TimR

I put this together from a very static single DSLR 4K camera. There's only one dynamic zoom and pan done by the operator at about 0:53. The rest is all done in iMovie. I think there is other software would let you add dynamic zoom and pan. http://youtu.be/T_qERv4vDog

If you get a video of the whole width of the stage you can zoom in using software afterwards. This will give a multi-camera type impression. Any decent camera will do this. Then give a hand held video to any old monkey with no skills and tell them to get close up footage from different angles. Cut it all together with the soundtrack from the first camera and you'll get something fairly impressive.

We did a gig a long time ago that we managed to get into because the singer was married to one of the senior officers. While we were waiting to go on I tried to engage the agent, who dealt with all the entertainment, in some conversation. She wasn't interested in even talking to me. I think it's a closed shop. A pro drummer friend of mine played in a band that gigged regularly for the RAF. They flew the band all over the world for gigs. Maybe other posters have different experiences. You'd certainly need to be vetted if you were regularly visiting bases.

Don't do the doodly bits then. Do the best that you can. They're auditioning you, not Geddy Lee. If you're not good enough, they'll go with one of the hundreds of bass players lined up ready to play who can do the doodly bits

[quote name='spike' timestamp='1473420463' post='3130046'] To be fair, we're talking Harrow and most of our gigs are Saturdays but Friday night in Bedford is a regular for us. We do have a couple regular gigs in Watford and Ruislip which will be fine for him but everything else is north of Harpenden and Stevenage [/quote] Google maps is giving me 1h20 on a Friday lunchtime avoiding current minor congestion on M1. If he can do that inside 2 hours at 5-6pm he's doing well. Maybe meet him for a beer in Bedford one Friday night first to see what he thinks. .

[quote name='spike' timestamp='1473418972' post='3130019'] I used to live south of Dunstable and a previous band I was in rehearsed weekly in Bedford. Like you, 40 mins + to get there and it did my head in. My present band only rehearses to learn new songs or rehearse new members and I reckon if we went with this drummer it would only take a couple rehearsals to get him up to speed. My main worry is how keen he will be to drive from north London to Luton or Bedford on a Friday after work once he's done it a few times [/quote] Wow! That depends on where in North London he is and what time you're expecting him to be at gigs. Doesn't matter how keen he is, that's a serious undertaking for a Friday night.

I'm near Stevenage so lots of gigs with an hour. Even as far as Cambridge. The thing is though for a drummer it's a hell of a load in and out on top of that hour so he'll end up doing 4 hours of 'driving duties' for each outing. I used to be 40mins+ from rehearsal space. On top of my daily cummute. It did my head in and I'm now 15mins from my current band. .

Put everything through the PA and use an 80 band EQ to ring out the venue. Search for booming and natural resonance. Drums need to be dampened if the room adds its own reverb. Good luck with that, drummers are even more precious about 'their sound' than guitarists.

I have a loose plan. It won't be a function. Probably more a Jules Holland style thing where I sit in with various different musicians playing different styles. A bit of jazz, some pop, classic rock, heavy metal... Some disco music on the iPod for in between sets. A bar. It takes no real planning other than booking the hall and sending out invites, asking people to play and booking a buffet.

[quote name='EliasMooseblaster' timestamp='1473165751' post='3127552'] . Even with an original artist playing something incredibly twiddly and technical, there will be some innate fascination in watching them execute these feats of noodly technicality, and so if you have to choose between two such groups, then the group who can apply a little more showmanship to their technoodlesome execution is more likely to be the one that gets your ticket money. (Though conversely, I often wonder if the one thing worse than a shy band is a band that's too arrogant and just gets on the crowd's nerves. Is a hostile atmosphere worse than no atmosphere?) [/quote] I went to see a friend play at an originals night. They were second on of three. The first band were excellent the venue was full. They pitched it perfectly. Musically and showmanship. My friend's band were also superb. Musically and showmanship. However about half the audience left as soon as the first band had finished. Once my friend had finished the audience halved again but we stayed to watch the last band. Musically they were competent, they could play their instrument, but the tunes were terribly written. People started leaving. The singer/guitarist was getting more and more agitated as more people left. Eventually launching a tirade of abuse at the audience about not recognising good music. We left after that. Aside: I once went for a meal at a restaurant's opening night. Halfway through the meal a band started up. It was a small restaurant and the band were loud, people were there to eat. They were playing original songs. We complained to the restaurant several times about the volume level. Eventually the singer came over and told us we didn't know anything about music and it had to be loud when playing live. All 10 of us looked at her and burst out laughing. We were having a band night out with the 10 piece function band.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1473153265' post='3127343'] For lots of people the music is all the "interaction" they need from a band, they don't want or need any more "entertainment" than that. I'm one of them. [/quote] Certainly. However, people come to see a band, not necessarily to listen to a band. I suspect that people who are not interested in being entertained will come back whether or not te band are entertaining, whereas those who do want to be entertained will not come back if you don't entertain them. So you will lose part of your audience by only playing and not performing the songs. If, as in the OPs case, you actually like playing to an audience, the performance part of the music is quite important.

