Rehearsal Diaries: Polar Bear

Rehearsal Diaries: Polar Bear







Rehearsal Diary: 22/04/26

This gig is gonna be a little bit more interesting than the previous two in terms of rehearsals and documentation as I am in two bands for this particular gig so genre and research wise, I will use My Suede Shoes as the main priority focus regarding research as they match the genre that you may see at a venue like the Polar Bear than Slate, though I will still use this post to document Slate's progress. 
Today, I spent upskilling hour in C7 with My Suede Shoes who are covering midwest emo for this gig and spent time going through Romance Is Boring by Los Campensinos. There wasn't much to go through with this rehearsal as we were missing Sam who is our lead guitarist, and it was a last minute addition so it was our first time properly looking at the song. However, despite slight struggles structure and memory-wise, it already sounds great and with a few more rehearsals, this song will already sound powerful with a month left before we play at the Polar Bear. The song itself is very simple and had 3 different drum patterns, it is just about when the song switches up for me that I need to get right. I'm confident in our ability for this set though and despite this rehearsal being short and not much being done, it's given me a boost in confidence for later rehearsals when I have had the time to properly look at the songs due to my focus primarily being Slate for The Alexandra Hotel later this week.





Rehearsal Diary: 30/04/26

This was another rehearsal with My Suede Shoes. We spent last period going through Romance is Boring, partly Lone Star (though it is a song I haven't fully rehearsed individually so it didn't sound perfect) and it also gave an idea to include a potential encore song being I Bet You Look Good on The Dancefloor as me and Sam just started to play it at the start of rehearsal and it genuinely worked quite well so we kept it. We also replaced another song (Hours Outside in the Snow) with Re-Do which was down to a personal decision with the rest of the band, when Sam and Nathan tried to play it, my drumming improv worked quite well with it. 
The one thing I need to work on with these rehearsals is knowing how each song is completely structured as it is a very complex genre and I am not allowing myself to step out my comfort zone a little bit and listen and analyse each song to work out what I play and where; I'm used to sticking with what I am comfortable with such as Just, Creep and I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor (but the intro for that is also choppy for me).
This doesn't mean I have lost confidence within myself though as the set is still coming together quite nicely regardless of my personal struggles with the set and I am excited for this gig.
My goal for the next few rehearsals is to have the set roughly in my head so I can play without completely improvising over their playthroughs for a more accurate and less confusing run of everything.





Rehearsal Diary: 06/05/26

Unfortunately, my Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday were all unavailable for me to practice in with the weekend having other priorities and then I fell ill on Monday so I came into this one today very unprepared. Luckily for me, the rest of the band spent it running through Just which is another one that has a fairly tricky structure that we all needed to put together, breaking down each part until we got it correct. Today, we played through Just mostly then did one run of Creep and three runs of I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor which was really convenient for me having been unavailable to learn the other songs.
Not much really went badly for today's rehearsal for me as I know the 3 songs that we played; all we need to do for Just is have the consistency on the bass from Harleigh but she is really picking it up so it will sound great for the gig day. Something I personally need to do is learn the intro properly for I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor as it has a very complex drum pattern with snare rolls thrown in between, it is supposed to match the guitar but for some reason I can't get it to match with Sam on the guitar. I need to break it down and get it completely up to speed for my next rehearsal along with finally learning the structure and patterns for the other songs. I also need to put more fills in that song as it does sound dull without the fills played where they're placed in the actual song as I don't want to simplify a tricky song like that.





Rehearsal Diary: 13/05/26

This rehearsal was a big one in terms of change and sound. Firstly, Re-Do was removed as a mutual decision by the band given we had one song by Modern Baseball already, it was also way too last minute of an addition for me and Harleigh to learn in time for the gig. On top of that, our setlist was a bit too long so Re-Do and Lone Star were removed; Lone Star being what was probably our worst sounding song on the set so removing that kept it polished and added a lot less stress to the band with learning it and then making sure it sounds great.
Today, we did the entire set barring the ones we had removed prior to this rehearsal. This was only a short rehearsal so we didn't spend too long on each song (going through each song about twice). In my opinion, I like how every song sounds and can tell progress has come along not only from my end but everyone else despite how low confidence some people in the band have coming into this gig. The only song I'm having trouble in is Scott Pilgrim vs My G.P.A by Mom Jeans. The song itself isn't bad for me and has a simple structure up until the 2nd half of the song where there is this bridge that has really difficult fills thrown left right and center, I can't keep up at all with the timing of it all. I plan to listen to this song a lot more and try find a way to simplify this segment as the rest of the song is really easy already.
Regarding the rest of the set, now that some of the songs I didn't really know have been removed from the set, I feel a lot more confident coming into this gig, though I would still like to rehearse a lot more than we have, especially with my trouble in the bridge of Scott Pilgrim.





Rehearsal Diary: 18/05/26

Similarly to Wednesday, we went through the full set again but a lot more in depth, fixing much finer details (such as the intro to I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor and the bridge to Scott Pilgrim). We had a lot more time to work on the choppier parts of the set so repeated those segments until they were right. I had still been struggling with the bridge for Scott Pilgrim so Sam had taught me a much easier way to go about it which took a bit of time for me to adapt to, but I got there. The only part that sounds bad that I can't get right with that bridge is my entry to it; entries in this song as a whole are so difficult with how sudden they come in, the song will just randomly switch up which is really off-putting for me.
There isn't that much else from me personally coming out of this rehearsal as everything to me sounds exceptional and great for the gig barring Scott Pilgrim, I know all of my other parts and songs, it just needs to be put together from the rest of the band.
Next rehearsal (and potentially our last) I would like to go through the full set without stopping, like a trial run of the gig without an audience just to see where that will take us and will give us an idea on what to work on and fix last minute before the gig.




Rehearsal Diary: 20/05/26

Simply put, this was a run through of the entire set as if we were playing it live in the gig. We did our set in order before polishing the parts that needed to be polished (such as the breakdown in Scott Pilgrim for me or the bridge in I Bet You Look Good on The Dancefloor for Harleigh). We also repeated songs that didn't sound great and could sound better in a second run through. This rehearsal was all about polishing and getting everything right and in that regard, I think this was a very productive and successful rehearsal; the bits we got wrong or struggled with in the rehearsal were easy fixes. However, one of my sticks broke during the rehearsal which hindered us with time a little bit with us already having not much time to rehearse (since I had a bus to catch). 
This was our final rehearsal and I feel ready and excited for this gig, I think I know my parts quite well, although I am not too worried regardless as Nathan is a much more laid-back front-man; if I can play it off, then it is all okay and playing off mistakes is one of my best skills as a drummer.

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