Monday, November 20, 2006

The ups and downs of gigging

Well it’s been a pretty decent month and a half for gigging. An incredibly interesting twist for my band, really – 5 gigs in the first nine months of the year, 4 of them pro-bono, then all of a sudden 7 gigs in a row, with a few more in the pipeline.

Let me start off with a long-winded background for the gig we had five weeks ago. I had just come back from a work teambuilding event in Eagle’s Point which was held on Friday ‘til Saturday. We actually left Manila at 530am on Friday, which meant I was already awake at 430am. I had only two and a half hours of sleep before getting up, and I got to steal maybe another half an hour of shut-eye on the bus ride to Batangas. Thing was, it ended up being an incredibly jam-packed day filled with games and activities. And with a lot of partying at night, I ended up probably sleeping at past 3 (or maybe even past 4?) on Saturday early early morning. Unfortunately, I had way too much to drink while I was dehydrated so when I got up at 830am on Saturday I had the worst hangover in recent memory. The worst of it was, I was so tired and spent from the previous day’s activities that I lost my voice! The problematic trip we had back to Manila – people were late getting on the bus, bus 1 had some problems before running out of gas, we passed through Tagaytay instead of the Star Toll, thus lengthening travel time back to Manila from 3-3.5 hours to 6 hours!!! – made me even more tired. So when I was back in Manila, my voice was all but gone.

Now we’ve had gigs before where I had a sore throat. But I just knew that this wasn’t the average sore throat that can be cured last minute by some hot tea and Strepsils. It would be incredibly bad form for my band to back out at the very last minute though. So I said I’d just push through with it and see what happens. I warned my bandmates about my condition, and they kinda brushed it off, saying that I’ve had a sore throat during gig night in the past but always gotten through. It was a bit unfortunate as well that my mom had a free night and decided to watch. I told her that I had a horrible sore throat and that I wouldn’t be in my best form but she wanted to watch anyway (3rd time for to watch my gig). I was right of course – the moment we played our first song (Matchbox 20’s ‘3am’) it was clear my voice was nowhere near where it should’ve been. It was very hoarse! We performed ‘Lightning Crashes’ after that, and I guess 3am helped my open up my throat a bit because I managed to hit all the notes, albeit with a whole lotta effort. The rest of the set went pretty okay, but I did lose any and all ability to sing falsetto – during ‘#41’ I ended up mouthing all the falsetto parts and I could see that some people in the audience noticed. I was really tempted to sandbag and tell everyone in the audience that I have a bad case of laryngitis, but that would’ve been a bit too unprofessional, so I managed to be controlled enough not to mention it.

I actually kept quiet for virtually the entire break we had between sets to take care of whatever was left of my voice. Also, during this time, lots of people in the audience actually told me what a good job I was doing, which made me think that they seemed to pick up on my condition and were trying to express their appreciation for my efforts. But from a vocal standpoint, neither of those seemed to help because my voice was even hoarser in the 2nd set. Looking at the bright side, I was quite surprised that I was able to ‘force’ the high notes of ‘All I want is you’ (I really thought I would be horribly off-key but luckily I wasn’t), ‘Where the streets have no name’ (by the end of the song my voice actually cracked on one of the high notes), and ‘All along the watchtower’. I was also still able to hold high notes in ‘Grey Street’ and our version of ‘Selling the drama’. The coolest thing though happened during ‘Ants marching’ – at the point where the rest of the band drop and I sing ‘People in every direction’ a cappella, most of the folks in the audience sang along with me. That gave me an idea: I wouldn’t sing the next line and see if the audience would sing instead. That turned out to be a great idea because the audience did sing ‘No words exchanged, no time to exchange’! Amazing! I looked over at Bunky after that and he gave me a nod of approval (he doesn’t mind the audience singing for as long as I don’t actually prod them to sing).

By the time I headed home, my voice was, for all intents and purposes, gone. I would speak one sentence with maybe 6 words like ‘Sorry we couldn’t sing your request’ and my voice would crack five times! I don’t really understand how I managed to sing the rest of the second set like that then completely lose my voice the moment we were done. Adrenaline maybe? Mind over matter? Whatever it was, I am very thankful I got through it!

Anyway, for a couple of days, I could barely speak. I ended up trying Pei Pa Koa, this Chinese herbal extract which is supposed to be good in restoring one’s voice. I am not sure whether it was working because by the end of the week my voice was still a bit hoarse but at least I could sing better. I had another event on Friday night and it was so loud that you would end up shouting instead of talking to make sure other people could hear you. As such, I had another sore throat. But at least it was not as bad as my sore throat the week before.

