Hello fellas!
Here are some stories about our last few concerts, about playing solo, fighting rainy stormy weather… and so on.
We got a slot to play on the Red Bull Brandwagen at the Level 4 Festival in Vienna! Unfortunately, 'cause of some inconvenient circumstances, I ended up playing all by myself – without the Band this time!! It's been a long time since I've done that and I forgot how normal it has become to rely on Ben and Walter when we play live. If I make mistakes, hardly anyone notices. If I get lost, I just look at Ben's knowing smile and I can relax again. If I wanna improvise with the crowd and they sing along, I can stop playing, but the music goes on! If I wanna jump around without the guitar, I can just do it. ;) Playing solo… well those things don't really work. At one point I was trying to get the audience to clap with me, so I stopped playing the guitar and started clapping! A short awkward silence and some lost facial expressions in the audience told me to get on with my playing… and so that's what I did. Like nothing ever happened. ;) hihi… Well, I can't help but smile about it now, because these moments of failing (smaller, or bigger;)) are little steps in the process of getting better at what I do. Taking risks is the whole fun in playing live! You never know what's gonna happen or whether spontaneous ideas will work or not. 50-50 chance. Like in all areas in life, when you try something new. :) But it's not about succeeding or failing. For me it's already a win, if I tried something new and took a risk. Because every risk brings new experience and new experience brings you further in what you do. Ok, enough about that now. ;)
August surprised us with two weddings from dear friends of ours. Ben and I had the pleasure to support both with some of our music. It was fun, 'cause we didn't just play our own songs, but played some covers as well, like "I Will Wait" by Mumford & Sons.
As some of you know, we also played at an open air concert at a public swimming pool in Graz a few weeks ago, that "Die Grünen" from Ries organize a few times every summer. On the day the gig was supposed to happen, the weather looked kind of unstable. But crazy as we all are, we didn't listen to the weather experts and set all our equipment up. There was a roof over the stage area, but it was still outside. Instead of people coming, the ones who were already there started leaving the swimming pool and went home, because the clouds started looking scary. ;) It didn't take long and when the second band started their soundcheck the storm hit us and all our equipment was wet within five seconds. I'm not kidding… So basically we were stuck with lots of wet cables and instruments, three people that made it to the concert before it was supposed to start, some nice people from the café there and the other band. Surrounded by hard rainfall. So for the few people that came for the concert, Wolfgang from G.U.L.I.S (the other band) played two songs and I played two of our songs. Just acoustic, but in a lovely atmosphere, with the rain as percussion in the background. As a pleasant surprise Dan, who's artist name is "Feel", was also there and contributed two of his expressive songs with his Kurt Cobain-like voice. So all in all we had a wonderful evening. Not like it was planned, but maybe that was the beauty of it. :)
This past weekend we played a concert in Knittelfeld and at one the a summer fest of the austrian sculpture park and had lots of fun with the audience! :) Thanks for all of you out there, that keep coming to our concerts and/or share our music with others! That means a lot to me and keeps us going. :)
I'm really looking forward to the 27th of september! We're gonna play at the Open Street Fest (Club Wakuum) in the center Graz again! So for all of you who keep asking me, when we're gonna play in Graz again: on the 27th!! The event starts at 3pm and goes till late at night. You can find more info about that gig right here.
Lots of love,
Klara van Klay ;)