Interim Performance Evaluation

Well, despite Jon threatening to have to work straight after the performance (which would have left me without a sound spod), things went rather well. Lets break it down into various component parts -

Sound - Well, I don't know how well it sounded front of house, but the backing CD was lovely and loud in my monitor, but I could have had a bit more guitar in there too I reckon. Putting in the effort to make my chorus and distortion sounds as similar in level as possible was worthwhile, just need to tweak the distortion up a bit more now.

Space - It was always going to be difficult to have 4 completely separate performances stylistically in the same space, as witnessed by Emma being very badly lit. Hopefully just the white lighting that was on was adequate for my needs, I didn't want Jon neglecting the sound by farting around with the lighting desk too. Obviously the video projection and lighting design for the final performance will be sorted, with separate people responsible for lighting, sound, and video mixing / projection.

Playing - This went better than expected namely because of
1) the masses of extra practice I put in this morning
2) the adrenaline that was a-pumping.

The only major stumbling block within this performance was a little hiccup during Super Mario Bros. That piece is just so tricky at speed. More practice needed on that part, and a small mishap during Green Hill Zone turning into an improvised solo until I found the melody again; hopefully not too noticeable.

Material - This was the predominant raison d’être of the performance; to see how well the Classic Retro game themes would be received by an audience. Because of the lighting I could not see faces of audience members (nor would I have had lapses in concentration long enough to do so) but Jon tells me that there were smiles of approval during the playing, and Gris even gave a small chuckle to herself at the end.

However, although I've pretty much perfected the TAB fingerings for Act III, the page turns need a lot more close scrutiny, bearing in mind I had to play the entire Zelda 2-octave melody from memory as I couldn't turn the page half way through it.

Overall if I had to give this performance a mark out of 10, I'd probably have to say around 6 or 7, which is good considering I really need to learn the material bettter.

Some of the comments from my peers at the end of the afternoon:
"You're absolutely insane mate" - referring to the choice of material hopefully.
"You're going to have to explain those pieces to me" - not everybody is going to "get it"
"I even got the bling reference - very subtle" - referring to my Lionheart from Final Fantasy VIII chain that I wore. Now that that was picked up on, I'll wear it again for the full performance, and also the Squall ring that I have (as seen below).