Tour 2010  »   Impressions from the Tour /Part 2

Sounds fantastic. Looking forward to the gig in Oxford very much.

Somehow I knew there was gonna be such a surprise :-) Good news ;-) Please post on youtube asap and provide us with the link. Can't wait.

The show was nice and Ark was on sale alongside with several shirts, a signed poster and a postcard set.

I want all three (apart from the CD, of course)...so please leave some for London ;) Damn...15 days more to go.

it was somewhat disappointing to see only old goths there... is it different at other shows? I mean, I love old goth music, but Brendan or DcD are a lot more than that.. especially the new Album is very futuristic and points into a totally different direction.

Yes, Dublin was great, if a little weird.

The new song is called Tree Of Life and was also performed tonight in Dublin.

No other songs have been added or removed single stage 1 of the tour, so there are now 16 songs in the tour set, rather than 15.

There were boxes and boxes of signed Ark for sale, so I wouldn't worry about their running out of them any time soon. I was finally able to buy my own copy and can now dispense with those MP3s I downloaded from Rapidshare.

Another reason I don't think they'll run out of CDs is that ticket sales have obviously been disappointing. The Dublin gig was supposed to be at the Tripod (1300 capacity), but the decision was made today to move it to the Crawdaddy venue (300 capacity).

This made the gig incredibly intimate. The stage was tiny and very low to the ground. It was like a living-room concert.

Brendan lost his temper with someone in the audience during Voyage Of Bran. I think there were some people chatting when they should have been listening and this obviously annoyed Brendan. He told them to "shut the fuck up" and stopped playing the song. It was a weird moment.

I'm too tired to write any more at the moment.

I'm looking forward to Cork tomorrow.

The new song is called Tree Of Life and was also performed tonight in Dublin.

Where on the setlist is Tree of Life exactly? I'm curious to know the order.

Brendan lost his temper with someone in the audience during Voyage Of Bran. I think there were some people chatting when they should have been listening and this obviously annoyed Brendan. He told them to "shut the fuck up" and stopped playing the song. It was a weird moment.

Well done! Definitely.

it was somewhat disappointing to see only old goths there... is it different at other shows? I mean, I love old goth music, but Brendan or DcD are a lot more than that.. especially the new Album is very futuristic and points into a totally different direction.

This is very true, Alex... Good point...

Tree Of Life comes between This Boy and You Never Loved This City on the set list.

It's a very up-tempo track. I'm listening to it now on headphones.

You'll get your chance when I return home on Sunday. I won't be able to master the recording until the evening, so I expect to get it uploaded to DIME late that evening.

The quality is excellent, but not quite as good as Brussels. This is due to the tiny PA, which sounded overdriven during the very loudest songs. As such, there's a little bit of distortion evident at times, but not enough to put you off listening. As I say, the overall quality is excellent.

lamb79 was standing next to me and recorded the whole gig in HD video, so that's going to become available at some point, too.

Awesome :-)

Unfortunately, he didn't restart the song, so only about half of it was played.

Oh, what a shame :-(

It shouldn't feel like you are in a church, but being disrespectful is really bad. And Voyage of Bran is such a beautiful piece... I don't understand how people could be so ignorant...

You are absolutely right... Even if you are in pub, as soon as somebody is on stage right in front of you, he deserves at least that amount of respect... oh well, obviously there will always be people who don't get this. There was a number of similar situations during Lisa's tour, too... Someone even dared to laugh out loud when Lisa started talking about the environment, etc. It's a shame, that's all we can say about it.

To add my penny's worth, it is not fair that Brendan's gigs are not receiving the recognition they deserve. I was at the Dublin gig last night & there was not much difference musically between Brendan's solo songs and the Dead Can Dance songs that were alternating on the setlist. In fact I would go so far as to say that "Ark" sounds like a new Dead Can Dance album. Perhaps Brendan was already wound up before the gig at the poor ticket sales that caused the change of venue. Just for the record, the acoustics at Crawdaddy were awful & I could hear the bass reverberating in the room which somewhat spoiled the enjoyment of the songs. Then someone remarked that he had seen DCD during the "Speen & Ideal" tour in 1986 & thought that was the best thing he had done, to which he replied "That was different, that was orchestral!". It doesn't improve your mood to hear from the audience that your best work was almost a quarter of a century ago... Then the talking in the audience started during "Voyage of Bran" & Brendan snapped.

