Last night Rackets and Fives launched our full-length album, "Roslyn" at the Rosemount. I actually can't believe it's all over. My favourite high school English teacher and drama director used to tell us to prepare for the empty feeling that comes after the elation of performing a play when it's finished. Sure enough, after spending countless hours preparing for a performance, it's a strange feeling that comes when it's all over.
The same is true with the launch being over, although the whole experience was really fantastic. We spent over 2 years as a band, learning, arranging, playing and finally recording the songs from Roslyn. When Dave and I were in the car on the way to the Rosemount, we were a little stunned that the day was finally here.
Richard and Bre flew in for the launch and we had a fun day of practice at Sound Suite before the big night. We were all supposed to play with the CD beforehand to prepare and Dave, JP, Kok and I had a couple of practices together as well. For a little while it seemed like we were on shaky ground - we hadn't played together in so long! After a bit of a wakeup call from Dave we got back on track and felt a lot more confident when we left Sound Suite.
I have never been to a gig that went by so fast as the one at the Rosie that night did. I had actually been thinking that all the waiting to play would seem long, but it wasn't so. It started off quiet, with few people, and as the night progressed the place filled up. That was a relief.
Geraldine was great - I'd never heard her sing before and she has a really lovely voice. Her soulful, relaxed tunes with the sporadic percussion accompaniment were perfect to start the night off. Next up: Little Ships. A duo (Jack Midalia and Sarah Tout) that I've seen play many times before and they just keep getting better. Kok Wah played some guest basslines that added even more depth to the songs. The third band to play was Community Chest, featuring Laurie Sinagra, the great guy who recorded our album. Their drummer was unable to make it to the gig at the last minute, so the band was a lots more chilled out than usual, which was just fine. They played a really tight set that I got to see most of when I wasn't chatting with the lovely people who came down to see us play. I was trying to keep the speaking to a minimum as I was recovering from Bronchitis. Water, scotch on the rocks and lozenges in my pockets were keeping me going.
After what seemed like minutes it was our turn to set up. The setup went smoothly and before we knew it we were playing "The Good Old Colony Times", a fun, traditional song to warm us up and figure out the sound. Song by song we went through the album, and I think we all had a really fun time playing together. There were some issues with the sound, and despite my remedies my voice was not in top shape but in the end, we just wanted to play the songs and have a good time. I think the people who came down really liked the set. We finished with Confederate, which is such a fun song to play. We were all on a high when we finished playing, hugging each other and sporting wide smiles. I was especially proud of Dave, he wrote all those songs and really, it has been Dave who kept our momentum going, who put is whole self into the band and the music.
After the gig it was back to ours for a celebratory scotch. When everyone had gone Dave and I sat up and talked until late, ten went to bed after a truly great day.
Rackets and Fives are:
Angela Boyce
Breanna Evangelista
Richard MacKenzie
David Lee Owen
JP Papineau
Kok-Wah Seet
You can listen to us and buy our album Here.
