samedi, février 10, 2007 Soul2Soul: Victim, Villian, or Valentine? A gig report .jpg) I spent a surprising night tonight with Soul2Soul, another band under the Campus Crusade ForeRunner banner. I got the invite from Jason, bassist extraordinare (giving props where it's due!), and could only make this gig out of the five or so that they had, so I made my way down to SIM at Namley Ave.Thinking that I was going to attend yet another student lecture theatre sort of concert, which doesn't really require a lot of interaction with the people attending, I was surprised to see that the event was a sit-down dinner and required tickets. I was alright with not having dinner, but the hosts (All Saint's Presbyterian Church) wouldn't hear of it, and I was invited to take the seat of an absentee. Already slightly abashed by their generousity, and even more mortified that I was highly inappropriately dressed (think extremely short dress and high boots), I resigned myself to enjoying myself and just listening to the band, especially since I have really high expectations of what Forerunner/Crusade produce! The band didn't disappoint. Gone were the cheesy and ineffective playacting that I remembered from the Void check-out, no more stilted scripts and bad handling of the audience - this band was comfortable in front of a crowd, and showed no signs of amateur stage-fright. Granted: the audience was an easy one; very interactive and ready to engage with the band, but Sharon's bubbly personality shone through her introduction and welcome, which helped warm everyone up and shake everything looser, paving the way for a wonderful evening. (I honestly should have started writing down the songlist for the evening - I forgot to do this the last time as well, so it looks like I'll be bugging him on MSN soon for the playlist.) Despite the fact that I can't remember specific songs which they played, I do remember thinking that the selection of songs was a good one - nothing too hard, and nothing too sentimental. I was rather pleased at the inclusion of Del Amitri's "Roll to Me", which I love, but is often thought of as "too obscure" to rate highly in gig lists. (I forgot, of course, that it was used in Shrek.) Using personal stories to string together life lessons with songs such as Michelle Branch + Santana's Game of Love (is love a game where you victimize the poor sods that come along?), Billy Joel's I love you just the way you are (do you look to change the one you're with?), Boyzone's Baby Can I Hold You Tonight (how to say sorry 101), Soul2Soul kept hitting the nail on the head tonight, over and over. Using stories in public speaking always holds your audience in thrall, and using personal life stories is always a winner - which is particularly important in e events. Sharon's very real sharing/storytelling was the key to bringing the message home to the crowd, and I'm quite sure that they took something home to think about tonight. Technically speaking, the team sounds pretty tight. There was a little fumbling at the beginning, with the guitarists dropping off at whole bars because the song had seagued into a pre-chorus, or repeated a stanza. This seemed to catch them off-guard, leaving Audrey, the drummer, alone to carry the song through the missed bar, as the guitarists waited for the next bar to come back in. Props to her for continuing (quite literally!) without missing a beat, or it might have been messy! It also might have been a good idea to let Sharon warm up a little more before the concert; there were a few missed higher-register notes at the beginning (but only at the beginning!) One thing which I must mention, even though it sounds really stupid, is Joan's excellent handling of the shaker. I've heard bad shakers before - lazy shakers, who think that the egg is a present that they got on Christmas morning and are trying to figure out what's inside. Any musician worth his salt (oh, the puns, the puns) will tell you that there is a specific technique to playing the shaker - it's not just an up-and-down movement, it's got variations like the slide (soft rocking of the egg), the swoosh (swooshing around the circumference of the egg), the toss (which is the most common, you hit the beans/rice against the opposite side of the egg), etc. Joan got it, which was a pleasure to hear. God is in the details. I wish that they had done a more comprehensive/longer introduction of the band members though, giving them air-time as they did a solo or something within a song. You know the kind of introduction that I'm talking about - it's done all the time at gigs - stall a song midway and give the stage to each person in turn for about 4-8 bars of "them-time"... I thought it would have been nice to do that, but I guess I can't expect everything! Ending with a wonderful rendition of Sting's Brand New Day (by which time Sharon had definitely completely warmed up), I was pleased to have thoroughly enjoyed myself tonight. Any gig ending with a Sting song done well is a good one. Addendum: some thoughts on music and the iPod, which I completely agree with. Libellés : music [Soul2Soul: Victim, Villian, or Valentine? A gig report] |
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