Nervosa
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11/25/2007 4:43:37 AM
Supporting Sons & Daughters and The Victorian English Gentlemans Club - Review and our thoughts
So last week was a pretty hectic one in camp Nervosa.
We travelled in convoy to the Hub, (which is a really cool venue if you haven't been yet) arriving just as The Victorian English Gentlemans Club were unloading their gear, and Sons & Daughters were sound checking.
We decided that rather than hang around like spare ends for a few hours we'd head to a pub for beer and chips. Three of us walked back to find a stressed looking sound guy, who was mortified to discover we were a six piece band rather than the three that were standing in front of him. Not that he had a problem with us, but Sons and Daughters had brought their own sound guy who had used 17 of the 24 channels during their 3 hour sound check, and no one else was allowed to touch them... meaning The Victorian English Gentlemans Club (a three piece, with three vocals) and us (a six piece with 9 instruments and 3 vocals) had to share the remaining channels. We were fine with that, being bottom of the pile and all, but he had his work cut out to make anyone sound good given those limitations.
The Victorian English Gentlemans Club were really nice guys, and let us use their drum kit and guitar amp to reduce the stress of Mr Sound Man. I'm sure their drummer was more than a little worried when Ant got his double bass drum pedal out...
We were left with about 7 minutes to sound check, and because of the sound issues, the monitoring on stage was pretty grim, a sort of sonic soup that made it difficult to hear the drums... which is pretty astonishing with Ant's drumming style!
Because of the monitoring, we came off stage convinced that we had sounded awful - but according to those lovely people that came to watch us, we sounded fine, which was confirmed by the live recording we made. (Nice job Mr Sound Man)
Getting offstage in a hurry because we didn't want to hold the other bands up was a mission and a half, everything was chaos as we lugged amps, organs and cymbals into the backstage area, which was small, and feeling the sullen stares of the female portion of Sons and Daughters, who seemed really unimpressed that we had to breathe the same air. This was confirmed by their NME blog :
"Soon, the first band are on, and they are an interesting mix of post-rock and Aerosmith, (Aerosmith?!?!!!) if you can imagine. They finish their set and then proceed to load all their mountains of gear into the dressing room, while we're trying to get ready and for the show, while shouting at each other as if they've just walked off the stage at Knebworth. We're not having a go, just observing"
We didn't realize that they would obviously have preferred us to lug our gear off the front of the stage into the middle of the crowd. If we'd have had proper sound on stage, like they did, I'm sure our ears would have been working well enough not to shout.
But we're not having a go, just observing.
Cornish Live Gig Review reviewed our set:
"The support for Sons and Daughters at The Hub last Saturday (10th) night were two bands who might be able to offer something different to modern music. That is, if they have things their way. Two different sounds and contrasting levels of on-stage technological sophistication contrived to happily and fully engage a moderate crowd of student-types and rockers.
6-piece Nervosa, having travelled up from Cornwall to be crammed onto the front of the stage, started with gusto and grabbed the slowly filling auditorium with a building funk-down that moved into the catchy 'Breathe In'. They followed this with a set combining raw emotions and some high-class musicianship, the highlight of which for me was a 3-pronged roll of songs mid-set that went from the soft and melodic to the strong and anthemic and finally onto the simple and nostalgic, and confirmed their progressive rock tendancies.
With a drummer aptly wearing a T-Shirt emblazoned in 'Animal' regalia, an ability to use slightly off the wall song structures and sounds and a
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