#176 Munchen, Olympiahalle, 2.5.2012

#177 - Stuttgart, SchleyerHalle, 11.05.2012

#176 Munchen, Olympiahalle, 2.5.2012

Another year, another show. This is in itself amazing!
We're talking PG here, the man that used to tour once or twice per decade at the most!
Not complaining, though... :-)

The show in Munich was the first in a new series of New Blood dates across Germany, and as all 'firsts' it had is highs and lows (though mostly highs), which is especially true when you are dealing with a full orchestra where only a handful are 'stable' musicians and the rest keep varying. I'm sure that in the ten days between now and Stuttgart (which I hope will be my next show...) the amalgam of the players will have vastly improved, making it all tighter and without the few 'loose ends' that one could notice in Munich.
Again, that is not to say that the show was anything less than great!

Peter's voice sounded relaxed and in good shape. Tom Crowley keeps doing an amazing job on piano (but so do all the others on their respective instruments!).
Melanie was back and she was accompanied by a new (to me) second vocalist, Rosie Doonan, with a great stage presence and very good voice.

Setlist-wise, we were treated to a couple of 'newish' songs: Secret World and Father Son. I know the former has been played only occasionally before (mostly in the US), and can't remember wether the latter ever was on the last tour. Both showed signs of absolute brilliancy, but they did not sound fully matured, and I expect them to improve daily till they reach perfection. Once in Stuttgart, of course... ;-)

Setlist

Heroes
Wallflower
Apres Moi
Intruder
San Jacinto
Secret World
Father Son
Signal To Noise
Downside Up
Digging in the Dirt
Mercy Street
The Rhythm Of The Heat 
Red Rain
Solsbury Hill
Biko

In Your Eyes
Don’t Give Up
The Nest That Sailed The Sky

WowTube!

Haven't had time for any new posts or videos recently, but I just want to express how freaked out I am that the In Your Eyes clip as gone over the 100-bleeding-000 views wall on YouTube.

I'm not on Facebook and I haven't done anything to push it or promote it, so I honestly would have never expected it to get that far.

The release of New Blood has obviously sparked a lot of interest, and besides pg.com and Facebook, the link to my clip has appeared all over the place.
So thanks to all the viewers and to the nearly 500 who 'liked' it.

Like the man himself said (after the amazing impromptu performance of Daara J on Lay Your Hand On me at Womad 2007): "Now follow that!!"

Don't know if I'll make it, but I'll try to put down a few of my thoughts on the Scratch My Back/New Blood albums and tours soon(ish)...

San Jacinto@Hammersmith (multicam edit)

Here's the second multicam song.
Again, sound comes from the Digital Brothers tape from the night of the 24th (freely available on the genesis movement torrent site), while images are from both the 23rd and 24th.
Besides my own footage, I also used some by YouTube users silentbobpc and radiosjohn. The title sequence once again features funkymanT's cells animation sequence.

In Your Eyes@Hammersmith (multicam edit)

At last, here's the first in my intended series of edits form the New Blood shows I attended. To experiment, I chose the last song from the second night at Hammersmith, earlier this year, which features (as always) arranger extraordinaire John Metcalfe conducting the New Blood Orchestra, and an inspired performance from Sevara.

Sound comes from the soon to be legendary Digital Brothers tape from the night of the 24th (freely available on the genesis movement torrentsite).

Footage comes from 4 different video sources: YouTube users' goldmosh (from the 24th) and alistairburns (from the 23rd), and my own shots from both the 23rd and 24th.

Thanks to the click giving all musicians on stage their cues, syncing audio and video from different nights wasn't really hard at all... Continuity, on the other hand, sometimes is obviously far from perfect.

Finally, the title sequence has been done using YouTube user funkymanT's animation sequence.

Hope you'll enjoy it, but please do let me know what you think anyway...