casapete

Love that song, used to do it in my country band.

If you want to go down the powered speaker route, then I can recommend the Alto TX215 active cabs. Brand new these are around £350 a pair, leaving £150 for a small s/h mixer and stands/leads.

Okay, I’ll start this. Look for a s/h Yamaha EMX512SC powered mixer amp. These are great - lightweight, reliable , 8 channels with good built in FX and can be had s/h for £250 or less if you’re lucky. Pair this with a pair of s/h speakers from a respected maker such as Yamaha, Alto, JBL etc which you should also be able to find for £200. This leaves £50 for a s/h pair of stands and some speaker leads and you’re done!

Blimey, so many to choose from. It would have to be something / someone really important for me from all the years I've been in bands, so probably 'Honky Tonk Woman' with the Stones, just to play with Charlie and Keith in particular. Failing that, playing anything with Bruce Springsteen / Steve Van Zandt / Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes would be great, as I could probably wing most of their tunes without too much trouble!

Mrs CP watches Strictly regularly and I must admit ( if I’m not working ) I do too. Trevor Barry is a great player and I really enjoy listening to him and the rest of the band, although occasionally one of the female vocalists can be a bit err...’pitchy’ I believe is the modern term. That aside, Dave Arch does an amazing job with the band each week with such a wide variety of styles to tackle, and it is to the show’s credit that they continue to use a decent sized live band when recorded backing tracks seem to be so prevalent on TV and in the theatre these days. Long may it continue!

Stand looks great VFM Stew, it just says unsuitable for nitro finish instruments. This will be down to the foam they use which reacts with nitro finishes and damages the guitar where it touches. I’ve seen a few Gibsons with marks on the neck and base where this has happened. See if you can check the spec of any instruments you have to ensure this isn’t the case. These days most basses and guitars tend to have poly finishes which won’t be affected by this, but some companies like Gibson still uses nitro for their instruments. Fender Custom Shop stuff use it for authenticity too, not sure about Gretsch but would imagine their top end stuff may be nitro as well.

Not suitable for nitro finishes though, so take care out there.

I’ll see your shoe and raise you a dart flying past us into the back wall behind the band, honest! (Rough nightclub in Hull in the late 70’s)

It was actually a denim shirt over a t-shirt! He was originally down to play a couple of songs but must have been okay with things as he stayed on till the encore.

Think all the band has been suffering from it. I went on their tour bus and was worried about picking it up myself! Nice people though, all really friendly. There are some clips of EC playing with them on YouTube now.

Apologies for the picture quality - combination of their rather dark stage and my lousy phone!

I'm a massive EC fan but never knew this! TBH Eric was a bit outside his comfort zone I think, although still managed to sound fantastic. Friend of mine has been doing sound for Hawkwind and alerted me to it happening. I got to watch from the wings, and chat with EC and his tech guy before he went on. Both lovely down to earth people, joking with the crew and not at all 'big time'. I have some photos which I'll try to add later.

Hawkwind tonight at Guildford. Not seen them before but had a tip off there would be a very special guest joining them, which turned out to be correct - Eric Clapton! I was watching from the side of the stage, and he walked in with his guitar tech and stood next to me so I had a brief chat. Then he joined the band onstage for around 6 songs including ‘Silver Machine’ and an encore. They say never meet your heroes, but I was blown away by seeing someone up close I’ve followed since the late 60’s. He looked in good health too, and played great, using a black maple neck Strat into a Fender Bandmaster 3x10 combo. Apparently EC and Dave Brock go back a long way, and Eric was asked to play with the band at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow night, which he was unable to do so opted to do tonight instead. Local gig for him too!

In my function band days this saved many a gig from being tedious for me....

A tough call Lozz, but the right one. Wishing you better health and plenty more gigs that suit your circumstances in the near future. All the best.

Although never been particularly hung up on lyrics, I’ve always appreciated songwriters who connect with me on whatever level. Step forward Chuck Berry, Bruce Springsteen, Ray Davies, and Carole King amongst many others. Doesn’t always have to be clever, just ‘right’ if you get my drift. Couple them with a killer tune and it’s job done.

