Autumn, Sylver Myst - A severe lack of audience
Live View by Angel
Venue: perron55_ - Venlo
Views: 476
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Gothic metal music is on the rise everywhere. Within Temptation just signed a contract with Roadrunner America, Epica played on a highly regarded national radio program, After Forever toured Latin America. Obviously there is a big market for this type of music. So how is it possible that just a few people went to see Dutch Goth acts Sylver Myst and Autumn this past cold and Friday night at Perron 55 in Venlo? This is definitely a case of bad promotion from the venue itself. A couple of years ago After Forever played this joint and the house was fully packed. It is not impossible to attract more people.
 
Autumn:
With barely an audience in front of them Autumn kicks off their show with ‘The Green Angel’ from their Summer’s End album. It is immediately clear that their bombastic music is more than the local P.A. system can handle. In the first few minutes the vocals hardly come through. And that is really a shame, because vocalist Nienke de Jong is blessed with a good voice. At certain moments keyboard parts are completely inaudible. This is of course not to blame on the band. The sound might be bad, but they play very tight and know how to provide an audience with a good show.
 
Autumn also provided the audience a taster from their forthcoming album in spring of 2007. The new song ‘Angel of Desire’ is nice but it is quite predictable. And that is the main critic I have: the lack of variation. After a while the songs tend to sound alike. But I guess that has also to do with the style of music. Variation isn’t exactly used as the main ingredient for cooking their meal.
 
Sylver Myst:
 
Autumn’s pre-show is provided by fellow band Sylver Myst. These guys also have to deal with a bad sound. The enormous feedback during the first few songs is extremely annoying to both the audience and the band. I wonder why this didn’t show up during sound check.
Perhaps the bad sound is also the reason why singer Marjolein Hüsken occasionally sings out of tune. Then again the band plays very tightly. Musically speaking they are quite OK, but variation isn't exactly something they are about. One or two songs escape the standard mid-tempo structures. Besides that they don't have really exciting material.
  
Now if these guys and one lady want to create a mystical dark atmosphere on stage that is fine by me. Just don’t try to do stand-up comedy as well. Making stupid remarks about some parakeet right after you played a song isn’t exactly to be called entertaining. It really doesn’t fit what you’re trying to present on stage.


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22-12-2006 18:59 - DemonDust
THE HORROR, THE HORROR!!!
06-01-2007 15:02 - Microblast
I was one of the few to see (part of) Autumn's show as well.

Although their style is not at all my cup of tea, I must say that they
played a very tight show indeed (like Angel wrote) and the fact that
the audience was so small didn't seem to bother them too much: they
did the best they could anyway (if only all bands would do so).

As a sound engineer for Perron55 (off-duty that evening) I'd like to
react to Angel's remark that Autumn's sound was more than the PA
system could handle. The system is in fact defenitely powerful enough
for the venue, maybe even for a hall twice the size.

The problem with the sound that evening was the fact that the keys,
guitars and of course also the vocals were all mixed with a lot of mid
frequencies - they were in each others way so to say. In an ideal
situation you create "space" in one instrument's frequency range, to
fit an other instrument in, and that way you build up the sound-mix
like a jigsaw puzzle.

But the instruments being in each other's way was only partly to blame
on the sound engineer, because in live situations you hear a lot of
sound coming directly from the stage (loud guitar amps) and Autumn's
keyboard sounds were very middy themselves.

But, most importantly: a difficult thing about the concert hall in
Perron55 (like a lot of other venues) is that it's kind of a cube-like
concrete place that's horrible acoustically speaking. It exaggerates
exactly the mid frequencies I'm talking about here, especially when
there are very few "sound-damping" people present.

So in the end, it all comes down to the fact that there was a dramatic
lack of audience, like Angel said. I agree with him that better
promotion would help a lot.

06-01-2007 15:50 - DemonDust
haha, thanks for this intricate view through the eyes of a PA-guy!
09-01-2007 15:03 - Microblast
Well, you're welcome :) It just irritates me that throughout the years people have often come up with the same story that the PA in Perron55 is crap. That's just not the case. Both mixing desks and a lot of other stuff like effects are brand new, the monitors are new and de FOH speakers are also, like I said, defenitely powerful enough.
10-01-2007 22:48 - Angel
As the writer I like to react as well. First, thank you for shedding a light on the subject. Although I never mentioned the sound system in Perron 55 is crap. I'm just stating that the sound was bad. Most people who visit venues don't have a clue about PA systems, just like me. And if the sound is bad, the sound is just...bad. I know that it could be a million things that can make it go bad. The reason that I mentioned this is that I heard it from someone who knows about PA systems. He mentioned that the bad sound is probably due to this system.
So now you know.