February 8th, 2003

      Following the semi-success of last weekend's show (read review here, tourdiary here), we went into this show with high hopes and a decent level of confidence. Being only our second show in the Orono area since relocating last fall and hunting down our new members, it was good to recognize some of the previous week's audience members.
      As far as the tour is concerned, it's basically just myself loading onto a bus in Boston and driving 4 hours to Bangor, at which point i was met by bandmates and shuttled out to practice for an hour or so before the show. The practice went a little better than last week's, which gave me higher expectations of the show. We arrived at the venue (cool place, massively overkilled soundsystem, rude soundguys) and loaded in at 6pm, a full 2 hours before the first band went on.
      We did our best to amuse ourselves until our set started at 9:25 or something (it was all scheduled out to the minute, hitler-style). Anyway, we set up while this acoustic guitar with a chick playing it serenaded the small stage. Without a soundcheck or setting our monitor mixes, we jumped smack dab into the beginning of our set, rushing through Lie Down With Dogs. Following a 10 second audience-talk period (keep in mind that we had a 25 minute set and we were playing Lowfive songs), we rushed right into a 3-song marathon of Action Reaction, Element Of Subtlety and Calico. Then 1 more quick break followed by a quick regurgitation of Boys Will Be Boys. Wham. 25 minutes. Gone before i could take a breath.
      Needless to say, it felt like crap. I didn't notice a real problem until the 3rd or 4th song, but the atmosphere was just way too hostile! We were rushing through our songs so fast that we didn't have time to get into a groove, or even build a rapport with the crowd, which i always like to include in a lowfive show. on top of that, even with their jillion dollar soundsystem, i couldn't hear crap... OR keyboards! Additionally, i couldn't hear vocals, guitars, or other things i like to hear while i play. As i said before, this wasn't a problem until i needed guitar cues (Calico for example), and got nothing. And nothing personal to the soundguys, but they didn't seem to care very much about what was going on onstage. They didn't really work my mix at all (feeding me only keyboards, and none of the rest of the band), and we had to remind them to mic our amps before we started to play. Granted it was pretty late for old people, but it didn't bode well for the 5 acts after us.
      That said, my personal dissatisfaction with the my/our performance was not shared by most others. The rest of the band felt okay (if not good) about the whole shebang. And from the audience reports that trickled back to me, apparently they thought we actually sounded better than last week (the show i felt really good about). Still, i'm anxious to move on from this show and get it out of my head - hopefully replaced with better experiences, really quick-style.
      I hate shows that aren't really about the bands, but more about the event. So i probably shouldn't go into them expecting anything more. But in the sake of getting our name out in our new hometown, this WMEB showcase was probably really good for us, and will only lead to those very experiences i hope for.
      On a positive note, we did a cool interview with WMEB (that i'd really like to hear, now that i think of it), so keeps your ears attentive when tuning in (i have no clue of the frequency though - i'm useless - ask somebody who goes to UMO). Also, a couple of different shows on the station now have Lowfive music to add to their playlist.

read The Maine Campus show review.

/caleb

SETLIST
Lie Down With Dogs
Action, Reaction
EOS
Calico
Boys Will Be Boys