Induction Gig Evaluation

For our second year induction gig, we covered "Fuck Me Pumps" by Amy Winehouse. This is a soulful pop song with a 4/4 time signature. We decided to cover this song because each element of the track allows us to showcase our musicianship including drum fills, funk style bass lines and vocal and guitar harmonies, Amy Winehouse is also myself and Ellie's favorite musician.

There was a diplomatic process in deciding what track we were going to perform for the induction gig. We wanted to perform a song from an artist in which we could showcase our musicianship and perform confidently. Everyone in my band listens to and are fans of Amy Winehouse so we decided we were definitely going to cover one of her tracks. I have an Amy Winehouse playlist downloaded on my phone on Spotify with every one of her songs on so we plugged my phone into the aux and played through about eight of her songs and decided that “fuck me pumps” was the best one for us.

There wasn’t really much for us to figure out in regard to the entire track because we were all familiar with the song as an ensemble. However, we did need to make sure the song sounded polished, so we listened to the track a couple of times, and then played along with the track, and after about an hour we had it spot on. For this song, Jack played drums, Leila played guitar, Will played bass and Ellie and I were on joint lead vocals with harmonies. Leila was struggling to play the chords for the song as there was a lot of bar chords and arpeggiation at the same time, so we got Phil to come into our pod and help us to perfect the track. He also changed the bass notes from the original version to make the song sound better. As we only had about four hours across two days to learn the track, we had to pick up the lyrics of the song pretty quickly. I printed off the lyrics and highlighted myself and Ellie’s parts and the joint harmonies to help us to visually remember how the song goes. The night before the performance, I went on a long drive and put noise cancellation head phones on and listened to the song on a loop whilst reading the lyrics of the song at the same time which helped me massively to memorise the majority of the song.

The dynamics in our band were fantastic in regard to band chemistry. Considering that we chose to work together for second year anyway, this is what I expected. But our rehearsal went so much better and more positive than I ever anticipated. In comparison to last year, rehearsing in pods was tiresome and I didn’t enjoy it, it always seemed as though we had too much time in pods, but now that our band chemistry is so fantastic, we are all productive and organised, it seems as though we don’t have enough time in pods. If the band dynamics continue to be this positive and productive, I am certain we are going to create some fantastic music and be using a lot of our spare time rehearsing and recording in the studio.

As previously said, everyone had a very professional and organised attitude. We are all really good friends which is something that I did worry about because this could have let to having too much time laughing and joking with each other and not enough time actually doing productive work. But I would say that this year, everyone’s attitudes have changed. We know we have to get the work done, but we also haven’t got rid of the fun aspect of rehearsals. We have the perfect balance. This has improved my attitude and mood in college significantly. I am very confident that I am working towards the right goals with the right people around me.

I think our performance went really well considering that this was the first time, Jack, Will, Leila, Ellie and I had actually performed together. Although we only had two days to prepare, we were rehearsed to a good standard and the overall sound from the entire band was perfect (thanks to Phil who sorted out the channels on the mixing desk). It did feel as though that performing the song, the tempo of the track was a bit too slow, but afterwards when I asked other people about it, they said the tempo was perfect, so we must have been playing it a bit too fast in our prior rehearsals. I also forgot some of the lyrics on the final verse because my brain was too focused on trying to remember them that I forgot them. However, I just made up some lyrics and I’m pretty sure I played it out and nobody noticed (apart from the other Amy Winehouse fans). On the other hand, I am really pleased with how the vocal harmonies went, I think Ellies soulful vocals and my funk vocals go really well together. The bass line and the guitar were also in great harmony with one another and I feel as though our stage movement and band chemistry were fantastic. A lot of the first years also said that our stage presence and band chemistry was impressive. Apart from forgetting the lyrics a little bit, I am really happy with how our performance went considering it was our first ever one!

To be honest we weren’t really focusing on other bands before the gig because we were so busy trying to perfect the song, however I did hear that a few other bands were struggling to come to a diplomatic decision for a song and to concentrate when rehearsing. Our band did have a conversation about what we wanted to achieve from not just the induction gig but for the entire year, we know that we can still have fun, but we also have to be productive and creative at the same time.

The measures that I will to improve my future performance is definitely to focus and work on band communication on stage and to ensure that I learn the lyrics as soon as I can, in all honesty though, we did only have two days to learn the song which isn’t much considering in the first year we had four months to prepare six songs.

Here is a video of our performance: