Day nine

Friday December 10

Mark:

For the first time since this all began, our plans smash right up against Corona with a call from my dad. He’s calling to see if we caught the news yesterday. We didn’t. There’s been a change to testing rules for entering the UK. We already knew testing would be required ahead of traveling and while in the UK, and to that end, our home testing kits were delivered and are already with my parents for when we arrive with testing due on the second and eighth day of the trip, although we’ll be out of there by the seventh day. But the announcement yesterday has changed all that. The new regulations state that you must not leave your designated residence until a negative test has been received from the test on day two. The way Christmas and the subsequent public holidays are falling, that means we wouldn’t receive a result until the 31st at the very earliest, the day we’re due to leave. Which means we won’t be able to leave my parents’ house for the entire stay. Which means it’s totally pointless going. With that, our Christmas plans are cancelled, along with the flights that had already been paid for. What now? We have no idea, but England is out. 

The day gets even better when rumours start to circulate, then get confirmed, that the hostel we’re staying in will be closing on the 16th, meaning checkout will have to be that day. At first we think this is Christmas closing, as we’ve been starting to learn in the past few days that Berlin nightlife pretty much closes around mid to late December for Christmas. But no. Plus Hotel Berlin will be closing its doors for good that day. Damn. Things just got even more uncertain. What we do know is that we want to stick around at least to play the Artliners’ gig on the 19th and then chill the next day. Which means a possible date of the 21st for leaving Berlin. For where, we have no idea.

We’ve been in Berlin for almost two weeks and haven’t done the tiniest bit of sightseeing. So far, all we’ve really seen is the main Berlin wall section and that’s across the road from our hostel. But that’s not bothering us at all. We’ve not come here to see Berlin. As much as we can in our time here, we’ve come here to be Berlin. To get underneath it. To live it. To reach the parts other tourists don’t reach. So far we feel we’ve given a decent account of that intention. To that end, we feel no pressure to get out and about and see the place. Not yet anyway. With our gig at Fargo tonight and considering how much we felt run into the ground last night, we promise ourselves we’ll take it easy today and give ourselves the best chance of a good performance.

Maja:

Take it easy, right. We got home way past midnight yesterday once again, and I think we might have overdone it with the walking. It’s like no matter how much I sleep, I can’t get to a state that feels fresh. I pretty much refuse to leave bed until maybe 5 or 6 pm when it is time to prepare for the gig. Today there’s been no energy for a rehearsal, no energy for any outings and no energy for any writing or anything else that needs to get done on a day to day basis. Today has all been about that gig, and it is what we need to do. I really have a good feeling about the manager Lenny, and really want to show him what we’re all about. 

We get to the venue well before the showtime to set up on the stage area which is right next to the window, so the people walking by can see that there’s going to be a show on tonight. Hopefully, that will make at least a couple of people come in to see what’s going on. Once we’re set up, Lenny is kind enough to lend us a monitor we didn’t know he had. Which is great. I’ve never used a monitor before. It should mean that soundwise, everything should be better than it’s ever been for me on stage, right?

Well, not quite. 

I feel drained, and I am having a hard time getting into the feeling for tonight’s show. It’s a show I really want to go well, but it’s like the tiredness is impacting even the soundcheck and I have a hard time putting out the usual charming me. We somewhat finish the soundcheck and it all sounds quite OK when we are done with it. Mark disappears to socialise with the people around and I go to recheck the setlist and psych myself up for the show. Time flies and our little group of friends arrive just before the show starts. Perfect. Psyched up, I go and say hello, then it’s showtime. 

We start off like we always do but in the middle of the first song something happens with the monitor. It could be that natural stage movement of ourselves, and simple vibrations have shifted it slightly. Whatever’s happened, all I can hear now is bass frequencies and it is making it really hard to hear myself. Impossible really. Every sound I make sounds distorted and wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it. Without any better ideas, I decide to power through. But I am so annoyed at the sound, it is hard to hear myself and it is already making a hard situation even harder. After a while I decide to turn it off. But this seems to completely put Mark off, or at least he doesn’t seem happy with suddenly having no monitor, so I turn it back on again. And the sound comes back as awful as it was before. But finally I do notice something I can make work with. As the bass frequencies come at me I’m able to link them to strong vibrations I’m feeling through my feet. I have no doubt the monitor is great and would normally be totally helpful. But it could be that its exact position on the stage, and maybe also my position on the stage right in front of it, is causing these vibrations. Which are drenching out the frequencies of the sound I need to hear to be able to sing in any controlled manner. If we’d soundchecked with the monitor earlier than we did and found this issue then, maybe simply moving it to a different position could have eliminated all this and everything would have been fine. But we got it just before we started, were delighted to have it, and didn’t foresee any problems. And now we’re mid gig, there really isn’t a lot, if anything, we can do about it. However, having identified something of a source to the problem, I now have something I can actually do about it. I immediately turn the volume down until I feel that the vibrations stop. Finally. What a relief. It’s not as loud as before, but it is now at a level so we both can hear it and it doesn’t drench my voice out with harsh frequencies. But it’s taken almost until the end of the show for me to realise all this and I’ve been battling with it all night barely being able to think about my performance at all. I try to relax and get into a good feel for the rest of the show. 

It still seems like our friends had a nice time, but it’s obvious that I need to get better at handling our equipment. I need to be able to always hear myself clearly, otherwise I just can’t put on a good show. How can I know I’m hitting all the pitches I need to if I can’t even hear myself?

I’m taking tonight as a wake up call. We need to have better equipment and I need to know how to use it better, so I know what to do when it sounds strange. 

Even though I’m not really happy with my personal performance, and this is the account of how I experienced it, we get a good reaction around the bar. It seems like people are appreciating the songs and recognising them for what they are, great songs. And I am very happy we got to play here and I definitely think that this show gave both us as a band and me as an artist irreplaceable live experience. I got to learn things today that no amount of rehearsal could ever give me. Now I know what to fix. 

The rest of the evening turns into a wonderful drinking party with our mates that were really happy that they were able to catch the show. Even though I’m having a little bit of a heavy feeling in my stomach, I am having a lovely evening. Thank you Lenny, and thank you Fargo. See you soon again.

Mark:

We do very much think we’ll be in here again soon and I go and talk to Lenny to see about a follow up show maybe next week. He has some very encouraging words and loves our energy, songs and overall presence and feel. But he’s not been totally convinced by the vocals tonight and says we need to work on that a little first. We know the monitor was against us tonight but we don’t want to make excuses or seem ungrateful so we let it go. But there is a very real point here. We’ve realised we do need a monitor and we need to have one of our own that we can get used to. And once we have that, we’ll also be able to incorporate that into our soundcheck and eliminate any issues a particular setting might throw up. Lenny is very open to us returning but if he’s heard issues we could fix before that can happen, then fair enough. I think we’re going to put this down as an experience we’ve learned a lot from and something we’re now going to act on.