Blossoms

[Alf With Kipper Zero]

It was an interesting gig, I thought. The band did well, and I discovered some of the songs actually work better live than recorded. I heard some positive comments in the audience too. Two oldish guys came to stand near me at one point, and I thought they were going to moan, but they started going "They're pretty good aren't they?" Also, when the heckling consists of people shouting "Get on with the next song!" you're not doing too badly.

By the way, I don't think you should listen to what that woman said about playing covers. It's probably true that playing more covers would bring slightly bigger crowds in the short term, but it'd kill off your own songs, because people would turn up to hear well-known things. Once you start down that road, there's no turning back; Last Approach would become known as a covers band who insist on playing some original stuff as well. Blech.

It'll be harder to start pulling in crowds with original material, certainly, but anything worth doing is hard. To my mind, if the Blossoms want a covers band, they go and find one. There are plenty of them around. But there's only one Last Approach, and your material is strong enough to worth sticking to your guns about playing your own songs.

Rant over.

[Steve]

Ahhhhhhhh yeah; I wasn't sure if you enjoyed it too be honest (hell, I wasn't sure if ANYONE enjoyed it really, there were so few people there), but I'm glad to hear you did.

I couldn't hear my guitar whatsoever during the entire gig, so I have no idea if I made mistakes and how many, or even if my guitar could be heard by YOU guys. I had a lot of fun though, despite it being 1,000,000 degrees in there.

Were people honestly shouting us to get on with the next song?? Ha ha...I missed all that...

Still, what was with that weird guy at the end asking "uuuh, was there a metal band playing here tonight?"; I'm still trying to work out exactly how that insult worked, other than showing he knows nothing about music genres.

I'm well worried about this LL65 thing on Saturday though, mainly cause Sian called me up just now saying "ooooh I've been listening to other bands that'll be playing...I'm worried cause they're all reeeeeeeally good" - YEAH, thanks for that!

By the way, which songs do you think work better live?

Oh, and don't worry; perhaps we might do ONE cover or something, but even that is pushing it as far as I'm concerned. Basically, after we've done this place maybe a couple more times to get money for our PA, I do not want to play in pubs ever again; I want to keep our gigs at things like the last gig, or the one this weekend...events that people have specifically gone along to so they can here music! Not a pub where we're getting in the way of their drinking and talking...

[Alf With Kipper Zero]

That's the thing about this place. They're sort of putting you on in the background. I wouldn't swear off playing pubs altogether though, because there are plenty of pubs that run proper gigs.

Of course, that might not be necessary. But I think it's still too early to dismiss all pubs out of hand. I mean, the place is Queensferry was basically a pub/bar, but they're used to putting gigs on, so they did a better job of it than Blossoms.

Oh, to answer your question, I think Freakin' Out and, strangely, After All This Time work better live. Not that they don't work on record, just that somehow hearing them live is different.

[Steve]

Hmmm well yes, that's a point; I'll rephrase it then to "we will only play venues that are properly equipped for bands, and on nights that are band-orientated.

Did you feel Freakin' Out was ....mmm...slower than on the record? For some reason, I've got it in my head that we play it much slower. Not saying that'd be good or bad, just something I'm sure I've noticed.

It's good that you mentioned After All This Time too, cause the set-list I've drawn up for Saturday is:

Freakin' Out
Looking Over My Shoulder
Drift
Here I Stay
The Malevolent Campaign
After All This Time
Don't Carry
Above The Sonic

I wasn't really sure if I should include After All This Time, cause - although I LOVE the song - I wasn't sure how people in general would react to it...it's quite long, after all.

[Alf With Kipper Zero]

The Menai in Bangor used to run a local band night on mondays. Don't know if they still do. I have no idea what the deal was, whether it was paid or more of an open mic job, but when I went half the bands were toes and the rest were average. Last Approach would make them all flee in shame.

[Steve]

Ha ha ha; perhaps we should look into it. I mean, we're willing to play anything right now - provided they meet either one of two catagories:

We get paid
OR
There are loads of people there.

For example, in Blossoms we got paid but there was no-one there, where as on Saturday we're not getting paid but (I'm REALLY hoping) there are loads of people there. It's all about exposure, but we have to think of this PA that we're after...