Cannes Showcase

Wow, I've finally come down from the adrenalin high (and slight panic attack) generated by the suspense of performing for a room full of international music execs a couple weeks ago. It was really cool as about 10 of my buddies from London decided to fly down to Cannes to support me! I decided to travel down on my own the evening before the gig as I was too agitated to be sociable and needed to centre myself and focus rather than blab away with a friend. The band was travelling down early the next morning (up before sunrise - poor them!). I landed in Nice at about 23.30 and managed to sleep 3 hours from about 2am to 5am. My mind kept on obsessing on everything: whether the sound engineer at the venue was going to be rubbish, whether there would be enough monitors on the stage, whether that tingling feeling at the back of my throat meant I was about to come down with a devastating cold, whether the band was going to be delayed and/or miss their flight... etc...etc... etc..! Not a very refreshing night. I can't sleep in the afternoon (unless I'm seriously ill) so there was no chance of recovering the next day before the gig. But I needed not worry as the adrenalin kept me going all day (The 3am crash was pretty severe though!).

We had the soundcheck at about 5pm that day. I was really worked up at that point as it kept on being delayed by the venue (was supposed to be at 2pm). Anyway, I got to Morrison's pub, saw the friendly faces of my band and my manager and immediately felt better. The soundcheck went really well, to the point that some people just started coming into the pub to see who was playing and I did a mini concert for them. That (and the fact that the sound engineer was really good- not the nightmare I was expecting at all!) did miracles towards making me feel calm and centred for the gig at 11pm. I went and had a really early dinner (so my food would not be on my stomach as I was belting out "Just Listen"). Then I waited...and waited...the gig as delayed to 11.15, the 11.45...finally we went on stage just before 12am! There was a huge crowd (plus my 10 firends who were cheering as loud as they could!) so the atmosphere felt good. I got on stage and there were some technical issues with some cable (!!). Then (finally!) we were ON! We played: "Just Listen", "My Friend", "Do Da Dee Da", "Here We Go", "We Will Find A Way", "Ride Your Bike", "Just a Kiss", "Break Your Heart" and a really cool arrangement of "Revolution" by the Beatles. I was on cloud 9. I wanted the gig to go on forever. After we got off stage I was approached by a few people (a couple teenage kids even wanted me to sign autographs!) and that was really cool as I really felt that people had enjoyed themselves (I certainly had!). I'm having some footage pulled together with bits of the gig and will post as soon as it's ready.

Despite all the pre-concert jitters I really LOVE being on stage and performing and can't wait to do the next gigs. For now I have Trobadour in London confirmed for March 11 (will let you know more as soon as the time is confirmed). Hoping many more dates will slot in very soon.

Lots of Love, Odette xxx

DRATTED SWINE FLU. I feel like a sitting duck, waiting for it to hit, as most of my friends and their children have had it! It's like every morning I wake up and go: "still ok today...". I really hate having fever of any sort, let alone HIGH fever! And I cannot STAND seeing my little kids feeling sick! I am also scared the WHOLE household will get it all at once and then what do we do? I just wish they'd invent a cure for flu and all colds. That would be amazing! Imagine forgetting about those expected 3 or 4 colds per winter (and consequent voice drops that are deadly for singers!). Obviously there are more dangerous diseases that need to be cured but certainly eliminating all colds forever would be GLORIOUS! Ok, now that I've gotten my useless protest against flu out of the way ;-))),

...back to Backing vocals: the plan was to have these done by Chris, Kate and myself. I booked Britannia Row Studios for 3 subsequent days and had arranged for Chris and Katy to come in and do their vocal magic. I would then do my own backing vocals the following week. The night before session 1 Katy sends me an email saying she had a family issue and cannot make the session the next day!On top of this Chris arrives with a massive cold (back to my rant above) but says he can still manage to sing...this is turning out to be a BAD day. Katy promised she would show up for session 2 the next day so we just worked with Chris (and his cold) all of day 1 hoping to make it up with Katy on day 2. Morning of day 2 she sends me another message saying she will not make it! At this point I am feeling pretty depressed as I can't seem to figure out how I'm going to get female backing vocals (other than my own) on the recordings.

