Hungry Lucy

We played our first show in 6 months (down to the day) last night at Alchemize The Decibel Lounge. We were using a new (far simpler) setup … just two keyboards and two microphones. We had Christa’s Casio Privia piano and my aging Korg Triton LE (has two knobs missing and one key that has a nice sag to it). I had sequences for bass, drums and extra bits in the Triton for several songs and others we just played using only our four hands … shocking! This is oddly nerve-wracking new territory for me … not being for a normal band background. I was really pushing the voice limits of the Triton on some of these sequences. A new workstation keyboard perhaps could be in order, but why focus on new tools? Our set went pretty well. I sang (on the new song, Sunday Smiled) for the first time in 11 years. In retrospect we (perhaps) should have moved that song up in the set. It was the second to last song of the set, so I spent the entire set thinking “oh shit oh shit oh shit. I have to sing” rather than getting into the performance. Once that song was finished I felt relaxed and into the music … but then we were done. Now I’ve done it once, I’ll feel better the next time around.

This was also the first time in 2 years we relied on house monitors instead of our fancy in-ear system. I see benefits to both methods. I did feel more connected with the audience without the in-ears … but that just fueled my nervousness I think. When writing things like this I wonder how I ever get up on a stage at all! Plus, I couldn’t hear anything I was doing over the crowd noise and muffled monitor wedges. I think I’d rather continue the illusion that everyone is listening to us in my sound isolated cocoon!

It was wonderful not not have to worry about laptops, video and complex signal routings last night. Plus the songs did feel more grounded and “real”. I think a little further refinement is needed, but this new setup is a good thing. This point was driven home when Diet Audio (who’s release party this was) had their laptop top decide to fail mid-set. I truly felt for them as we’ve been there SO many times. We joked afterwards about taking their laptop and our old Power Book and having an office space moment.

OK … on to more song writing and more shows. I feel certain there will be no major touring this year … but we’ll get out on the road a bit. Bare with us folks. This kinda feels like we’re starting from scratch with plenty of lessons learned over the past few years.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 10:20 am and is filed under HL Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.