CAUTION: LONG-ASS POST:
Since we didn't have Alex present to document and comment on the performance i thought i would give a description from a band member's point of view because i still have some energy left in me after returning home just now.
The Space-The Rotunda in Philly is not new to us as we played there once before back in January of 2002. i really like it because it has a good energy to it and it is very comfortable to set up and play.
The Performance-i am pleased to say that i think we played really well. no tech problems like the middle east gig, no tuning problems, and a good reception from the crowd. we were supposed to go on second but due to some of our members getting delayed in arriving, one of the bands very kindly agreed to switch places with us at the last minute and we went on fourth instead.
we played the Manifold Curiosity and Marathon. i personally felt a little off with my performance at the beginning of manifold but by the time the first clean section kicked in i was able to relax my nerves a bit and settle into my parts a little more easily. Marathon was great as well, got my rocks off a bit headbanging during it and luckily i has a nice spot on the stage to sit down on during the part of the song where i sit out for a few minutes.
so we are definitely back on track with the gigs going well and i personally believe we are playing super well and when we arrived for rehearsal on friday it just felt good and the energy was there and i think we translated that to the gig as well.
The Other Bands-i believe that one of my regrets in being in a band is the fact that alot of the time i don't get to see the full performances of the bands we play with or sometimes not at all, but i got to catch each of the bands at the gig a bit and here's my thoughts:
Snack Truck-another gig at the Rotunda for us and another two person band opens up the show. coincidence? these guys were definitely alot different than Touchdown who opened back in 2002. They were super high energy and their music was frantic and frankly pretty awesome to watch. The drummer was CRAZY screaming out vocal lines with or without a mic and still being heard and he just locked in great with the guitarist who also screamed his ass off and played with an octave effect on his guitar to give some added weight. i noticed that it looked as if he forgot a line in one song but he didn't miss a beat otherwise and i highly recommend checking them out.
Mykado-this was the band i missed most of due to going out and getting food(a cheese steak!). Pretty straight ahead metalcore with some cool maiden-ish guitar harmonies thrown in for good measure and a very decent lead guitarist. They weren't really my cup of tea surprisingly BUT i felt they had a good energy and vibe about them and since they seemed young one can hope they take the time to develop because they had a good amount of potential from what i saw.
Infidel/Castro?-AWESOME. completely mind-boggling. i was re-stringing my guitar during their first song(but everything was blended together without breaks between songs so i can't accurately say how much i missed) but i could still detect this wave of heavy, noisy soundscapes creeping towards me and surrounding me. Finally, i was able to give them my full attention and the members had switched instruments a couple times and the noise was slowly fading as Colin started playing this clean electric chord progression on guitar with this beautiful delay on it. i was immediately floored at the seamless-ness of it and all of a sudden Keith joined in with a distorted guitar playing the same progression and adding more and more noise and volume to the guitars. Finally, George was screaming into the mic and getting feedback thrown in to the mix before operating the various pedals and adding crazy effects and noise to the guitarists and their chord progression which kept going and going with increased texture and presence. this was amazing to me because it just became this monolith of a chord progression that had this soul in it and i could feel something in the music that amazed me and when you felt like the progression had no chance of stopping they simply let it stop and let the array of effects and sounds fade away gently. i was floored. everybody should check these guys out.
Wolf Vs.-the night's headliners and also a band whose set i missed out on most of. They were a cool drum, guitar, and sax trio and i really liked what little i heard. unfortunately i came into the Rotunda right as the guitarist was keeping the crowd in awed silence with a simple solo guitar part with lots of space and ambience to it and the sound of the door creaking and closing was very loud in comparison and i felt embarassed that i might have drawn attention away from their performance. but a very cool band who i wish i had more to say about and i would recommend them.
Overall as well, i met a lot of nice people in these bands who were very down to earth and they made the whole show a joy to participate in.
The Accomodations-the band was split up a bit in terms of where we stayed but luckily we ran into Kevin Hufnagel from Dysrhythmia who offered to put up six of us for the night and we got to have a kayo dot slumber party in his basement/practice space. In addition to being in one of my favorite new bands, kevin is also a cool friend and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and we had a lot of fun hanging out with him and i was excited to hear about the various touring his band has been doing since getting signed to Relapse last year. i think i learned alot from hearing his experiences and i want to thank him immensely for his hospitality in giving us a place to rest for the night before we left.
Also much thanks goes out to Colin Marston of Infidel/Behold...The Arctopus/Byla for once again offering us a gig. Like Kevin he is in some of my favorite new bands and besides being another incredible musician, he too is one of the nicest guys i have ever met and i hope we can do another show with one of his projects someday and i also hope we can make it up to him and get them a gig up here in New England so that more people can check the bands out.
i give the gig a big "thumbs up."
And now for your enjoyment, i compiled a list of some fun statistics from the past two days:
Number of cars to carry band members and gear: 3
Approximate total time spent in cars driving on Sat and Sun: 15 hours
Number of times Greg felt he was losing his mind: 1
Number of references made to the movie Rocky and the infamous steps: 10(approximately)
Number of times the fatness of Kevin's cat Tipper was referenced: too many to keep track of.
Number of times said cat ran away in embarassment over fat jokes: 1
Number of times Outkast's two new singles were heard on the radio: 12
-"Hey Ya": 8
-"I Like The Way You Move": 4
Number of times Greg sentimentally sang along with "Turn the Page": 2
-Bob Seger version: 1
-Metallica version: 1
Number of times Toby and Greg found themselves the only ones laughing at their jokes: at least 5
Number of bad "sweeping" puns made while discussing guitar technique: 2
Number of times Greg hit himself in the face with his gothic amulet: 2
fin
Since we didn't have Alex present to document and comment on the performance i thought i would give a description from a band member's point of view because i still have some energy left in me after returning home just now.