The fact remains that Lisa Gerrard is receiving great recognition & plaudits these days while Brendan is marginalised as a solo performer, even in his adopted home country. Whereas in the early days of DCD he was the main protagonist, now the balance of power has shifted in favour of Lisa. But perhaps this is the way of the world...

George.

@pendragonm,

Of course, Brendan will not fill football stadiums, but a properly promoted concert will always attract more sales than a poorly promoted one.

Brendan has a good idea how many fans he has. If he thought he needed the 1200 capacity Tripod and ended up in a 300 capacity venue, something must have gone wrong. I was told by some Dubliners that the posters for the gig had only gone up the week before, so it's reasonable to assume that a lot of people who would have liked to be there just didn't know about it. If that's true, it's even sadder than the fact that they aren't more people who appreciate Brendan's thoughtful solo music.

And now I must drive to Cork for tonight's show...

These are just my thoughts and humble opinion regarding this topic.

We know Brendan has been concentrating on other things in his life in recent years. Now, after some years have gone by, he has recommitted himself to concentrating more on his music. We are ecstatic that he has a record contract for more solo work in the near future, that there is talk of possible new DCD material (and tour), and there is also the solo tour underway. With all this in mind, recognize that it may take a little while to build the momentum back up.

A world tour with Peter Murphy might have given him a little more exposure than he is currently getting, but that didn't work out. It wasn't that long ago that this fell through. I wouldn't think there has been much time to develop additional strategies, at this point. Brendan has been fairly busy on this initial tour.

While it seems painfully obvious from comments made about the tour, that it isn't being promoted like it could be, it does give Brendan some additional exposure, along with an opportunity to warm up the band, and allow the hard core fans (who are paying attention) to go see him and get an early copy of his new release.

Over all, a pretty good start, I'd say. Without a big promotional campaign by a major record label and a ton of radio play (as his music is more underground), it may take this come-back a little bit to build momentum. And who knows, that may suit Brendan's style just fine. Either way, I believe Brendan will sooner or later get the recognition and promotion an artist of his caliber deserves. I think of this time as more of a warm-up, than anything else. In the meanwhile, I think there is a lot we can do, as fans, to get the news out by word of mouth and uploading videos, etc.

This whole thing is just in the earliest stages. Remember, the album hasn't even been officially released yet!

@ XaviersPrayer:

Just to be clear, promoting tours and building up momentum should not be Brendan's task, so we're not criticizing Brendan. He should be free to concentrate on his music, his family and other interests.

Promoting tours and concerts should be left in the hands of trusted individuals (paid or unpaid). And they don't have to be big multinational companies either. A couple of amateurs in the UK recently, through the use of facebook, managed to get Rage Against The Machine's "Killing in the name of..." as Christmas No.1, even beating the heavily financed X-Factor song.

What I'm trying to say is that all it takes to fill in concert halls is dedication by trusted people who care about the artist they are promoting. And all it takes is a few well-designed and strategically located posters and some free internet advertising.

I agree with most of what was said above.

The organisation was shambolic. At 10.30 people were stopped from re-entering the gig by security even though it wasn't over! Also they insisted on playing dance music in the bar during the show, so every time the door opened we had a blast of some Godforsaken crap!



Most of the crowd struck me as the type who want to be seen at gigs rather than genuine fans. As a result, the "chatterers" started early during Ronan's warm up. Not being a Kila fan I was still won over by his sincerity and sheer talent.
However, it also didn't help that the doors were 7.30 while the gig proper didn't start til 9.10, with the result that plenty of drinks (for a working night!!) had been consumed.

The Button Factory or Sugar Club would have been a much more suitable venue.

Music wise it was faultless!!

However, it also didn't help that the doors were 7.30 while the gig proper didn't start til 9.10, with the result that plenty of drinks (for a working night!!) had been consumed.

I know from some Bulgarian friends that initially the show in Sofia was announced everywhere for 8pm but it did not start before 10 and people were not let in until about 9.00pm, so they all had to wait outside in the cold. Some of them allegedly arrived at the venue at 7pm to make sure they'll get closer to the stage later...

I've just got back to my guest-house after the Cork gig.

What an improvement on Dublin!

