Setlist

Once we decided upon the repertoire, we had to make the decision of what songs go in what order. We found out that we were to be the last band of the night so we wanted to start loud and hard. We decided that we’d want to have a little break in the middle to mellow it down a little and then that we’d want to build it up from then on to get the best reaction we could hope for. We chose Dream Catch Me, the most calming song from our choices, to go second and we wanted a big build up at the beginning so we decided that it’d be best to play Decode because it’s probably the most popular song from out setlist and it’s loud and starts hard so we knew that it’d get the audience up and moving. Fully Alive is our most energetic song so it was decided that it will be last because we wanted to end it on a song that we can move around a lot to and actually enjoy playing it. We thought that if we overplayed the song on the night, the audience would love it. We only had New Divide left and it was a good incident that it was because it’s the second most popular song in our list and there was a song gap between that song and our most popular song so it was more of a little break with something different (Dream Catch Me) and then another well-known song and then our last song which is the heaviest song which was great to end on.

Linkin Park - "New Divide"

New Divide - Written and Performed by Linkin Park

New Divide is another popular song that we thought
the audience should enjoy judging on the audience from the last gig. We came
across a major issue in this song where there is a section played by a
synthesiser and after about 3 weeks of attempting to play this repetitive
section that only lasted several seconds on the guitar, but because it isn’t
actually played on a guitar, we finally decided to scrap the section and
replace it with another section of the song which actually turned out to be a
better idea than keeping the difficult part in because we could play it with
easy and without any worry of making any mistakes on stage so it boosted our
confidence with the thought that the audience might enjoy our performance more
because we’re less likely to make mistakes.

Flyleaf - Fully Alive

Fully Alive - Written an Performed by Flyleaf

Fully Alive was the singer’s choice and we chose to
play it because it was really fun and enjoyable to play. We thought that if we
had fun performing the song, then the audience should have fun too and they’d
enjoy the performance more if we looked like we were enjoying it. Although it
was very difficult to start off with due to the complicated and speedy Lead
guitar section but after we got over this issue by reducing the speed of the
tempo of what I was playing so that I was capable of it and then slowly
increase the speed of what was played until I managed to comfortably play it
faster than the original version to make sure that I am more than happy playing
the song at that speed. We also had to come up with a Rhythm guitar part for
this song as the band Flyleaf only have one guitarist but we used innovative
techniques to come up with a Rhythm guitar section for the entire song that fit
in with the bass, drums and vocals.

Paramore: Decode [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

Decode - Written and Performed by Paramore

Decode is a really popular song and we needed a
song the audience know, a song that the audience can sing along to, a song that
they can dance to, a song that would get them going, a song that would be great
to start off the set.

Newton Faulkner - Dream Catch Me

Dream Catch Me - Written and Performed by Newton Faulker

We knew that the majority of our songs would be
heavy so we wanted a song to show major contrast that we can put in the middle
of the setlist to throw the audience off a little and to show that we can play
more than just Rock songs. Most of all, we wanted to appeal to more of the
audiences music taste to quench their musical thirst, hence why we wanted a
song like Dream Catch Me.

Decisions, decisions...

We talked amongst ourselves in the first week about song choices as we found that for some reason or another, some members of the band didn’t exactly enjoy playing the three songs we did last time around. This was slightly more difficult with lacking one member of the band for the entire first week due to reasons of her own but this made communication slightly harder. However, despite this drawback, we had all managed to choose two songs each that we’d like to perform and from those two songs, we as a band decided which songs would best portray contrast and musical and technical ability on the night of the concert. We chose the songs Dream Catch Me by Newton Falkner, Decode by Paramore, Fully Alive by Flyleaf, and New Divide by Linkin Park. Three of these songs are loud, rock-type songs whereas Dream Catch Me is more of a calm, acoustic song.

Starting worries

We had a lot less time to prepare this gig compared to our last gig. We only had 8 weeks to prepare for this gig when we had 12 weeks to prepare for our first one. Obviously, in comparison, we felt a little unprepared due to our time being cut a third shorter to prepare 4 songs (one more than last time) so this meant that we had to hammer down hard and get the practicing out of the way so we can focus on our rehearsing to aim to sound our best for the live audience we had to perform in front of.

Rehearsals

We, my band and I, at the moment, suggest a time, twice a week, other than lessons and outside of college, of when we can rehearse. We rehearse 5 times a week in total. Each rehearsal in College is 1 hour and 30 minutes long (it has been known to go on for longer) and outside of College, each revision session is roughly 3-4 hours long with little breaks in-between. In the near future, we plan on making a weekly schedule of when to rehearse so we will have 2 set times outside of College as well as our Music Performance lesson in College.

Introduction

In this unit, I needed to perform in front of a live audience in a band (anything ranging from 2 or more people). In the band, we need to talk amongst ourselves and come to a decision of 3-4 songs to play a 15-20 minute set in front of a live audience. The three songs of our choice have to be able to portray our musical abilities individually but also as a group and how well we can work with other people and to see what ideas we come up with as a band to make our performance work well. We then must perform this set list at a venue of the teacher’s choice (The venue of this performance is at the Seaton Social Club on Tuesday the 29th of April). As a member of a band, I need to dedicate my time and effort into everything that it also entails such as the planning, rehearsals, preparation and the performance itself.

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Second Gig

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