First gig with the Axe FX and my original band

Sidivan

Fractal Fanatic
So, I've been hard at work trying to get 2 new bands off the ground and I finally got to use my Axe FX live for a Battle of the Bands. From the Megatap Delay ambient sound for "From Yesterday" all the way to the heavy crunch of our original music it performed flawlessly.

We played "The Venue" which is the biggest stage I've ever been on. I've seen bands the likes of Dropkick Murphy's, Trivium, Lamb of God, and even Kings X on this stage, so I was pretty nervous. Professional sound guys, dedicated monitor tech, dedicated light guy, whole bit. We had 30 mins to setup, play 2 covers and 1 original, and tear down. Setup was quick and easy, the sound guy, "Butter", is by far the best sound guy around here and he wasn't even surprised that I wanted to go direct.

We unleashed "From Yesterday" by 30 seconds to mars and from the very first note I saw the eyes of other guitar players open wide in disbelief. Hit the chorus and people were moving. Next up was Chevell's "The Red". I started into it and again, smiles from every other band in the room (that I could see).

Then the original... I got really nervous at this point because most of the people in this room have never heard us. The judges are guys with real pull around here... radio station guys, operations manager of the building, and local music critics. This was it... my right hand could barely hold my pick as I was shaking so bad.

Now, I've played a lot of gigs in other bands, the bass player plays 4 nights a week with his cover band, our drummer has over 1000 gigs under her belt, and our singer was in a mildly successful original band previous to joining us. Lots of stage experience.... the drummer clicks off the original and the intro sounds huge. We get to the main string skipping riff and my thumb holding the pick is moving on it's own... I can't even hit the strings I'm aiming for, so I chug the root a couple times and regain my composure by beat 3.

We get all done and as we're walking off stage people are coming up to us and telling us they have goosebumps from the performance. The judges are giving us the "Hell yes" look when we walk by their table, so we're feeling pretty confident. Apparently, nobody, including the super-critical drummer I'm in another band with, could tell I screwed the pooch going into the first verse. Thank you, Butter.

The monitor tech asked me what I was using afterwards, so I gave him a quick rundown while I was packing up. He couldn't believe it. I heard later that Butter was giving the Axe FX huge props while we were playing. I taped the whole thing with my Kodak Playsport, so we'll hopefully have that up on Youtube soon. Also, Butter recorded an audio feed direct from the board for us, so I'm going to try to sync that with the video.

We didn't take down the grand prize, an incredible ska band with 8 members (all music majors from a local private university) took that honor, but we won "Best Original Song"! That nets us a paid booking here, but this time we get to play 2 hours!

Thank you Fractal for an amazing piece of gear that never ceases to impress and amaze!
 
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I was actually embarrassed by how nervous I was. Then I talked to the rest of the band and everybody was crapping their pants during the show, which made me feel a little better about it. Even my drummer was like, "Dude... that stage is intimidating. I was shaking."

BTW, the song we won with is called "Unfortunately" and is on our myspace and facebook page.
 
It's good to be nervous! That means you really care about it. If you weren't nervous or excited to play, that's when I'd start to worry...
 
Congrats on your performance man! That was fun to read. It made me think back to my "battle of the bands" & "guitar contest" years long ago. I -SO- wish I had my Axe-FX back then.
 
Too cool. Good on you and your band. Love reading stories like that, takes me back. Thumbs UP!

Congrats on getting booked out of it too; that's the real silver lining beyond the exposure. Nicely done!
 
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