roxbury review

firstly, miles is a master with the camera. there's some more shots over at his photoblog. (as an aside, blake, over on miles' page put your mouse on the close-up shot of me and leave it sitting there until the caption comes up)

secondly, bec was absent from this gig (many thanks to bec for doing all the babysitting that i was supposed to help with so that telafonica could play this gig), while blake and cherry were at pains to remove themselves from the responsibility of writing up the review, so it has fallen to me...

blake commented in the spacia on the way in that it was a rather quiet trip, since bec and eliza are the loud ones (his words, not mine). the roxbury was as red as we remembered and luchi were setting up as we got there. it was their second gig, and the sound guy, who was otherwise great, didn't seem to quite know what to do with a band with so much electronics and no drums! so they took a little while to sort that out, but got there in the end (which also made things relatively easy for us as later the sound guy now had his head around the whole concept!). anna chase set up once they were done and pretty much went straight into her set. she ran her guitar and an accordian through her loopstation, layered over some loops she had prepared at home, and made a really beautiful mix of drones and melodies. i enjoyed it greatly.

we then set up our stuff, though couldn't get the autoharp to register on the mixing desk, so that was a bit unfortunate, but anyway. we started with blending the edges in bec's absence, as blake loves it and bec doesn't. it went rather nicely, with some new additions from cherry's saxophone. the set, on the whole, was quite up and electronic. the rendition of i can hear there's a peace in the dark was the closest to fully satisfying that we have done so far - i think the gradual changes are getting it there and i'm nearly satisfied with it now - it doesn't just rest on it's chorus anymore. i also enjoyed smashing my drum stick on the very last bar of i can't make you love me - so rock and roll. it was a successful set, i thought. it also means there's another permutation of the line-up which we now know will work well!

luchi came on next. i commented to them afterwards that it was very rare that we got to play with a band who are actually doing something in a similar vein to what we do - mixing electronic beats with guitars, fx, melodies and harmonies. i thought they were great and i had a smile on my face for their whole set. they also did an excellent job of filling the room with an audience, for which we are very grateful.

after lugging our gear out through the fancy dress party taking place on the bottom floor, with the assistance of the very friendly older indian gentleman who was the venue's security guard for the evening, we drove off into the west.