I don’t think EC’s Rainbow Concert was a benefit for Ronnie, although it may have been recorded using his mobile studio set up? You’re maybe thinker of the later performances in the early 80’s, known as the ARMS (Action into Research for Multiple Sclerosis) charity concerts which involved Ronnie, who sadly suffered from MS. Think it was a handful of gigs played at The Albert Hall and some in the US which featured EC and many other famous players including Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page , Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts. I had a copy on VHS back then! Ronnie’s old band Slim Chance coincidentally have recently reformed and toured in the UK, performing some of Ronnie’s material as well as some new stuff too. I missed them when they played near me, but hope to catch them soon.

Just for balance - my 63 Precision spent a few years in a loft before I rescued it. It was in a (crappy to be fair) hard case. The frets had turned green, fingerboard heading that way and the old refinish was cracked and lifting off into scrolls, like when you strip wallpaper. To be fair the neck was fairly stable though! I think as others have said it depends on how long and the condition of the loft in question. Lofts tend to be prone to extremes of temperature, boiling in summer / freezing in the winter months, and sometime both within 24 hrs, so I would imagine it's these changes of temperature and humidity that do the damage. You'll probably be okay for a short spell at this time of year I would imagine, but I wouldn't recommend it as a longer term thing.

My thunder was very near choclatey when I saw the price....😂

Still doing it too I believe, with Michael Schenker band? Friend of mine saw him last year and said his singing was still as powerful as ever. Not bad for a 70 year old....

I actually like both versions - Dolly's for it's charm and simplicity, Whitney's for it's amazing arrangement and vocal.

As above, eagerly await your impressions of this amp. I love GK stuff, so hope it's going to be mega!

Guess again my friend! I believe that people's fondness for larger percentages of popular music is dependent on their era in which they were teenage / maybe early 20's? For example, growing up in the 70's I liked a far larger proportion of chart stuff (say 70%) than I do now (say 20%). This is of course inevitable as pop music was (and still is) primarily aimed at young people. Things I didn't like were the more obvious rubbish such as 'Grandad' (as mentioned above) and similar 'novelty' records, and MOR howlers which were probably bought by an older generation anyway. But I inhaled all the other great things of that decade - Soul/disco, Glam, Country rock and punk/new wave amongst others. All very different genres but still relevant to my 17 year old self. This continued right through to now, although there are some genres I do struggle with enjoying (grime, techno, EDM etc) so my love of all things current has gradually diminished. This is made obvious when I'm watching Later with Jools, where I usually only like one or two of the acts each week. BUT - there is some new music being made that interests me, and I'm grateful that this can still be viewed on mainstream TV.

Agree that some of the later stuff could get a bit like that, but for me her first couple of albums were truly outstanding, full of great songs demonstrating an amazing vocal talent. It grates on me a bit when Whitney gets lumped in with Maria Carey etc as a vocal gymnast, she was so much more and had such a sad end to her far too short life. I saw her live in concert in Monaco just before things started going awry for her and she was incredible.

Thursday saw us do a 400 mile round trip from Yorkshire to Essex for a gig in Chelmsford. Not a capacity crowd in the theatre but enthusiastic and jolly, so worth our while. Left home at 10.30am and got back at 2.30am so a long day. Today we played at a Butlins 70s weekend in Skegness. Completely different set up, as we followed Absolute Bowie ( who were very good) playing mid afternoon in a massive room. Just after I’d set up my GK rig, I noticed an SVT rig at the back of the large stage area, which pis*ed me off as apparently I could have used it which would have been a nice change. Anyway, by the time we went on the room was pretty full, probably around 3000 people (many in themed 70s outfits) all keen on having a good time. House PA was not great but we managed okay, everyone singing along to most of our set. Big video screens just behind me felt a bit weird, with some graphics alternating with live video of our band just in my peripheral vision. We went down well, and are in with chance of doing a couple more gigs for the company again next year. Fairly quick pack down meant I was home around 6.30pm which felt very strange after doing such a gig, but most welcome as I was still knackered after Thursday! Really enjoyed it, made such a nice change doing somewhere a bit crazy compared to our usual theatre gigs.