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Home > MonaLisa News > Our aunt's birthday party - Vienna

Our aunt's birthday party

Saturday, 25 August 2007

In early summer 2007 our uncle Herbert told us that our aunt Renée and he intended to throw a bithday-garden-party for her in August. Renée's birthday wish was an adequate musical entertainment.

Nothing funnier than that! We anyway were practicing our live concert program for months yet. Our uncle is a very good singer with a great Rock-/Popsong repertoire who himself plays and performs with various bands (with red t-shirt on the picture). Our cousin Stefan who is three years older than we are (on the photo in white clothes) also had learned playing guitar earlier. Then he lost interest, but playing in a band is a funny thing, and so he wanted to join us.

The family "big band" with MonaLisa's uncle and cousin.

The "Big-Band" from left to right: Michaela (Saxophone), Stefan (Percussion), Lisa (Guitar), Mona (Drums), Herbert (Vocals), Dad (Bass).

We chose six songs from our concert program which we wanted to play together: Wonderful tonight, Tears in heaven, Twist and Shout, One, Smoke on the water, I will, Baby Blue. As an encore we also played All my lovin'.
(Note: The links will lead you to the audio samples of our first live-CD, like we played them at our 1st live concert.)

After we returned from our USA holidays at the beginning of august we more or less leaped into the studio immediately to prepare for our first performance as a "big"-band J. During the three weeks we rehearsed two times all together. (It wasn't so easy to organize that - our aunt thought we would practice for our own concert in fall).

Our bandleader Daddy again had the most work to do. In addition to practicing his own parts (vocals, keyboard and bass) he had to modify the songs' arrangements in such a way that Herbert could overtake the vocal parts from Lisa and that Stefan could play the bass and congas. One or two songs he had to transpose in a different key as a whole, because Herbert sang in a different vocal range. At the concert itself he also was the audio engineer who mixed all instruments and voices on the mixing console, so that each musician and the total sound was perfectly hearable for the audience.

Putting up the instruments and equipment at our grandpa's terrace.

That's the view from the spacious garden in the direction of our "stage", the covered terrace.

The covered terrace of our grandpa's house served us as the stage (Renée's family lives together with him in a duplex). The terrace was just big enough for all our instruments and we could also lighten it well. We put up benches and chairs in the garden, and each visitor had a good view to the stage.

All our instruments and technical equipment just fitted in the car boot and the trailer.

Unloading the car and building up the stage.

We carried every single piece across the garden to the terrace.

It also was a challenge to put up our instruments and technical equipment. On the pictures you can see that we could stow all our stuff in the car boot and trailer. At Herbert's and Renée's place we schlepped every single piece across the large garden to the terrace. While we put up everything our Dad was busy with cabling. All the work took us about five hours in total, and it was an extremely hot day ... exhausting *sweat*

Prior to the concert we had to do a soundcheck too, as the sound in the open air is different than in a studio. All these activities had to happen without Renée noticing anything (she prepared the food in her kitchen). She had no idea that the whole family would play for her as she always stayed in the front part of the house and could not see the stage.

Baby Blue: Bandleader Rudi on the bass, Mona on the keyboard.

Our little concert was a big success. Renée did not become suspicious till the evening. For her it was a complete surprise and she really was very happy. She sang and danced to the songs, the guests lit up their lighters and one pair even took a chance to dance. The feeling was fantastic, and not only Renée was surprised about what we were already able to play.

Our Dad got many compliments for his engineering work. The music was comfortably loud and Herbert as the singer was perfectly hearable in relation to the music. But for us that's nothing new. He never does things by halves, and in music and technics he is very knowledgable!

At about 11 pm, after feasting on the delicious buffet and chatting with the guests, we disassembled everything and packed it in the car again as we had to drive home the same evening.

So it was some kind of action that day and we collapsed into bed, tired to death but very happy. For the fun we had with playing and celebrating and for the pleasure we created for our aunt we gladly accepted that work. After all that's in the bag.

Pictures: The showing of the first and the last picture on this page is kindly allowed by Christine Tupy, the photographer. Thank you!

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