The gig - report

The day at the gig didn’t start out very well as I had the problem is setting the mix right on my monitor speakers really. I thought I wanted the basic mix loud (the drums, rhythm guitar and lead vocals) on my monitors, but I wasn’t able to get that. It might have been my fault but I could have gotten off better without accusations that I was not doing my job properly. In my defense, I thought I was doing what I had been doing at previous gigs. It just didn’t work out I guess.

As I came back from the pride march, I wasn’t sure of the reaction that I would get from my fellow band members. Well, as always S. did manage to act homophobic and mean which didn’t help. I wanted the band to wear some of the stuff that I had got from the pride march. I think it was too much of an ask really, but anyway I was disappointed to find that they didn’t think it was important to push the message across. What could be a better stage than the day of the march at a college gig when you are with rainbow hats and masks? Yeah, in a parallel universe perhaps.

I am very glad that Dr. T., and a gay friend of mine (a DJ) came as my guest invitees. The DJ though managed to make me feel weirder by giving this lecture about why we shouldn’t have signed on to a label. He apparently thinks that they label thing restricts our freedom to choose what we want to play, where we want to play and when we want to play. He also thought that we shouldn’t charge as much as we do citing the example that he himself was not getting ¼th of what we normally charge for a gig. Well, whatever.

The bands which opened for us were two ends of the spectrum. The band called ‘Wehem’ were very unprofessional in their mix and performance. Their English was heavily mock-accented and the songs that they chose to cover were a tad on the sillier side. But despite that, the crowd were on their feet cheering and dancing. Fair, you could say. But come on, you have to be demented to appreciate mediocre music.

On the other hand, Prayag, our friends from Mumbai were simply brilliant. Everything about them sounded just right. They played brilliant cover songs and executed them professionally. Their original songs were even better. While being backstage getting ourselves warmed up, I felt good listening to them play. I thought maybe we would also sound good.

When we took stage after a fire-dancing performance, I was all excited and high. But the turn-out was disappointing. We had expected about 500 plus but there were hardly 200. For some reason or the other, our singer took some time to get into stage. I did my best to get the crowd active by cheering them on. But that didn’t really work out.

We started off brilliantly with our first single (hopefully). The band seemed in place and we played well. But from then on, at least my performance, flagged. I made mistakes and was not feeling all that great. I don’t know exactly why. The most prominent reason was the mix that I was getting. But I was also kinda tired with the lack of sleep, good food and the exertion in the morning and afternoon. And hence, I really didn’t give too much of a stage act.

The only thing that did help was the rainbow hat which I chose to wear in the latter half of the show. It apparently looked good and was very well accepted by the crowd. Our singer was a little off-color for the show and he forgot to mention the hat and the reason for me wearing it. We also fumbled and chose not to play one of our best songs. We actually managed to get only half the amount of time that we were promised and hence, we were a little shaken because of that I guess.
The crowd was weird. They were dancing in a weird way to our songs. And they protested against playing our favorite songs. This was one of the points that I was arguing against in our band meetings. But I was proven wrong. I guess we’ll have to resign to the reality that no-body really cares for music and all of the audience would only want to jump up and down to a fast beat.

Post-gig, I was bluesy. Some of our friends stripped down our performance and gave wonderful critiques. I’m very thankful for them. We had to hang out at the college until they managed to arrange transportation for us. That made me feel even worse. All I wanted was to come home and spend time with Vinokur. Instead I had to hang out with friends who were having a great time joking about. No offense to them really, I was not in a mood despite having come out to them during the process.

I learnt a lot from this experience. First of all, I learnt to eat and sleep well before performances. I have learnt the lesson to make sure that I get the mix right at my monitors. I have to get my new bass guitar adjusted so as playing is easier for me. We also have to figure out a way to get the entire band interacting with the crowd. One man show simply doesn’t work.

Anyway, the grim reality haunts me. 3 months into the contract, the record label has not paid us. They seem to be lackadaisical in everything that they seem to be doing. Besides, I’m not really having a great time with the band these days. I’m not so sure about this being the primary career path anymore. I badly want it to be though.