It have 4 LED par cans. They're DMX but as mentioned above set them to sound to light. I think mine are the DJled ones and 2 are 48 and 2 are 64. Stuck on two small tripods behind the PA speakers light the band really well.

It's difficult to know without actually having been there. Know the area. Know what the rooms are like. Know what kind of bands he lets rehearse. I'd not be too worried about power off an locking up. I'm not sure I'd be totally happy with checking lifts are empty. Depends what the 'lifts' actually are. I've been left in charge of all sorts of buildings. It's not really a big deal.

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1473097878' post='3126922'] This very much depends on the genre. I wouldn't expect to go & see a death metal band, or somebody like Steven Wilson, & have them smiling & throwing cheeky winks at the crowd, or telling crap one-liners in between songs. [/quote] Indeed. I'm still not convinced a death metal band who stare at their shoes all night would be a particularly enteraining act. Presumably they interact with the crowd in some way.

Is he the owner or just a key holder? If you're uncomfortable with it just say no. The only problem is if you don't lock up properly. He's responsible and didn't ensure it was locked it's his problem as far as the insurers will be concerned. Whether or not he comes after you is another question entirely.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1473084676' post='3126727'] I don't think that songwriting is the problem. There's at least a couple of decent songs in every originals band. And remember that very few "signed" bands are much better. How many albums (that aren't greatest hits/best of) do you own where every song is a classic, and how many times have you bought an album on the strength of a great single only to find that is the only good track on there? The problem most bands have is that they simply don't have the ability to perform those songs in a way that is entertaining to an audience. The number of times I've seen bands struggle to project beyond the edge of the stage or simply play as though they are still in the rehearsal room and the audience might as well not even exist. And with the "product" now being the live performance it should be easier than ever to be able to hone your act so that it entertaining on stage. After all you just need to use your rehearsal room time properly. That's relatively cheap compared with what you used to need in order to make a recording that could compete with what was in the charts. [/quote] Yes. People come to see a band to be part of the atmosphere and part of the action. Why should they come if you're not making them part of what you do? Talk to them at breaks, be friendly, make eye contact and smile during the show. Basically perform and draw them in. .

I'm pretty sure more than three men and their dog listen to Mahler.

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473075597' post='3126572'] That's an interesting point, but what would be an alternative measure of quality? In a band context, isn't the most important thing entertainment, in which case popularity would seem to be a good metric? I've no doubt we could have a very worthy academic discussion about the 'quality' of a piece of music but if a three chord ditty is enjoyed by more people then what's the point? [/quote] The point of Pop music is it is Popuar. That's by definition. People can't complain on one hand that they're playing arty music and popularity doesn't matter. Then complain that no one comes and listens. I appreciate that it may be different people. But surely you want to make music that people want to listen to. Seems a bit odd to me.

[quote name='luckydog' timestamp='1473068179' post='3126474'] Oh, I think we can. Now where shall we start ? There is: by definition it is fresh and unique. So it has to jump significant extra hurdles of familiarity and reputation. Agree it needs to be particularly worthy of interest to get a following. But one has to run it up the flagpole to see who salutes it ! LD [/quote] Maybe that's the problem? I see lots of bands trying too hard to be fresh an unique. I also see lots of bands just copying their heroes. You have to find the middle ground. An originals band that sets out to attract members with the advert "<insert genre here> <insert influences here> looking for <insert very specific type of musicain here>" is to be avoided really. Generally people are attracted to something familiar. Try to depart too far from that at you've got a lot of work to do. Music tends to evolve rather than suddenly make massive jumps and departures from the norm. Even electronic music and punk were based heavily on what has been before. Take a diverse group of musicians and put them in the melting pot. .

