Glad you guys liked the new tunes. We're definitely eager to be able to play more of the new songs live, once the cd is out and people are familiar with them. The two new songs sounding "tighter" might be in part due to our enthusiasm, but also probably because those songs have been played so much recently and the main focus for us, having spent alot of time rehearsing them for the cd recording and all. Plus I don't doubt that Sasha felt a bit more at ease playing the songs he helped write. He's still getting a feel for the older tunes, and considering this was his first gig with us ever, I think he did a great job.
I had a really good time at the Powerfest all three days. It was fun just hanging out and talking to people and seeing bands play, etc. I particularly enjoyed BlackGuard, Primordial, Mindwarp Chamber, Diamond Plate, Cycle Of Pain, Kiuas, Soil and Devildriver. Other bands like Luna Mortis and Gwynbleidd I had to miss due to running around getting ready for our sets. I also was totally stoked to see the Earthen Grave acoustic set, where they did a great rendition of Trouble's "At The End Of My Daze", with Rachel performing the guitar solos and harmonies perfectly on her violin. That was fuckin' great.
First I've heard about the "drums overpowering" everything during the electric set. I did hear that the drums were powerful but most people seemed to think we had some of the best sound of the whole fest, mix-wise. I'm really glad that noone could really hear the accidental click track coming through the monitors. For a moment there with that clicking cowbell coming through I felt like fuckin' Blue Oyster Cult!! That's why I said, "more cowbell!" in the mic when that happened. At that point I just gave up, I told Sasha to just play a grind beat, and I threw my guitar about 8 feet in the air and let it drop. When I throw my guitar, you know I'm not pleased, lol. Makes for a climactic ending though!
The guitar is fine, btw. It's been through worse.
Oh, to top it all off, when carrying my amp head and stuff offstage, I tripped in the dark backstage over one of Vito's guitar cases, and wound up fucking up my right leg pretty good. That's why I wasn't around for quite a while after our set, I was sitting in the backstage area with ice on my leg. My friend Becca is a therapist and came backstage and checked it out, said it looked like a strained a ligament or something. It still kinda hurts but not too terribly. It just kinda capped off a somewhat frustrating evening!
I really can't wait until the new cd is released and we can get up onstage with a whole new setlist, I think we'll be a different beast next time we play, you'll see. From now on we're going to endeavor to troubleshoot as many of these potential "technical difficulties" as possible beforehand! But like I said before, at a fest when everything is under a time crunch and kinda manic, you just never know what'll happen.
