Death Becomes Us
Our first live song went really well. I felt comfortable and I felt at ease hitting the high notes of a song that I normally feel quite challenged with. I think it was a great choice for an opener. The crowd seemed to warm to us immediately and were extremely supportive with a warm cheer rising in the room as we played the dying notes of the song.
I Know Ledge
I looked down at the set list and saw what song was up. I was still trying to remember how the song started when I looked at Tanya's fretted fingers ready to go. Tanya picked the opening notes and again we all crunched into the opening riff chords. In the heat of the moment I forgot to start singing the first verse so the song ended up with an extra long instrumental bit and a disappointed vocalist. I never let the second verse section pass me by and then we nailed the chorus home. During the next verse this dude in the front starts singing along with me and I could clearly hear him singing the repeated You said yourself's along with me despite the fact that this was the first time we had ever played this song live! It was a cool moment.
Molly's Lips
This is our warm up song during band practices. We always used to begin this song with some clicks from Chwarren but we recently decided to start off with me strumming the two chords frantically (similar to how I had done during a recent practice) because it just seemed right. The simple repetitive style of the song still allowed for subtle rhythm guitar variations and vocalisations and we all seemed pretty relaxed at this stage so the song really went well and The Winston Pub seemed to approve.
Machine Song
One of my favourite Pure Motive songs - it's one of our newest songs too. Warren's staggered drum beats during the verses really make my mind's ear smile. I began the solo in A Major and then switched to F# minor blues midway through for a bit of fun.
Moonflow
I have always liked the way Warren's drums kick in at the start of Moonflow and this night was no exception. We thundered away through the main riff and toward the end of the song I could feel my voice was straining.
Reach Out Quickly
For the life of me I could not remember how to start the intro for ROQ! It took me about tens seconds of deep soul searching to remember the Em riff was it. The rest of the song was awesome - we were still quite comfortable - this is our newest song and the chorus melody was given a major overhaul last week. My guitar cable came loose during the outro and so the sound of my guitar was gating strangely - thank goodness it was right at the end. Tanya forgot her snazzy jazzy chord at the end.
Fallen Leaves
We had decided upon this cover tune by each coming up with a list of thirteen songs and then democratically voting for an outcome. Fallen Leaves (Billy Talent) and Hurt (Nine Inch Nails) were tied for first place. We let Soma, our Siamese kitten, choose the song by letting him choose between a red sweet or a green sweet; he chose green which was for Fallen Leaves. We had to tune to dropped D before this song. I think I really managed to screw this song up pretty good - well lots of it anyway. Tanya's intro was spot on and I got ready to sing - my voice felt dull and I couldn't reach the higher notes in the opening line - it was like an instant blow to the head and my chords went right out the window. Shirley was not amped on playing this song at all tonight and had even requested that we skip it - maybe that would have been a good idea! At least Tanya and Warren enjoyed it. (Note to self: Will need to work on this one a bit more...)
As a curious side note; before the bands began to play last night, Sepultura's Born Stubborn blasted out of the speakers and of all the Sepultura songs that could have been played by Raymond, the d.j., little did he know that he had chosen to play a song that had made it onto our list of possible covers.
Careless
This is the first song we worked on as a band. I seemed to be really struggling with intros tonight and in this one I stopped playing halfway through the intro thinking that it was time to start the verse. I sheepishly strummed some chords till the actual start of the verse arrived on cue thanks to the rest of the band. Thank goodness there are no real high bits to sing in Careless so the singing was OK. Maybe I was overexcited at the start of the concert and used up all my voiciness.
The Fallen
This is our most complex piece of music. Tanya had been working on her intro solo part a lot in the days leading up to this moment and it went horribly wrong for her - but we all knew this bit would be the most difficult to pull off and we waited for her to piece it together and then we were all back on track for the remainder of the song. The heavy building riffs near the end of the song felt like quite an appropriate end to our first live event.
I am really stoked about how our first gig went and am so happy that a place like The Winston Pub is right here in our city of Durban. Thank you to all those who listened to us and cheered us on - it really makes a huge difference. Thank you to Russell for arranging our gig and responding to our request to play at The Winston Pub in such a swift and positive manner. Hopefully, over time, Pure Motive will build up a bigger following and we can bring more people to this cool venue. Thank you to Raymond for doing such a good job with the sound and the lack of equipment (i.e. only one little guitar amp and a bass amp) at our disposal. Thank you too to Outbreak, all the way from Port Shepstone, who performed on the stage before us.
Chane
Pure Motive
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