The Space-The Rotunda in Philly is not new to us as we played there once before back in January of 2002. i really like it because it has a good energy to it and it is very comfortable to set up and play.
The Performance-i am pleased to say that i think we played really well. no tech problems like the middle east gig, no tuning problems, and a good reception from the crowd. we were supposed to go on second but due to some of our members getting delayed in arriving, one of the bands very kindly agreed to switch places with us at the last minute and we went on fourth instead.
we played the Manifold Curiosity and Marathon. i personally felt a little off with my performance at the beginning of manifold but by the time the first clean section kicked in i was able to relax my nerves a bit and settle into my parts a little more easily. Marathon was great as well, got my rocks off a bit headbanging during it and luckily i has a nice spot on the stage to sit down on during the part of the song where i sit out for a few minutes.
so we are definitely back on track with the gigs going well and i personally believe we are playing super well and when we arrived for rehearsal on friday it just felt good and the energy was there and i think we translated that to the gig as well.
The Other Bands-i believe that one of my regrets in being in a band is the fact that alot of the time i don't get to see the full performances of the bands we play with or sometimes not at all, but i got to catch each of the bands at the gig a bit and here's my thoughts:
Snack Truck-another gig at the Rotunda for us and another two person band opens up the show. coincidence? these guys were definitely alot different than Touchdown who opened back in 2002. They were super high energy and their music was frantic and frankly pretty awesome to watch. The drummer was CRAZY screaming out vocal lines with or without a mic and still being heard and he just locked in great with the guitarist who also screamed his ass off and played with an octave effect on his guitar to give some added weight. i noticed that it looked as if he forgot a line in one song but he didn't miss a beat otherwise and i highly recommend checking them out.
Mykado-this was the band i missed most of due to going out and getting food(a cheese steak!). Pretty straight ahead metalcore with some cool maiden-ish guitar harmonies thrown in for good measure and a very decent lead guitarist. They weren't really my cup of tea surprisingly BUT i felt they had a good energy and vibe about them and since they seemed young one can hope they take the time to develop because they had a good amount of potential from what i saw.
Infidel/Castro?-AWESOME. completely mind-boggling. i was re-stringing my guitar during their first song(but everything was blended together without breaks between songs so i can't accurately say how much i missed) but i could still detect this wave of heavy, noisy soundscapes creeping towards me and surrounding me. Finally, i was able to give them my full attention and the members had switched instruments a couple times and the noise was slowly fading as Colin started playing this clean electric chord progression on guitar with this beautiful delay on it. i was immediately floored at the seamless-ness of it and all of a sudden Keith joined in with a distorted guitar playing the same progression and adding more and more noise and volume to the guitars. Finally, George was screaming into the mic and getting feedback thrown in to the mix before operating the various pedals and adding crazy effects and noise to the guitarists and their chord progression which kept going and going with increased texture and presence. this was amazing to me because it just became this monolith of a chord progression that had this soul in it and i could feel something in the music that amazed me and when you felt like the progression had no chance of stopping they simply let it stop and let the array of effects and sounds fade away gently. i was floored. everybody should check these guys out.
Wolf Vs.-the night's headliners and also a band whose set i missed out on most of. They were a cool drum, guitar, and sax trio and i really liked what little i heard. unfortunately i came into the Rotunda right as the guitarist was keeping the crowd in awed silence with a simple solo guitar part with lots of space and ambience to it and the sound of the door creaking and closing was very loud in comparison and i felt embarassed that i might have drawn attention away from their performance. but a very cool band who i wish i had more to say about and i would recommend them.
Overall as well, i met a lot of nice people in these bands who were very down to earth and they made the whole show a joy to participate in.
The Accomodations-the band was split up a bit in terms of where we stayed but luckily we ran into Kevin Hufnagel from Dysrhythmia who offered to put up six of us for the night and we got to have a kayo dot slumber party in his basement/practice space. In addition to being in one of my favorite new bands, kevin is also a cool friend and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and we had a lot of fun hanging out with him and i was excited to hear about the various touring his band has been doing since getting signed to Relapse last year. i think i learned alot from hearing his experiences and i want to thank him immensely for his hospitality in giving us a place to rest for the night before we left.
Also much thanks goes out to Colin Marston of Infidel/Behold...The Arctopus/Byla for once again offering us a gig. Like Kevin he is in some of my favorite new bands and besides being another incredible musician, he too is one of the nicest guys i have ever met and i hope we can do another show with one of his projects someday and i also hope we can make it up to him and get them a gig up here in New England so that more people can check the bands out.
i give the gig a big "thumbs up."
And now for your enjoyment, i compiled a list of some fun statistics from the past two days:
Number of cars to carry band members and gear: 3
Approximate total time spent in cars driving on Sat and Sun: 15 hours
Number of times Greg felt he was losing his mind: 1
Number of references made to the movie Rocky and the infamous steps: 10(approximately)
Number of times the fatness of Kevin's cat Tipper was referenced: too many to keep track of.
Number of times said cat ran away in embarassment over fat jokes: 1
Number of times Outkast's two new singles were heard on the radio: 12
-"Hey Ya": 8
-"I Like The Way You Move": 4
Number of times Greg sentimentally sang along with "Turn the Page": 2
-Bob Seger version: 1
-Metallica version: 1
Number of times Toby and Greg found themselves the only ones laughing at their jokes: at least 5
Number of bad "sweeping" puns made while discussing guitar technique: 2
Number of times Greg hit himself in the face with his gothic amulet: 2
fin