I like 4string's approach. A lot more relaxed, play local gigs. If the music is good people will come. Ultimately it's about letting people know you are playing and when and having a massive network of friends in all your other areas of life. If all you do is band and the only people you socialise with are the band or close mates of the band, you're restricting the size of your network. I'm a member of a local running club with 200+ members. Last local gig I had 20 of them down, they're spreading the word amongst themselves and more are now interested in coming down. Next time they'll bring more friends. (Caveat - they all race on Sunday mornings so if our Saturday night gig is before a big meet, they all leave halfway through the second set. At least I know that's legitamte. ) Unfortunately I work in London and there is zero chance of anyone travelling out to see us from there (we play covers, I don't wear jeans though, I'm not f....g Jeremy Clarkson!)

Yes. Spend a little bit more.

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473017651' post='3126140'] That's a fair point, though in our case it's more casual networking than being a proactive. A pub we've played many times is the 'local' of our singer. He once mentioned he was in a band and was then invited to come along and play, which we duly did and have been asked back many times since. So I take your point that gigs don't arrive out of thin air, but equally it's not as if we're out there all the time delivering flyers to every venue we can find. We don't even have a demo CD or a web presence . . . although it's something we keep talking about and have have made a few recordings in preparation. Trouble is, I never think they're good enough and always want to improve them before burning loads of CDs, meanwhile the rest of the band loses interest and we make no progress. [/quote] Get a live video done using a fixed camera and a mate with a video camera. Edit the two together using an iPad with iMovie. It's very powerful. Upload to YouTube. No CDs required, no one listens to them. You can take your iPad to a venue and play the video there and then. Put it on FaceBook etc. No website required. In all honesty it really doesn't need to be perfect. It's a disposable commodity. If you can actually get him to watch, the booker will watch it once, maybe not even all the way through. He'll know within about 30secs whether you're what he is after. People are spending too much time and energy in the wrong areas. All that casual networking is actually what's getting the gigs. It's not a hard sell. It really depends on who you are approaching.

[quote name='4stringslow' timestamp='1473020979' post='3126194'] At the pub and other small venue level, what percentage of the audience has actually travelled specifically to see ’your' band rather than just turning up to see whatever live band that happened to be playing at that time? In other words, how often does the audience come to band rather than the band coming to the audience? [/quote] This really depends who you are and how often you've played there before and how well your casual networking skills have been when you played before. If you've a decent Facebook following you will get quite a lot of locals coming specifically to see your band. We used to go to The Turrets in Frien Barnet in the 80s. We would find out which bands were playing and only go to see certain ones. We didn't have to travel far. It was 5 stops on the tube, but it wasn't just dropping into the local for a pint and a band just happened to be playing. I do similar now with Lemon Rock. If I'm free on a Saturday I'll look to see who is playing where and chose. I'm not sue how typical I am though. That's a sample size of 1.

[quote name='luckydog' timestamp='1473017144' post='3126130'] Hey, you must be doing something right then, so keep on doing it. if you know it's good, and others get it, so you're basically on. Don't know how many times you've been round the block, but assume you know the score. My 2p worth : keep writing strong material and don't compromise, only take bookings likely to be successful, only play bills with same genre bands, make bonds with those bands for mutual support, know the demographic of your supporters, time gigs for when your audience has money (monthly paydays, grants etc), play gigs when your audience is around (term times, weekends, early/late eves), book dates well in advance, get local reviews, go see other local bands of all sorts and they'll see you, social network, choose a promoter who likes you, don't worry about making money, play short sets, be nice to everyone esp venue engineers, and be lucky. Phew ! LD [/quote] This, in spades.

[quote name='ians' timestamp='1473017200' post='3126131'] Done only two live gigs in the past 10 yrs but here's a couple of observations. A local originals band would always struggle to pull in the punters until established, goes with the territory...bin there done that,. I honestly don't think I could stomach playing to a modern audience with them all either looking at there phones or holding them up videoing the band. Weird. And thirdly. I think we live in a new era.. where live entertainment is going to die and be non existent in 10-20 yrs time. I thank my lucky stars that my best gigging days were in the late 70's early 80's where I was out five nights a week doing originals, covers, holiday camps etc....feeling rather sad about it all really. [/quote] Don't be. It won't. People have been playing electric guitars for 85 years. It's not going to stop.