Intro to the Intros
We came up with the idea of pre-recorded introductions sometime in the Fall of ’08, I think we originally wanted to start using them when the Mantis tour began. Jake wrote and recorded the 1st and 2nd ones that you heard, played them for us, and we were all intrigued with the possibilities of this new concept (the final two intros of the weekend were collaborative efforts that we recorded at soundcheck the day of the show). After spending the majority of the 1st month of touring in ‘09 sharpening up the music of Mantis, we finally had some time to play with this idea over the 4 night run through Atlanta, Asheville and Charlotte.
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, here’s what we did to start our shows recently: we recorded a track of the band (or as in the case of the 1st two nights, just Jake at his home studio) playing a progression that evolves from a simple and often sparse setting into a momentous build toward the first song of the night. This isn’t necessarily what will always happen, but this is how the idea manifested itself this past weekend. The track starts as the house lights go down before we take the stage. As the music begins to crescendo, we walk out and slowly add more layers to what has already been pre-recorded. We noticed that this also helped build the anticipation out in the crowd, and really enjoyed being able to start shows like this. From the stage it feels a bit like a harkening back to the days of opening shows with jazz odysseys and jimmy stewarts. But we certainly didn’t have the technical capability to play along to our own track years ago.
We’ve discovered that the intros can take shape in various ways. Occasionally, the pre-recorded track will play all the way out to the top of the 1st song we have. This past weekend, we experimented with gradually fading the original track out once the band starts contributing to the music. I’m sure there are other options we can explore as far as how the transition is executed, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.
The introductions have been an exciting new way to kick things off for you each night. Perhaps you’ll hear more of them in the future?