Nightmares Tour Report 11

We had an excellent show at the Viaduct Theater in Chicago last night! It was great to have such a solid hometown turnout! I assumed that we would be in the small room where the Cadaver in Drag show happened but we were set up in one of the two larger rooms - an expanded version of the same room where BLOODYMINDED played with Hive Mind, Luasa Raelon, and Redrot in 2004, in fact. I was a bit worried, but by the time that Face Worker started, the theater seats on both sets of risers started to fill up quite nicely. Brett played a great set of progressive synth, with some solid Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream types of passages, but he never allowed things to get hung up for too long in the pretty zones. The sequencer elements added a new twist for me, and based upon past shows that I have seen and the numerous recordings that I have, it is clear that Brett is on a nice evolutionary path with this music project. Haptic + Brian Labycz were up next and the created an expansive,shifting, yet steady handed dronescape, filled with oscillator sounds and all sorts of electronic esoterica, all propelled by insistent-yet-restrained drumming. At times, the bass frequencies were ridiculously great, and come to think of it, Brett had taken advantage of the powerful sub-woofer, too. We were up last and we got off to a pleasant start, even if the big, clean PA was immediately stronger than what we been dealing with along the way. In a nice, dark theater with our red back lighting, it seemed like the audience was a million miles away, so I asked them to come down to the floor by us, which they did. I am sure that the sound changed for them, but I guess that I preferred to maintain the more intimate relationship with the crowd that we had been maintaining over the previous five nights. We played a total of four pieces again and I made sure to really vary the mix, the panning, and the levels, to take full advantage of the PA and the room dynamics. We were definitely pleased with how it all played out. Big thanks to Ben for his willingness to book the show. Thanks to my AoH band mate Kenny for the spectacular live sound engineering, and for letting us all crank up the bass! Thanks to the Viaduct for hosting the show and for having me back. And major thanks to all of our friends who came out to see/hear the show/tour on a Monday night. It is extremely gratifying to have such great support! We are 30 minutes from Milwaukee and our date with bacon at Comet. Looking forward to that...and the show/tour wrap-up... What a line-up tonight!