SINGAPORE — Last month, rock trio Electrico packed their bags for a road trip up north to the Sepang Go-Kart Circuit to play at the Good Vibes Festival. Unfortunately, severe weather led to the cancellation of the band’s set.

“It seemed like a waste — we came all the way and then we couldn’t play,” said drummer William Lim the day after, adding that the organisers had originally asked them to cut their set short before eventually cancelling their slot. “We really wanted to play. When they said we had to cut our set to 15 minutes, we still said okay, we could squeeze four songs into 15 minutes. We spent a lot of time planning the set. But in the end …”

Not one to let its efforts go to waste, the Singapore band has decided to organise its own concert here. On Oct 19, Electrico will take to the stage at The Substation with Love @ The Sub. The concert will feature a full-length set that includes the songs that were originally planned for the festival in Malaysia, with a few more thrown in. It will also not be a ticketed event — instead, it will be a “pay-what-you-want” gig, with proceeds from the show donated to The Substation’s fund to renovate its gallery space.

“You can pay S$50 to enter or pay S$100 and we’ll give you a hug!” quipped the band’s bassist, Desmond Goh. “The Good Vibes set was only 30 minutes; this is going to be about an hour — because too much more might hurt the ears. I think 60 minutes is probably enough to play what we want to showcase.”

What the band will showcase is not just its familiar hits. For the past year or so, it has been working on new material, some of which have been uploaded on Soundcloud. But for Goh, there’s nothing like roadtesting the new songs in front of an audience.

“The Internet is great — you can just upload your new songs — but nothing beats a good ol’ live show, where you can interact with your audience,” he said. “We just want to go out and play and have fun. We want to play gigs again. For the past few years, because we took a break, we were playing all kinds of shows. But right now, we want to play shows that really mean something to us.”

He continued: “Before Good Vibes, we were rehearsing two or three times a week but, right now, because time is short and we have a lot of things to do, we can probably rehearse only two or three more times. But these rehearsals will probably be more like a refresher course to flesh (out) what we’ve already practised, including the new songs, and get our fingers nimble again.”

Although Goh said the band wants to do more on the live circuit, those opportunities could be few and far between as Electrico’s members have quite a lot on their plate right now.

“William just had a second kid, I’ve got a kid coming, Dave (Tan, guitarist/singer) just got married, so our families are our top priority right now,” explained Goh. “But playing in the band is also important,” he added. “(Our family duties) will definitely reduce the time we have to play gigs, so all the more we want to do shows that are really worthwhile. We can’t just play any show that comes along.If we want to do a show, we don’t want to be lacklustre. We have to see how crucial it is to play the show (and) whether we have enough time to put up a very good one.”

Catch Electrico on Oct 19, 6pm, at The Substation. Prices: Pay what you want.