with very little chance to prepare and practice and just doing a great job in adding to the atmosphere of the show. You were a delight to work with and we are all very thankful.
We also want to reach out to our sponsors for the Fest, the Gold Badge holders that came to the show, and all fans from near and far making the effort and spending the time and money to come down and join us we are humbled and grateful by your incredible support.
All the best to everybody out there that support what we do we love you!
//Andreas Blomqvist"
"Friends!
We are now back in Sweden after our trip to Atlanta. It is a pretty long trip for one or two gigs, but man oh man was it worth it!
The reception we got is overwhelming and just left us stunned. After two hours had passed at the signing table and the line was still around the corner I really started to wonder what was going on. The staff asked us if we wanted to keep going and we felt like as long there is anybody left who wants to see us and we dont mess it up for anybody else - we're game. We don't get out that much you know, so we really wanted to give everybody the chance to say 'hi'.
Well, that was just a side note the music is of course the most important aspect. On Friday night we played through the entire Mercy Falls album front to back, including Intro, overture, twin guitar acoustic version of One Last goodbye and with the help of Heather on stage we tried to compensate for the dialogues that are missing. It was somewhat of a daunting task, this whole thing, let me tell ya.
First to adapt a fully produced album with voice actors, overdubs, acoustics, backing vocal arrangements etc to a live setting, secondly to actually re-learn the entire album some 6 years down the line, including some songs that we never ever played live before (for very good reasons ), third to then perform this 90-minute set on a stage with trans-Atlantic jetlag and no sound check, well enough for a DVD shoot.
Well I am sure you can imagine it was a pretty tough thing to do. Sure there were hickups hell, it is live music played by humans after all, but given the situation as described above I am very proud of the band. Everybody has practiced countless hours these past six months and I can honestly say that we have never been as well rehearsed as when we left for Atlanta - we wanted to be worthy the slot and the fans efforts. I want to especially highlight Stefan, who carried the rest of us geezers through the set with relentless and virtually flawless drumming, after learning our back catalogue from scratch.
Then after a pretty late night after staying around after Stratovarius to re-set the stage, the Saturday started at 8 a.m. when it was time to pack up and get ready to head to the venue again for the Gold Badge show. That turned out to be an easier gig to play, not only because it was only an hour long, but also because we got a chance to do a proper sound check. Given that we felt pretty happy with the Friday performance playing-wise, we decided to exclusively play non-mercy Falls tracks on Saturday so everyone there got a to see a good number of songs rarely played, including The Edge of My Blade, Walking Tall and King of Whitewater.
We also did a little Seventh Wonder Odyssey going through a bunch of choruses from all four albums, starting with What Ive Become off of the Become-album and ending with a five-part harmony a Capella of the Shine Your light-section of The Great Escape song.
All in all this was a momentous occasion for all of us in the band and we really hope it was special for all of you who came out to see us, whether it was for one or both shows. I will now get to work on all post-production issues like mixing, video editing and packaging to be able to bring you a full 2+ hours long live video in the not too distant future.
Before signing off I want to give some shoutouts:
Thank you Glenn Harveston (the promotor) for having us over and working diligently to help us accomplish what we did you bent over backwards several times and we appreciate it.
Thank you to the rest of the ProgPower Crew for backstage services, support, logistics, techs, lights, recording and whatnot without you, no show.
Thank you to Heather Musgrave for stepping up on stage with us, with very little chance to prepare and practice and just doing a great job in adding to the atmosphere of the show. You were a delight to work with and we are all very thankful.
We also want to reach out to our sponsors for the Fest, the Gold Badge holders that came to the show, and all fans from near and far making the effort and spending the time and money to come down and join us we are humbled and grateful by your incredible support.
All the best to everybody out there that support what we do we love you!
//Andreas Blomqvist"
