There we went. To the festival. there were so many things that happened before this one, and I should say that by far this was an enjoyable experience. Another roller-coaster ride although it wasn't as "thrilling" as that last one. On the night where I posted the last blog entry, in the end we decided that we'd bail this one. Simply because we weren't ready and our drummer were being so dissociative from the sleepiness. To be honest, I was glad because I didn't want to play and I don't feel confident enough to play in this competition.
I might have told you before that anything with the word "Sinode" in it, means huge. Lotsa exposure. Thousands of judging eyes. Words of mouth. Like, massive. But then I don't know why I just want this to be over. I was giving up. I did what I could, and didn't give a shit on what's gonna happen. But one thing leads to another and we ended up joining the competition even though our arrangement was done only hours before the competition. We were the first in line to perform. Seems like it was meant to be because whenever the situation becomes impossible, it changed in the last minute. So I was like whatever, let's just get this over with.
I thought our arrangement was pretty OK even though it's not that tidy or complicated. I stole OOR's The Beginning guitar style for the front part lol.
I have a whole lot of things that I discovered during that day, since it was the first time for me to enter a band competition in that caliber.
We were the first band to perform so we set up an easy standard for everyone lol. There were a number of common genre that emerged. RocknRoll, pop, jazz, metal.
One thing pissed me off the most.
(almost)EVERYONE WAS TRYING SO HARD TO BE CASIOPEA. Maybe most of them don't even know who Casiopea is, but they SURELY sounded like them. The typical Jazz Funk Pop kinda thing with lots of syncopes, off beats, slapping, complicated instrumentals and the like. Their skills astounded me but after a while, I wanted to puke. The reason why they did that was understandable. They played that way so that they'll get marks for the level of difficulty. Some of them managed to nail it, and some of them didn't.
But one band me the most. They looked like they will be performing in a metal concert and they had that look on their faces, and their vocalist looked so girly but yet intimidating. They went up on stage and started their sound check. Oh boy was it loud. The distortion was really heavy and loud my ears were pierced. When they started playing... Oh man. I'm having goosebumps remembering them play. They sang a hymn called "Dalam Dunia Penuh Kerusuhan" (In This Riot-Filled World) composed by H. A. Pandopo in 1980. They started off hauntingly smooth. It was pretty horrifying but beautiful at the same time. After the first few lines at the verse, and then they started the grand intro. Oh God. They sounded like Nightwish!! It was crazy. Everybody were stunned and I myself couldn't help but stare. It was grand, and haunting, and beautiful. The vocalist could reach the notes smoothly. I saw the judges were stunned as well. But in the end, they didn't make it into the top 3. They managed to get into the top 10 anyway. I guess that was understandable, because when I heard their performance that I recorded on my phone, they took too long, and there was a problem in terms of sound balance. The guitars were too overpowering, and they played waaaay beyond the alloted time, that's why their marks were reduced. The band who became the champion was pretty good, though. Their guitarist stepped up their game. The band revolved on the guitarist. He played mightily tidy and his skills were no joke. The band complimented him nicely although the vocalist was just standard. Their song arrangement for the required song were also really good.
Honestly I thought that the winner will be one of those Casiopea wannabes but then I was wrong. It kinda motivated me to keep on doing and loving the current genre that I like and polishing the way I play regardless of what genre.
Winning a competition is one thing. And I don't really care about winning. But then after this competition, though I still don't care if we're gonna win or not, but I really want us to sound more presentable and can be up to par with other bands and certainly I don't want to be the worst. LOL. We were one of the lowest quality performer and I realized that we were nothing compared to the others. The others put more time and effort (obviously) for this while we did shit and try to get everything together at the last minute. Now I know our standard compared to the rest. And I know the standard for this competition. I've never watched this competition before even though it's being held annually for a pretty long time already. I know what to expect. This was totally different than BolehLand's standard. I could say that our standard is way higher than them. I've joined a number of BolehLand's battle of the bands, and only a handful will be able to come close to our top 10 performers. For real. Even though our standard here is waaaaay lower than Java.