The doors didn't open until 21:00 this evening, but the Pavilion has a downstairs bar, so there was a good place to sit, drink and chat before the gig.

Brendan was still doing the soundcheck when I got there at 19:30. I could hear the muffled strains of Wintersun emanating through the walls of the venue into the alley outside.

He came downstairs at about 20:30 and invited me and lamb79 to sit with him at his table outside. We talked a little about the previous night's Dublin gig.

Graham Wood, sleeve designer of Ark, was also there, so I got to hear a little about his involvement in the project. He mentioned that the retail version of Ark will come with different sleeve art to the tour edition.

At 21:15, it was time for Brendan to get ready for the gig and for me to find a suitable vantage point for viewing and recording the gig.

The Pavilion is a very nice venue. It's quite small, but not nearly as small as the Crawdaddy. On the other hand, it was more than half-empty this evening. I'd estimate that there were no more than 150 to 200 people there; perhaps even fewer.

The venue has a raised perimeter with high tables and bar stools. Down on the dance floor, at the edges, there are yet more tables and chairs. Amazingly, this meant that when Brendan and co. took to the stage at 21:45, there was no-one standing in front of the stage. In fact, there was no-one standing anywhere near the stage. People were sitting at the tables, sipping drinks, or standing at the back of the dance floor.

Usually, one must jockey for position at the front of a gig. Tonight, no-one wanted to be anywhere near the stage. Hardly anyone even wanted to stand up. Bizarre.

The sound was much better than in Dublin. I'm listening to the recording now and it's a very faithful representation of the concert. I sat on the far right, on a bar stool about two metres back from the hanging PA. Ideally, I would have stepped back another couple of metres, but there was bar furniture in the way. Nevertheless, the quality of the recording rivals the Brussels gig I captured back in March.

lamb79 stood next to me and caught the whole gig on HD video again, this time using a tripod.

Although we were treated to all of Voyage Of Bran this evening, we lost Severance from the set.

Once again, the crowd fell silent as the band exited the stage after the first encore. There was no clapping, cheering or stamping of feet. It was like a library in there. Why do Irish audiences not expect/want more than one encore? I really don't know.

Anyway, this time Brendan wasn't giving away presents. Encores are the earned reward of an enthusiastic audience and, despite their warm appreciation of the main set, they were decidedly lacklustre in demanding the band's return to play yet another song. If you don't ask, you don't get; and we didn't ask, so we didn't get.

Within a few minutes of the lights coming back on, the place started to fill up with people considerably younger than me. The venue was performing double duty this evening, once for Brendan and now as the host of the Chic afterparty. Scantily clad twenty-something women rammed painfully home just how long it's been since I was a twenty-something man.

Brendan emerged from the shadows after a while and we chatted again. He was happy with the gig, but lamented that the audience hadn't been bigger. He also remarked on how strange it is that Irish audiences don't seem to care about getting a second encore.

We chatted for a while longer and then I thanked him for a great show and went on my way.

Tomorrow, Brendan and his entourage head to Galway for the third and final Irish gig. I'm looking forward to it, of course, but I'll be sad when it's all over. I only got here yesterday and I'm already two thirds of the way through the reason I came. All good things come to an end.

The highlight of tonight's concert for me was Spirit. Brendan seemed to put a lot of emotion into his performance tonight and the sound was perfect. The bass and keyboards really pounded the song along.

I hope to master and upload this recording to DIME on Monday. You won't be disappointed.

Sounds like a great evening Ianmacd! Very much looking forward to your recording.

Ian, thank you! You're our own private reporter! ;)

I wrote earlier that the retail edition of Ark will come with a booklet, but after a good night's sleep, I realise I made a mistake. The booklet will be a PDF and will be downloadable. I don't believe there will be a physical edition of it at this time.

Perhaps the deluxe edition planned for later this year will include the booklet, but that's pure speculation on my part.

The booklet will be a PDF and will be downloadable.

Ha, I knew it! *bragging*

oh, and will these recordings be in MP3 format?

Sure...128Kbps :)

Thankfully, of the 30 or so times I've visited the Union Chapel (London), the audience have been incredibly respectful. That place has a magical effect on audiences. I am so looking forward to this show that I could burst.
On a similar note, one of my favourite London venues, The Luminaire, has signs on the walls to the effect of "If you've come here to yap to your friends, you're in the wrong place." ;)