VOID's 1st gig

Yesterday marks the debut of VOID 1st gig. We went up to the stage of poly metamorphosis and did our 1st gig of our 2005 campaign. It is also when i made my 1st ever vocal debut.

Arrival at the campsite
We arrived at the campsite at about 8.10pm and started to unload. We were only able to use enter the hall at about 9.10pm due to the students having a conference before that. The moment i step into the hall, i was greeted with a stench of sweat that almost made me puke. I was telling Jason that the stench was affecting my brain. hee. The stench of sweat came from the student who had a physical game event before the conference. As a stage manager, i quickly moved to the stage section to access the situation.


Stage managing
I moved in to the stage section and to my suprise, the stage was kind of small and the drum set was below and infront at a corner of the stage. I was thinking that God is always trying to give me challenges even at the last minute. The worst thing was that there wasn't enuf monitors to provide the whole band with enough feedback. I thank God that despite the stench, i was still able to use my brain well. I quickly re-org the whole stage configuration and have the vocalists went without monitors. No choice. We quickly set up and proceed to our soundcheck.

Tuning my Floyd Ross
Just as the soundchecks were about to began, i encountered problem tuning my floyd ross epiphone which i have never encountered before. I began to panick and started to pray in my heart: " God, pls make it work...I know u are stretching my faith....Not now can???" Jeff our sound tech was quickwitted and began soundcheck with other voiders 1st. I tried my best and thank God that the tuning worked at the final moment, just in time with my soundcheck.

Soundchecks
The sounds were horrible due to the acoustic of the hall we played in. The hall was rectangular in shape surrounded by concrete walls. The sounds were like pinball, bouncing everywhere and it sounded super messy and fuzzy. I couldn't hear clearly my own guitar sound. It was horrible. But when we performed the soundcheck with a song, it sounded ok.

Set to go
Sharon the band director came up to us and have us gathered infront on the stage. She prayed to dedicate the gig to our Lord and gave us an assuring smile. We were set to Rock!!!

Soak up the sun!!!
Pat came out as the emcee to intro the band. As he asked the crowd to welcome us, Donovan clicked in!! I stepped on the wah pedal and on we go fr the song. The crowd were excited and some of them even began to dance with the song. Our band intro in te midst of the song was great too. The crowd gave us warm welcome and applauses as each member was intro-ed.

Nobody's fool
I started the song immediately after the last chord of soak up the sun. It was a familiar guitar intro to the crowd as many of them were nodding their heads with the intro. Dotz began to rap and the crowd was getting more ra-ra. Grace and dotz did a wonderful job in connecting with the crowd.
I couldn't really able to hear myself for the song when all the instruments went full-swinged. I have to keep signalling to jeff to up the volume of my monitor resulting me to forget 1 of my favourite riff at the middle of the song. A bit disappointed.... :< Perfect (Vocal debut)
Dotz introduced me as the next vocalist. And Sindric began to intro for the song. I was kind of nervous as this is my vocal debut but i told God that i am doing this only for Him. So i began with the song " Hey dad, look at me now...." To my pleasant suprise, the crowd knew the song well and they began to sing along with me just as I was afraid that i may forget the lyrics..haha. My nervous turned into excitment and fuel as i carry on with the song. When the last note was sang, the crowd's applause were loud! haha, i have made my debut...hee.

Bring me to Life!!!!
The keyboard intro-ed with Grace singing. She did a good job as i could almost hear the attitude of Amy lee from her singing. The song came to life as we (guitarists) went " zen zen, zen zen, zen zen, , , Zen zen don don.... (the rythem of the song)" Daniel jumped off the stage as he sang: " Wake me up....i can't wake up" The crowd were amazed and began to sing too.
The sound was horrible as i think my patch got problem again. Manson told me that my guitar sounded fuzzy which Haiks said that it may due to the acoustic of the hall.

Jesus Knows
This song was messy. We forgotten our chords and i also couldn't feel the music at all. My role for this song was to add fill-ins with double stop riffs that sounds like jamie walter's. But my riffs were all over the place. I couldn't hear myself clearly at all. Disappointed with my own playing...:< Lean on me (Last song)
We started the song alittle too fast...The crowd like the song very much and began to dance and sing to the song again. We ended the song well and then Pat took the front and introduced to the crowd TURT 2006 publicity. Alot of wonderful memories of my own TURT came to my head as i was watching the film. And then dotz came up to share her testimony of how God has changed her life thru Turt2004.

Then we step-up for an encore of the lean on me. As the crowd went wild again.

One way!!!(uncalled for song)
After the last chord of lean on me, the crowd wanted more and they began to chant" one way, one way" wanting us to do the song. However, not all of us were familiar with it. I turned back to discussed with soaps about the progression as Pat was telling the crowd that we have not practised the song so we would not do the song. But this made the crowd chanted louder. Then our crazy drummer began to do the drum intro for the song. I looked to Jason (we often jammed together and one way was 1 of the song we jammed before) and told him: " let's whack and gave them what they wanted" The Crowd cheered loudly and sang as in they were worshipping as we did the song. No one in the band knew the lyrics of the song, we just played the music and the crowd were singing. Amazing!! We were all hyped up.

Pack-up and go home.
By then we finished the song, it was like 10.45pm already. we packed up quickly and gathered for our final briefing. Sharon was very understanding as it was getting very late. She postponed to do the evaluation the day after(which is tonite). This marks the end of our 1st gig and i could say it was a good start. I left home feeling abit disappointed with my guitar playing. I think that i am capable of giving much better guitaring for the band. Felt that i have let the band down...:<