I might have told you before that anything with the word "Sinode" in it, means huge. Lotsa exposure. Thousands of judging eyes. Words of mouth. Like, massive. But then I don't know why I just want this to be over. I was giving up. I did what I could, and didn't give a shit on what's gonna happen. But one thing leads to another and we ended up joining the competition even though our arrangement was done only hours before the competition. We were the first in line to perform. Seems like it was meant to be because whenever the situation becomes impossible, it changed in the last minute. So I was like whatever, let's just get this over with.
I thought our arrangement was pretty OK even though it's not that tidy or complicated. I stole OOR's The Beginning guitar style for the front part lol.
I have a whole lot of things that I discovered during that day, since it was the first time for me to enter a band competition in that caliber.
We were the first band to perform so we set up an easy standard for everyone lol. There were a number of common genre that emerged. RocknRoll, pop, jazz, metal.
One thing pissed me off the most.
(almost)EVERYONE WAS TRYING SO HARD TO BE CASIOPEA. Maybe most of them don't even know who Casiopea is, but they SURELY sounded like them. The typical Jazz Funk Pop kinda thing with lots of syncopes, off beats, slapping, complicated instrumentals and the like. Their skills astounded me but after a while, I wanted to puke. The reason why they did that was understandable. They played that way so that they'll get marks for the level of difficulty. Some of them managed to nail it, and some of them didn't.
But one band me the most. They looked like they will be performing in a metal concert and they had that look on their faces, and their vocalist looked so girly but yet intimidating. They went up on stage and started their sound check. Oh boy was it loud. The distortion was really heavy and loud my ears were pierced. When they started playing... Oh man. I'm having goosebumps remembering them play. They sang a hymn called "Dalam Dunia Penuh Kerusuhan" (In This Riot-Filled World) composed by H. A. Pandopo in 1980. They started off hauntingly smooth. It was pretty horrifying but beautiful at the same time. After the first few lines at the verse, and then they started the grand intro. Oh God. They sounded like Nightwish!! It was crazy. Everybody were stunned and I myself couldn't help but stare. It was grand, and haunting, and beautiful. The vocalist could reach the notes smoothly. I saw the judges were stunned as well. But in the end, they didn't make it into the top 3. They managed to get into the top 10 anyway. I guess that was understandable, because when I heard their performance that I recorded on my phone, they took too long, and there was a problem in terms of sound balance. The guitars were too overpowering, and they played waaaay beyond the alloted time, that's why their marks were reduced. The band who became the champion was pretty good, though. Their guitarist stepped up their game. The band revolved on the guitarist. He played mightily tidy and his skills were no joke. The band complimented him nicely although the vocalist was just standard. Their song arrangement for the required song were also really good.
Honestly I thought that the winner will be one of those Casiopea wannabes but then I was wrong. It kinda motivated me to keep on doing and loving the current genre that I like and polishing the way I play regardless of what genre.
Winning a competition is one thing. And I don't really care about winning. But then after this competition, though I still don't care if we're gonna win or not, but I really want us to sound more presentable and can be up to par with other bands and certainly I don't want to be the worst. LOL. We were one of the lowest quality performer and I realized that we were nothing compared to the others. The others put more time and effort (obviously) for this while we did shit and try to get everything together at the last minute. Now I know our standard compared to the rest. And I know the standard for this competition. I've never watched this competition before even though it's being held annually for a pretty long time already. I know what to expect. This was totally different than BolehLand's standard. I could say that our standard is way higher than them. I've joined a number of BolehLand's battle of the bands, and only a handful will be able to come close to our top 10 performers. For real. Even though our standard here is waaaaay lower than Java.
This competition really made my motivation bigger and I realized that I can't just be in this position. I need to move forward. Get back on track. Even though I was playing keyboard, I wanted to improve my bass playing instead. Hahaha. Hopefully I can attend a course anytime soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment