But it turns out they want us to play at 11:40 _am_ !!! Will there be anyone there then?

I second that recommendation! Very cool outfit - and in lipstick red, no less!

Folsom was crap – well the show part of it was anyway – the rest of the day was fine.

Essentially Folsom is not set up for proper rock and roll. They use a “festival” format, which means bands share a common back line and don’t get a sound check in the interests of quick turn rounds – but they try and run with five minutes between bands – which might be OK if all you have is a couple of guitars are using their drum kit, but we have special MIDI guitar set-ups and two keyboards and loads of pedals etc. Which means we inevitably took more than five minutes to be ready, and they cut us back form a measly twenty five minutes to twenty –and then (we suspect) gave us a five minute warning even earlier, with the result that we only got to play four sounds instead of the six planned.

And despite the racks of high-end sound equipment, the monitor sound on stage was awful. For example, they gave Emme a pretty high drum mix (which is good) and Tori got to hear some of that at the back of the stage, but there were no drums in the monitors at the front – which meant that Marilyn, Shawna and Sara were essentially playing without a beat. And there were no other instruments in the monitors hardly at all, and very little vocals – which meant we were playing pretty blind (or is that deaf?). Surprisingly enough, people out in the crowd said the mix was pretty good- which is a testament to how we can now play reasonably well in adverse sound circumstances – but it is hard o really generate enthusiasm and energy when you can’t hear anything (and aren’t even sure if you’re on the beat?!).

So… despite the early hour (we got on at 11;45am) there was a reasonable crowd – although looking round from the stage we could recognize a lot of faces. A mix of friends and fans isn’t a bad thing – and we’re grateful they made the effort to come out.

Anyway… after the set and a hurried scramble off the stage, we took a while to chill out backstage, scmhooze with the next band on etc. – and then jumped into Folsom proper- albeit several hours earlier than previous years.