A Summer of Practice

 Welcome! or Welcome back! As we head into autumn and the leaves fall off metaphorical and literal trees it is a great time to reflect on the old and and begin to grow the new! For creatives we are slowly being allowed with the easing of restrictions to return to performing practice, in many cases with precautions in place, but the feeling of being able to perform has for me been quite cathartic and rejuvenating. The group I perform with Me & My Friends have played several festivals this year, each of which being a valuable experience. 

The first festival we did, Camp Kin, was a chance to perform line the music we had made in lockdown live for the first time. It was interesting seeing which live arrangements resonated with a festival audience and which didn't and seeing audiences relearn their role in the transaction of performance starting a bit wary and nervous to dancing by the end of the set. It felt as performers we had to give them permissions to dance and become involved and bring them into the empty space in front of the stage, it was fascinating to see them relearn how to have such experiences. See a short clip of that performance here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CSeCvgTC8kc/ 

The second gig we did was at the Landworkers Alliance skills festival which was a weekend of workshops about sustainable agriculture with music thrown in. We arrived on a Sunday which is always a tough day to play as many people have checked out and ready to go home but his crowd had a relaxed desire to embody the music in any way possible. Before we played a Celidh band were performing and calling out set dances then they had a festival closing ceremony which bizarrely involved burning a wicker statue whilst people did random dancing around it, so they were already warmed up. Noticing this we adapted our set to what we call a 'bangers set' with all high energy tunes, this paid off with audiences dancing as can be seen here. We also played on a specially adapted truck that folded out into a stage which was a really cool concept. 

The final festival we did was at Purbeck Valley Folk festival, the big learning curb from this experience was the importance of preparation for sound tech. At the two previous festivals we had as long as we liked to sound check, get PA and monitor levels but at this festival we only had 30 mins which is not a lot of time at all especially when you have temperamental instrument mics for clarinet and cello. Throughout the set the sound kept cutting out in monitors and we lost cello sound front of house throughout causing the sound engineer to run on stage and switch cables. This can be really dejecting as a performer when it isn't going well! It was interesting to see how the band individually responded to the moment with some telling jokes, some acknowledging the issue and waiting for its resolution. It made me consider coping strategies around technical issues. They were eventually resolved to a passable level where we could play a bonanza of 6 high tempo songs in a row winning the crowd over but I couldn't help but feel disappointed with the performance and the lack of technical checks offered. As it wasn't great we didn't take any video on stage.