Best Youth – PRESHOW RITUALS

In this Preshow Rituals segment, the indie duo, Best Youth, share what they do before every show. You can check out their rituals, after the break.

A typical show day for us starts out with me getting 100% in the zone for setup and soundcheck and being almost autistic in nature while setting things up and connecting everything. We run our show from Ableton live with the all the LED lights synced up, so the midi connections and routings are my main source of stress before and during the show.I’ll basically be in Defcon 1 mode all during soundcheck. Kate’s functions during this time involve keeping her cool like a normal human being, trying to not let me stress too much and generally lightening the mood whilst I’m in my spiral of OCD-ridden setup. Once everything is working and the stage is all set I relax a bit and we enjoy the last minutes of soundcheck together.

After we’re done, we’re generally right around call time for dinner so we go with everyone to wherever it is we’re going that night. Kate proceeds to eat very little along with her drink of choice, a glass of red wine, I proceed to eat very little or nothing at all. I highly prefer to eat only after the show, it’s actually one of my favorite things to do once we’re done for the night. Halfway through dinner, Kate leaves for the dressing room to start dressing up for the show and probably have a go at solving String Theory while she’s at it, judging by the amount of time it takes for her to get ready :). I usually leave dinner early as well and have my first drink of the night (malt whiskey on the rocks) while I relax a bit and wait for everyone to come back. From there until Kate is ready I’ll probably be doing some warm-up exercises on the guitar to the soundtrack of Kate warming up her vocals and generally pacing around the room or chatting with the team. Around 30 minutes before showtime, once we’re both ready, we both have a drink and proceed to play our pre-show playlist, which involves having a dressing room mini-dance-party which is great for stretching and generally warm up. The playlist is ever-changing, but this year the top songs were Michael Jackson – Thriller, Todd Terje – Inspector Norse and Hot Chip – Night and Day. Come to think of it, I think these 3 are never coming off the playlist, so I guess they’re part of the official Best Youth – Concert Warm Up Party Vol. 1.It’s funny because we generally start the show with a slower song, I bet nobody imagines we were dancing our asses off right before going on stage. At 1 minute before show time we hug it out, remind ourselves to have fun on stage (otherwise what’s the point?) and that whoever is in the audience made a choice to go listen to us play that night, so we have the responsibility to show them a good time.

Right when we get on stage Defcon 1 hits again while I figure out if everything is definitely working during the first seconds of the first song. Then I just turn to Kate, smile, and we have the time of our lives.

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