Hidden Village live at the Wheatsheaf thoughts and reports

So last night Lauren and I played a set at the Wheatsheaf Hotel as part of COMA. It went okay, but as always we did have some problems. Setting up was quite stressful as we had forgotten the power adaptor for the Atari 2600 as well as all of out audio connectors and adaptors. Lauren drove back home to get the stuff as I kept setting up. But we were all set up for soundcheck, so that was good.

Thanks to Stephanie of COMA for having us perform last night, and to Tristan (I think?) for passing our name on to her.

You can watch the live version of Music for Two Desklamps from the gig here.


Setlist
1. To Stare at the Sun (2 Gameboys)
This piece is a simple yet wildly effective (in my opinion) phasing thing. It went well, as it was only playback based for two sync'ed gameboys.

2. Untitled (Laptop and Gameboy)
A simple Max/MSP patch provides an intuitive yet simple sequencer that Lauren was improvising with. This is the same as that used in the video of the Dancing LED Indicator. However, my MIDI -> CV converter was playing up so we didn't have the visual effect. The gameboy was supposed to play improvised beats etc in sync with the sequencer, but once again it seemed like it was a little out of time (like it had to be slowed down by exactly 99.99%.... agggghh). So I just muted the old grey and watched Lauren do her thing. Which was cool.

3. Music for Two Desklamps (2 Desklamps and Laptop)
This is the best that we have played this piece. It also seemed to get the best response from the crowd.

4. Four Gestures (Water Surface and Laptop)
Well.... this went... so-so. Umm. With the Toriton Plus water surface instrument, it is difficult to calibrate with little time. So it was not as successful as it has been in the past (ie. during rehearsal), and I think Lauren was a bit uncomfortable playing it as it was not as sensitive as it could have been.

5. Untitled (Atari 2600 and Christmas lights)
I really like the simplicity of this idea. The crowd appreciated it a bit as well, but I am not sure everyone there really understood the relationship between the lights and the sounds. Nonetheless it went pretty well.