O.R.k. In Motion

Live report…

It’s Sunday May 11th and O.R.k. Have successfully reached the destination for tonight’s show in the town of Venray, Netherlands.

There are a number of logistical and technical challenges to overcome simply to get us all in one place, let alone get us all at the same time and place ready to actually perform.

Flights, travel and rehearsals have to be arranged, equipment has to be sourced, accommodation, routing, onward travel, sound engineer, driver etc, all this needs to be arranged before a single sound is made by any of us. Every tour is a minor miracle which I don’t take for granted. There’s a ridiculous amount of effort and it all comes with a very real added financial risk because there are a number of elements we simply can’t control, and a number of things that could fall apart at any moment. Fingers crossed.

As far back as I can remember, with various bands, I’ve always been willing to take a risk to get the music “out there”, luckily other people have felt the same way; promoters, agents, venue managers, not to mention my fellow bandmates.

I am not here to bore the reader with any of that though. O.R.k. Is an energy like no other, the satisfaction we get when things all line up is what keeps us going.

With two of the band members in Italy, this is where we start our live adventure. Fine with me.

We chose an out of the way, rustic location in Emilia Romagna for our rehearsals, a familiar place where we could develop and fine tune the music together, especially the new material, as yet unplayed in a live setting. There’s no simple regurgitation of the studio recordings, the idea is to add life, improve, and make sure our sound world is cohesive and flows effectively. It’s not just about us knowing our individual parts, the sum of the parts and overall picture is also what matters.

There’s a limited time available for rehearsals and so it’s important to prepare well ahead of time. With most things I am involved in, I tend to write charts in musical notation for the vast majority of the tunes. I may never refer to them live, and I certainly don’t want to read music on stage, but usually the process of writing things out helps commit things to memory. This is also useful when a particular tune comes back into the setlist years later, long after it’s disappeared from my short term playing memory. There have even been occasions when a promised rehearsal has failed to materialise and I’ve had to play unfamiliar things totally unrehearsed in front of an audience. In such cases even my fairly scrappy charts have saved me from total embarrassment.

We work our way through the set, giving priority to the newer, less familiar material. Things come together, and after a few stumbles and some small changes, we adapt to the changes and the music adapts to us.

Every show is a valuable opportunity to tweak some aspect of the music and the performance. This time, and for the first time, we are using a synchronised lighting set up to add some extra atmospherics to the stage production. The first date in Nimis was a low pressure start to the tour, with an enthusiastic audience joining us at the intimate Lupus in Fabula. The club owner, Bruno, kindly allowed us a valuable extra day to set up and rehearse before the first show. I am well familiar with Italy by now but this was my first visit to this northernmost part of the country. The beauty of the everyday surroundings is well in evidence.

A long drive to Zoetermeer in Holland through Austria and Germany to the Boerderij - one of Europe’s best venues, and one we’re quite familiar with.

The travel aspect is one of the most misunderstood parts of a life in music. How do you cope with the hours in motion? Mostly, cooped up with your fellow bandmates and crew. For me the best solution is either to read, enjoy the passing scenery (..easy enough to do in the Alpine regions, less so on the more tedious motorways of Northern Europe.) or shut myself off with headphones (- current listening is the UK’s “punk,rap rave apocalypse” China Shop Bull who were great when I saw them live twice last year) . Occasional conversation can easily descend into absurdity. It was during a long drive with Gaudi and Savana Funk a while back when I became convinced of the surveillance from my smartphone. As a very specific conversation with SF’s fantastic bassist Blake Franchetto about birth trauma and psychedelic therapy, led to my social feed filling up with adverts for books on the same niche subjects for a few days afterwards…way too much of a coincidence to ignore.

Anyway, after the long travel, The Boerderij doesn’t disappoint. Only the second show but it seems we managed to get it right, the set flows well, and the newer material is well received.

We’ve been aiming for our most immersive set yet, there’s a certain dimension to the newer tracks which in my humble opinion has added something better to the whole set. As always, the band seems to have an easily accessible synergy, there’s a flow to things which is definitely a result of all our past gigs, tours, recordings together and our shared intention to bring it all to life.

We used to joke about there being a fifth invisible member who was present when things connected, but really it’s only a partial joke because there is a Gestalt to every group which manifests when things go well.

…onwards!

We arrive in Venray for a day off and with some time to spare, the town is hosting some creative event and there is lot going on. As we eat dinner on the town square mysterious bird like creatures wander in close to the diners -

In the morning I take the opportunity to walk for a long time around the town, I find a peaceful sculpture park with a mix of some quite dark and serious and also whimsical sculptures - this tragic dead mother in a coffin with a young child crawling in is right next to an amusing giraffe made from junk….

I can’t quite articulate why I like sculpture so much but it’s always appealed to me. Compared to most places in the UK, European cities seem full of sculptures old and new, and things are always worth a look. I take lots of photos.

At some point, I am struck by the similarity between this awful fly tipping spotted near the rehearsal place:

…and this rusted metal in a green part of the sculpture park.

Anyway, back to sound check for me now….Onwards.

O.R.k. Tour continues - check the linktree for the latest:

https://linktr.ee/orkband