I was still struggling quite a bit, and my falsetto not very good, but at least my voice was clearer. The main problem we had during the gig was that we were very unprofessional. We are supposed to start anywhere from 930-10 assuming there is a large enough crowd already, but this week we started at 1015. Which was the wrong week to start at that time because there already was a pretty sizable audience by then. During our sound check, I step off the stage to listen to our sound, and the manager actually tells me that we are killing him by not having started yet. The rest of the first set goes okay but after we had played 7 songs, Bunky’s string snaps. We play ‘Lightning crashes’, probably the 8th song of the set, when Bunky breaks another guitar string! We had to end that set prematurely after that song. The only good thing about that is that sets are normally about 7-9 songs long only, so at least we could act like we completed a set and not seem like we missed playing 4 more songs. Luckily, Ipe had spare strings. The bad thing was that at the start of the second set, we realized that Bunky’s guitar wasn’t tuned properly so after one song, we ended up with a lengthy lull while Bunky re-tuned his guitar. I caught a glimpse of the manager during this lull, and he really didn’t look pleased.

Anyway, we played a couple of songs – 'Big-eyed fish' and 'Bartender', both by Dave Matthews band – which we haven’t played in a while, and it was clear we were a bit off in them. We played one more song before the manager told us to take a short break to give way to the San Miguel Bar Tour. During this break, we had a quick band meeting. Oz was concerned about the sound, but Ipe said we couldn’t do anything about that so we needed to play our best despite that. He also asked the band to play with more conviction, whatever the song was. I was really pleased he said that, because now the words were coming from him and not me! =) Being the band “father-figure” kinda gets tired sometimes, and what you say loses impact at some point as well. Anyway, when we started the second set with out ‘All I want is you-Where the streets have no name’ pseudo-medley, it was clear that we were hell-bent on putting together a fantastic show. And the continuation of the 2nd set was amazing. With one small low point – right as I was about to sing Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’, someone in the audience approached us and asked if he could sing that song. I thought he was a friend of one of the folks in the band, but I found out later that everyone else thought he was MY friend. Anyway, he sang, er, well, hmm, not all that well to put it lightly. But it was at least an interesting experience. =) The rest of the set went very well. The highlight for me was our cover of Candlebox’s ‘Far behind’. That’s another song we haven’t played in a long time. But Ipe, who still wasn’t in the band when we played it the last time, knew all the lead guitar parts very well. Throughout the song, you could feel a vibe from the audience that told you they really loved it and the fact that we were playing it, and I also felt that they thought we did it justice. Even the waiters behind the bar were cheering! =)

In the show we put on three weeks ago, one of my dearest friends Raych (who now lives in Australia and was here for a few weeks) came to watch us. She got there in the second set which was good because if she arrived during the 1st set she wouldn’t have gotten a seat. This week, my voice was also crystal clear. I was on top of every single high note in Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” and I held the “Grey Street” long note pretty well. I also have to say, Candlebox’s “Far behind” has now officially become one of our “ace” songs. We played it again and with my voice in tip-top shape, I sang it better than I ever had before. I really wish we had taped it or caught it on video, coz I am not sure we (or I) can pull that song off that well again.

The gig we had two weeks ago was probably the most, er, “dramatic” I’ve ever been on stage. I always used to sing Third eye blinds “Jumper” a bit ‘bouncily’ shall we say until it hit me – this song is trying to tell someone not to jump off the ledge of a building so why am I being bouncy or angry when I sing it? (Maybe coz there’s a line that goes ‘The angry boy…’) So last week, I changed my delivery of that song, and acted more like I was trying to convince someone that it wasn’t worth it ending your life. With “Better man” I started singing some lines my own way and not singing the normal melody. And with “One” I was pouring my heart out. I guess the frequency of our gigs is making me very comfortable singing our songs again, and I’m starting to perform them with more heart as compared to the 5 gigs we had before that.

Now they say that there’s a first time for everything, and last Friday we had our second set cut prematurely for the first time ever, but this time it wasn’t our fault. We had played a solid first set. I was also feeling a lot more comfortable than I have been in the past interacting with the audience. So I was kinda ready to kick ass in the second set. We were in fact planning to play 17 songs that set, and since my voice felt clear and strong I was confident that my vocals would last the entire set. But midway through our third song, the sound system went haywire – it was like we had a horrible feedback sound coming out of the speakers and it lasted for the entire song. The sound technician was frantically trying to sort the issue out to no avail. We kept trying to isolate the problem i.e. which instrument was having the problem – first it seemed it was the violin, then it seemed to be my mic, then the lead guitar, then the rhythm guitar – but well it seemed that when we figured out the problem, the deafening feedback sound would come up again. Eventually the manager told us that the sound guys couldn’t fix the problem and we’d have to pack up. Awful! I was so ‘bitin’ especially since I felt so ready to play more than a dozen songs more that night.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed that we can throw in another good (great?) gig this week. And if we decide to do ‘Far behind’ again, I hope we do it really well once more. Just funny, I’m willing to bet all my friends who had never heard me sing alternative rock or seen me perform with my band would probably never think that I could pull this song off. Then again, prior to joining my band, neither did I. =)

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