July 11, 2011

Liblog: Preparing for a Tour

As you might be aware, we are going on another tour soon. For most of us, we have the end of term to get through first, and many rehearsals on the side, followed by a whirlwind of last-minute packing!

Rehearsals for a tour are usually quite intensive; hours of practice for both music and choreography are the backbone of our stage show. We spend a lot of our weekends learning the order of songs, our positions, and also all our parts. We have booklets containing all this information, and sometimes a CD is issued to us so we can hear the songs and practice at home, to our parents’ dismay. I practice in the shower, and my parents show their appreciation by telling me to be quiet as they’re watching T.V.


Rehearsals can be fun for us boys, although I’m not sure what the adults think of us! We usually get quite a few breaks, as rehearsals can sometimes go on for the majority of the day. But by the time it comes to the actual tour, all our hard work should be visible on stage. And hopefully for you lot, the interval won’t last longer than the show!

The musical sides of rehearsals are normally us all sat around Rob, who is on the piano, just learning our parts and seeing how we all blend together. Our ethereal blend doesn’t come without a lot of concentration! We have to work really hard to get the balance of all the parts perfect, so when it comes to the live performances you get that perfect Libera sound.

The choreography is equally as important. This is a stage show, so it’s got to look interesting and exciting for the audience. We try to have fluid movement to keep up with the fluid vocals within our songs. We have to practice diligently; we even practice our moves blindfolded, so we become perfect at finding our places in the dark, in blackouts.

Of course, the lighting and back projection are important in our show, however we only get to see these in our dress rehearsals. We are always excited to see these elements of the show!

As I said, for some of us packing is always a bit last minute. We prepare diligently for the show, but maybe not so diligently whilst packing – even though we know weeks before that we are going on tour. We always find that all of us are always missing something on tour, from toothbrushes to T-shirts!

We all love going on tour. It is hard work, but a lot of fun. We can’t wait for this now; it’s only a week or so away!