Fortunately it turns out Chris has a friend, Kim, who not only is an amazing session singer but who just happens to be available for two half day sessions and can arrive within the hour! She arrived and did an amazing job almost recovering the time lost on day one completely. God provides.

Aside from the initial issues, It was great fun recording the backing vocals and cool to see how my vocal arrangements (jotted down in paper and dictaphone) actually sounded when recorded and stacked up! We made some last minute adjustments as Chris and Kate had a few good ideas they tried out and we liked so it paid to stay flexible and open to different ideas. The 3 days ended with 3 songs still missing female (non Odette) backing vocals which Katy ended up doing at Metropolis studios while we were mixing the album! Phwew!!

Here's a couple links that show some scenes from recording the backing vocals including the producer catching me out using the 'talk' button as if it were a microphone! Some of it is in Italian. Enjoy!!

Chris and Kim: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...

Katy: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...

Hugs and Kisses,


Odette

A few days ago I saw one of the best live gigs ever. Green Day completely exceeded my expectations. I now regard Billy joe Armstrong as one of the best musicians of today. Aside from what I already knew, i.e. Great songs, astounding production, and staying power (they played their first gig 21 years ago!), I now know that Billy Joe has also that rare ability to perform stupendously live both as a musician and as an entertainer. Initially I was a little skeptic as He pranced around on stage before the show started dressed as a drunk horny bunny rabbit. He more than once pulled up fans from the adoring crowd to come up on stage and sing with him or even instead Of him, shot tshirts to his fans with an airgun and expected a constant interactive participation Of The audience or would lie on The floor as if drained Of energy! Now if all' Of this had not been accompanied by the highest level of musical performance it would have seemed a bit gimmicky, but instead it just made it into a Master Performance. Would love to hear if any of you saw the concert and what you thought. Especially; was it billy joe in that rabbit costume? Now back to the recording of my album 'just me": the vocals.

September 2008. Now it was my big moment in the recording process! I was so hyped up at this point having been at Britannia Row for 2 months recording all the song tracks. It all was sounded amazing and I was literally DYING to put my vocals on it all. I was terrified (as all singers are I guess) of getting a cold and screwing it all up...and of course the first couple days of recording I felt like hell: massive headache, itchy dry throat, blocked nose! I couldn't believe it and put it all down to some psychosomatic illness that I just had to ignore so I got behind the mic and just sang my headaches away. It kinda worked as I felt better by day 3, but we ended up rerecording some of the stuff I had done the first 2 days (if I remember correctly I think these were the songs "breaking the rules", "just listen" "ride your bike" and "for me").

We averaged 2 songs per day and it was the most exhausting but at the same time thrilling part of the recording process for me. Singing is a very physical thing combined with strange mix of needing 100% concentration while at the same time letting go and when you are doing all of this for 6-8 hours per day it takes up an incredible amount of energy! I would feel listless but satisfied at the end of each day. There were a couple songs that were a bit more difficult for me because of their topics.,To sing them with my heart I had to go back to the place where I was when I wrote them. "we will find a way" was really difficult as we had to stop a lot as I started crying in the middle of a verse or bridge. It was quite funny thinking back as the first time it happened the producer and engineers just heard me go quiet all of a sudden and thought the mic has gone dead so they went MAD trying to figure out what had happened to the technology while I was just in a corner having a quiet cry! After that they got used to it and would just wait patiently until I was ready to resume singing!

The other tough one was 'why do you hate me'. I sang it 3 Times in a row, sitting down, with the vocal booth completely dark and we took The last live take in full. I was trembling by then! There were other songs where I had to hype myself up as the song was very upbeat (like 'my friend') and I had had a bad day. I sang 'my friend' as if i was The 'friend' i was trying to' cheer up...it worked though...sometimes you need to trick your own mind to get the effect you are looking for. That's all for now. Next part is the last finishing touches of the recording process: backing vocals.

Stay tuned!

Kisses, Odette x