Hello Dear Reader!
I performed my music live for the first time in over five years last week!
Last week (Thursday March 16th, 2023), I played live at the Bradford Electronic Music Open Mic (EMOM) event, which was held at Sally Brown’s Live Music Cafe in Bradford, United Kingdom.
Watch a recording of me playing live at the Bradford Electronic Music Open Mic (EMOM) event here on Youtube:
It was my first live music performance since I played at an Electronic Music Open mic night in Manchester, over five years ago (2017). It was also the first time I have sung my latest songs in front of an audience!
The event in Bradford was the first one to be held at “Sally Brown’s” and was part of the ever-growing Electronic Music Open Mic movement, which began in Manchester, UK, in 2017. I actually played live at the very first EMOM event at the Fuel Cafe Bar in Manchester, and then a couple more, before “retiring” from playing live.
I played three songs at the Bradford EMOM event: my latest single “Yellow and Grey”, along with two new songs – “Equation of Time” and “Life”.
I was quite nervous before going on stage! I had only played these songs in a live stream performance on Instagram a few weeks ago, and wasn’t sure how they would sound being played for real. I was a bit worried about how an audience would react to my singing too!
“Life” is my next Single
After a few other musicians had performed their sets, including some of the EMOM regulars, I took to the stage! I played “Equation of Time” first, which includes a sample of audio from a Youtube video by Roger Dignard. Next was “Yellow and Grey” which was great to play live, and then another new song called “Life” followed. I haven’t quite finished the lyrics for “Life” so it was a chance to see what people thought of it so far! However, I’m planning to release “Life” as my next single in early April 2023.
The performance went really well, and I had a great reaction from my fellow musicians and performers. Those in the audience who weren’t performing themselves also appeared to like my songs! I had a few technical hitches including a microphone stand that wouldn’t remain still (watch the video to see it!), and not being able to hear myself singing properly. I used the in-house microphone, which meant I had no way of monitoring my singing. The speakers for the venue sound system were also very loud and in front of me, which again didn’t help. I also had to use one audio input channel on the venue system which left the sound a bit flat and not in stereo. I’ll know next time to be more prepared!
In terms of equipment used, I had my laptop running a backing track on Ableton Live 11, with an M-Audio M-Track Duo audio interface. I used the new AKAI MPK Mini Plus MIDI keyboard to play some synth parts live including a synth solo in “Life” (using VST plugins including the LinPlug Alpha).
Apart from those difficulties, I was really pleased with my first live performance in over five years! I’ll hopefully know what to expect the next time I do an open mic night and hopefully sing better and perform better. I had a great time and got a real buzz from playing live!
I’ll be playing at a few more open mic nights and other events over the next couple of months, culminating in a very special and exciting live performance! I’ll post an announcement about these very soon, so please Subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss out!
The song “Yellow and Grey” by Mistrust is available to buy at mistrust.bandcamp.com.
Everything's Gone Green - The Other Side of Mistrust 
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