The Second Floor gig:
So as I mentioned a few posts ago, we were invited by the great Omar Bilal to play at The Second Floor and help them raise money to help them move and stuff. Which we were pretty excited about. The set-list was as follows:
Covers(english):
Blur - Song2
Backstreet Boys - Larger than Life (oh we so did)
HIM - Wicked Game
HIM - Killing Loneliness
Live - Lightening Crashes
U2 - Where the Streets Have No Name
Covers(urdu):
Awaz - Jaadu ka Chiragh
Fringe Benefits - Tanhai Mein Chain
Junoon - Heeray
Originals:
Shab-e-Hijr
Tuu Haseen
Paas
We had a keyboard player brought in in the form of Sohaib Ali of IBA, holy shit is that guy nuts lol. He was supposed to play this wicked keyboard medley of Lateralus, Vicarious and the Stairway to Heaven solo thingy.
The only concern we had was we wouldn't really be able to get people to show up. We'd seen this happen on the 7on3rd show, which was part of the same series of events and also on the Spoonful gig. So it wasn't really a suprise that 125 people confirmed on facebook, 160 were maybes and only about 50 showed up. The number of attendees was pretty consistent with the figures the above bands gained but considering that we had more time to publicise and shit it was sortve depressing. I guess being a relatively unknown band worked against us. Though why would people confirm shit when they dont plan to come? Thats just lame.
A lot of friends didn't show up either for stupid last minute non-reasons such as 10 people waiting for one of them to take the initiative and declare they're going and only then would the others join in. Sheep. This lent further credence to the fact that we can't really depend on friends to keep supporting us forever if we are to be a band seriously.
The show went okay. Started really late though. It was supposed to go at 830pm, we accounted to people being tardy and thought 9 would be cool. The audience showed us up and arrived a further 30minutes late. This and the issues with the sound setup due to either our or their equipment and mutual understanding levels led us to cut around 3 songs from the setlist since we wanted to wrap up by 1030pm.
This also led us to a sort've shaky start since sound setup issues always acts like a needle busting into the balloon that is our confidence, but we managed to pickup the pace and by the time we were around 4 songs down we were playing hard and fast without a care in the world. A few screwups did go down and some were noticeable but most were covered up. All in all it was fun. Here are a few pictures from the show:
Other stuff:
Since the recent flurry of gigs and my newfound interest in the music scene revolving around The Second Floor, I thought we should take a few pointers from the people in Lahore and create our own version of "The System". Apart from being something with an unimaginative name, that is also the operation of sorts where musicians don't wait around for sponsors and stuff in these trying economic times and through a proper organization and fraternity of sorts make their own gigs. Which makes a lot of sense and though people do already make their own gigs happen, there is no structuring and hence a lot of randomness and inefficiency. Since nobody would listen to me I forwarded the idea to the OBA today and yeah so now this is me waiting to see it something works out.
By the way, a shout out to all to The Heebie Jeebies. An awesome awesome jam band made up partly of the people from Spoonful and a few other dudes. These guys are amazingly skilled and really cool musicwise too. Hope to see them around for a long time to come.
Monday will see us going to The Open Mic Night and playing without our singer, Anes. He's sick and has been so for a few days since he insists on taking stupid homoeopathic medicines. Hope stuff works out and we and the audience has fun. Seeing as how this is going to be it gig-wise for a while to come, we need to make a few good impressions so that in future people arent too unsure about helping us out if we need them to.
Oh it's heartache every moment
From the start 'til the end
It's heartache every moment
With you
Deeper into our heavenly suffering
Our fragile souls are falling
It's heartache every moment
Baby with you
From the start 'til the end
It's heartache every moment
With you
Deeper into our heavenly suffering
Our fragile souls are falling
It's heartache every moment
Baby with you
