Fortissimo

I was glad when Derek or Hans said that today's guitars will be plugged to the mixer directly. I'm not tyrannical, but you have to have control as a soundman to ensure the best sound you can come up with. That's why as much as possible I'd like all instruments, with the exception of drums for smaller venues, to be miked/plugged up.

When the band was preparing for their first item halfway into today's events, a young guy no more than 30, came up to me from behind and said, 'Are you aware that you are not allowed to play until 1.15?' And I looked at him, and because I expected the people whom we've been working with all along from Student Care to talk to me/us if there were any problems, I was thinking in my heart, 'Who the fuck are you... get lost.'

'People are having exams now, we have been receiving complaints.'
'You are from?'
'Student Care.'
'... Where's Caroline? Andy?'
-keeps quiet-

In the end we had to push it back. And when we could do so no longer, we had to choose Derek's original because it was apparently the softest piece. And that guy came back and asked me to lower the volume, so fed up with having to adjust the instruments, I sighed and dropped the master volume by almost 10 marks. It was a relief for them to finish, because honestly man, I don't want to keep disturbing those upstairs, nor keep receiving complaints. I have only the guy from Student Care to get upset with, which is not fair, because they have the unfortunate job of relaying such messages. I was already preparing for a personal visit from an invigilator upstairs, whom I'll blast for the noise created during International Student Week, regardless of whether RMIT organized it or not. Doubt they did. The guy told me the second time he came to the mixer that 'I think the feedback from the Hall is that the band is ok but the talking is too loud.'

I had WTF written all over the expression I gave him. And Zhi gave me the same look when I told her the story later. Ridiculous.

At least when the band did their second piece, I could grant them a proper performance, since it was in fact 1.15 sharp. And it felt really great to open all barriers for their last song Smells Like Teen Spirit. Hans was not bad at rallying the crowd. Well, it was mostly UB anyway, so they'd go wild at the slightest cue. You feel so into the music, like when after the clean intro, I suddenly upped the guitar volume so that the next distorted phase of the song blasted from the speakers. And I was glad to hear that Ben Chen's bass had a beautiful sound, because I EQed just about everything plugged up.

Which also explains why I froze in mixed feelings of anger and a sense of impending doom when Isa came half an hour late and plugged his guitar into his own amp. Right across the stage so it had little chance of reaching my mixer.

Cannot liddat sial a-bang.

So anyway, I lowered the midbass and upped the treble, resulting in a lovely twang sound from the bass. If you've heard Smells Like Teen Spirit, you know the bass isn't anything special. But the riff is really good, and the accented sound brought its uniqueness out. Hurray for EQ and me!

As the song ended, I felt a great boulder of worry and tension lift, and a flood of joy rushing in to take its place. The soundman's nightmare of relentlessly monitoring every single instrument, shifting volumes accordingly, was over, and I had pulled it off, spectacularly if the cheers were anything to go by. They were really more than just cued.

We did it.

OH again, THANK YOU VERY MUCH all those who came to support!!
Kaiyan for helping with sound (STILL GOT FEEDBACK LA!!)
Lirong and gang, our cheering kickstarters (WHOOOO~!).
Mano Guech Ryan Graham Rocky... and many others I didn't see personally but I know it took much more than these 5... thank you for pushing flyers and lucky draw coupons into people's frightened faces.
Juliana, for shamelessly sticking our logo stickers on bewildered passerbys' arms, for rambling on and on before 12pm to draw attention (WO BU HUI JIANG HUA YU)
Mariani and all those who tended to the banner (LAI LAI LELONG AH WOI!)
And of course, The Killerjanes, even though there were more guest stars than actual members (WHACK ONLY LA FUCK).

Man, without you guys, everyday would have been like the second day. -shiver-

This is one of the few times that being a small, budding group in SIM has been a huge advantage to us. We are small and we all know each other, and the support that we were blessed with was just amazing. My friend from RMIT dismissed the upcoming group with 'Oh I dunno those people.' Graham's brother didn't even know about StompAIDS.

So now we wait.