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New Kids On The Block

I went to the Chris Rock show at the SSE Arena Wembley on Friday night and it was an absolute shambles. The timings were supposed to be roughly a 7.55pm start with an hour of warm up acts before Chris was due to come on at 9. I arrived at 7.30pm thinking half an hour should be enough to get through security - wrong! When I arrived there were massive queues at each of the entrances. Moving very, very slowly. It got to 8.30 and I was still outside having not moved very far, thinking would I even get in by 9pm when Chris was due to start. Some people ahead of me at this point just gave up and left. It was around 8.45 that the security started to shift people to other entrances to ease the congestion and then just started whizzing people through, obviously in an attempt to get everybody in by 9. The little pouches that hold your phone are designed so a strong magnet holds it together. It probably wouldn't take much force to open it. Also there's no window - my thoughts were what if somebody needed to get hold of me in an emergency? I wouldn't even be able to see if a family member was trying to get in touch. And of course at the end after the gig finished, there wasn't enough people outside to open the pouches up to retrieve the phone, so was waiting for about 15 mins to get that done. This will do nothing to stop people recording if they want to. I saw people in the arena with phones that hadn't been locked away. Anybody could simply take 2 phones and have one locked and use the other or a camera to record. In fact there was a guy in the front row who got kicked out after about 15 mins when Chris noticed he was recording with a camera. Whilst the idea is good that people should enjoy the show without a sea of phones in their faces, the execution needs to be vastly improved.

Always had a soft spot for Paul Young. He even liked one of my tweets a while ago (and I hardly ever tweet). Poor chap, wish him and his family the best in this difficult time.

Was wondering the same looking at all the pics. I leave my guitar/bass in their cases which can be annoying as if they were out I'm sure I'd pick up and play more often.

There's a Laney RB1 on sale in the classifieds here at the moment. I had a look at a couple of videos on youtube and quite like the tone. It's a 15W which might be suitable for home?

Too far man! Otherwise I'd have snapped up the bitsa PJ you had.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm in London so that's nowhere near. But I've had a look on Gumtree and there's a few potential options locally... That's amazing, I would love to pick up a bargain like that. I was tempted by a Squier Affinity PJ that came up on ebay just before Xmas for £129, but thought I'd wait and see what else comes up. I'm only going to remain a bedroom player, playing along to old songs. 100W would be overkill and too big for my needs. I've got a 100W Marshall guitar amp sitting around doing nothing that takes up too much space, need to list that for sale at some point. Had a look at those and a couple did come up around £200. But it was a little more than I wanted to spend on a starter bass. Maybe I'll look at that in the future

Some pics... It's in such good condition, I can't really tell it's used at all. The finish is lovely under the light.

Happy New Year! And good news, I've finally picked up my first bass a few hours ago! It's the TRBX174 that I was going to see before Christmas had I not spoken to the guy "selling" (wasting time more like) a Squier VM PJ. I bought it from a cash converters type shop and got a padded Stagg soft case with it. It's in great condition and barely looks used. Thanks to everybody above for suggesting different things and helping me out. Now all I need is an amp... any recommendations? I'm thinking something that's at least 30W as I'll probably outgrow a 10W practice amp quickly. Budget is around £80-100 used.

I'm starting to think the bass universe has something against me... Was supposed to go see a bass/amp last Saturday morning, all arranged the day before but then the guy texts to say somebody had expressed interest weeks before me but went quiet on him, and had just got back in touch. So he was giving him first dibs, which he did and the bass sold. Spoke to somebody yesterday about going to see a Squier VM this morning, got a text in the middle of the night saying he wasn't feeling well and he wouldn't be up to it. I'm hoping that we can rearrange for tomorrow but looking doubtful. The annoying thing is if I had known I wasn't going to see the Squier today, I could've gone to see a Yamaha TRBX174 yesterday afternoon. But I put that off as I prefer the Squier. Now I just have to sit and wait to see what happens

Just checked out a couple of videos on youtube of this model. That does sound pretty awesome at this price point!

I'm all for upgrades and customisation. But for a starter bass I just want something to pick and up enjoy playing without thinking "it could do with new pickups/better tuners". I think the VM squiers kind of fall in to that bracket, as does the bitsa you have for sale at the moment

There's a second hand Yamaha RBX260 on ebay at the moment that I briefly looked at. But when looking at a couple of videos on youtube I wasn't overly impressed with the tone. I don't know if it's worth taking a gamble on it or waiting for the right PJ style guitar. How about Harley Benton?

Really? Which others are out there that are on par with the VM?

I've been looking around for my first starter bass and have pretty much decided to go for a PJ type to offer a variety of tones. I'd also like to pick something up that I'll enjoy learning on and not feel it's a budget instrument that needs upgrading/replacing for a while. I just noticed a second hand Squier Affinity PJ pop up on ebay for £129 + shipping that seems reasonable and checked out a few youtube videos to hear what it sounds like. To me it sounds pretty good. But I'm wondering if I should hold out for a second hand VM which will probably sound better and hold my interest longer before wanting to swap up or change pickups? Overall my budget is around £200-250 to get a nice starter bass and amp. Not sure if I should bite the bullet on the affinity or wait for a VM?

Yes indeed! Thanks for the warm welcome guys

Hi all, I have a hankering to learn bass which is why I've joined up to this wonderful forum. I've been browsing the classifieds over the last week as I'm looking to get my first beginner bass so thought I'd best create an account and say hello! I've never picked up or tried bass but it's always appealed to me. I've got a bit of background in guitar but haven't touched that in over 10 years and I didn't get far off the beginner mark. Hoping when I pick up a bass and amp I can get into it quite quickly though.