TimR

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1343661105' post='1753275'] C'mon, lets get real here !! No artist worth his/her salt is going to let this happen. If they did, there would be no audience, let alone a disappointed one. Even in the most grotty gig venues, the stage is never in darkness, at least not in my experience. What I assumed we were talking about here, was artists dressing up to the nines and putting on a glitzy show. There is a difference between this, and an artist performing his music and interacting with his audience, either through the music itself, or through a bit of banter etc. [/quote] The original post was looking at how boring bass players often are. I've worked very hard with my current band to get the guitarist/singer to drop his music and engage with the audience. On most tunes He stands rooted to the spot behind his mic staring down at his music. Musically we're tight and people listen but always get a much better reception to the tunes he plays without his music even though he makes more mistakes. That tells me people want to be entertained. The original video is satirical. Purposefully poking fun and exaggerating the boring bass player into a wild character to make a (very good IMO) point. You don't always need loads of flashing lights and jumping about but what you do need to do is engage your audience. Just a couple of coloured spot lights, a bit of thought on what you are wearing, learn to play without the music, smile and move about a bit is often all it takes.

[quote name='Coilte' timestamp='1343647928' post='1753017'] ... Besides, I am convinced that there are lots of people who go to a concert/gig/live performance purely for the music (granted, in the hope that is played well), and dont care much for the other "multi-sensory experiences". [/quote] I think they would be the first to complain if they turned up and the stage was in darkness and the artist just played his songs with a 5 sec silence between each one and a blank expression on his face.

John Deacon is the one I think I wished I'd seen.

You'll find that blokes don't notice so much what people are actually wearing. If a high proportion of your audience are women it's very important. What you wear is only part of your appearance. If you play in a party band and jump around, it's infectious and your audience will jump around. The idea of having a frontman is to direct the audience. Whether they direct the audience to sit quietly and listen or they direct the band to jump around depends on the frontman being appropriate for the music and band.

Do whatever you want as long as you are both listening to each other and he knows that you're not necessarily going to follow him and vice-versa. Nothing worse than changing and glaring at the drummer because he's thinking too much about his next beer.

Music is about conveying emotions. Your facial expressions and body language are as much as this as the notes you play. If Miles Davis turned his back on the audience he was conveying an emotion/making a statement. I find it difficult to believe he did it during solos.

[quote name='the_skezz' timestamp='1342645000' post='1738724'] Interesting - hopefully it'll sound different to Maiden, much as I love them it'd be nice to hear him play something other than triplets [/quote] What triplets would they be? Maiden are Harris, I can't see it being a lot different to the early stuff. Hopefully I'll be surprised.

Yes, but you look into costs of various H+S measures to decide whether it is practical/affordable to hold the event in the first place. Irrespective of whether it will cost more or not to have the roads closed for longer, it's a cost due to Health and Safety. They haven't just closed the roads for fun.

Personally I think 80,000 people trying to cross Hyde Park Corner in the middle of the night might be a slight Health and Safety concern.

[quote name='toneknob' timestamp='1342525817' post='1736504'] You seem like quite the expert! Are you able to answer my question? Just in case you missed it, it was "How would letting Bruce and Mac have a "good night and thanks for coming" have reduced safe and ready access to local transport?". It wasn't a rhetorical question, I'm genuinely interested. Also, please don't mistake my editing for brevity's sake as ignorance or naivety. [/quote] As the link I posted above. They closed roads. I assume that the road closures are time based rather than just close them when they've had enough of playing.

They blamed it on road closures. [url="http://www.contactmusic.com/news/festival-bosses-defend-bruce-springsteen-cut-off_1366120"]http://www.contactmusic.com/news/festival-bosses-defend-bruce-springsteen-cut-off_1366120[/url] edit: Link added.

[quote name='silentbob' timestamp='1342475013' post='1735934'] Oh there are times I really enjoy being controlled, but that's normally on a Wednesday night at my "special" club [/quote] First rule of Wednesday Club.

[quote name='silddx' timestamp='1342432310' post='1734618'] My mate at work was there, he's a massive Springsteen (and Beatles) fan. He said it was gently faded out, not cut off abruptly, but there was a lot of booing. He also said Springsteen makes a habit of coming on late and defying curfews, even having a set piece joke with the guitarist about it at a previous show. My mate wasn't pissed off about the fade out, he said Springsteen should have hit the stage on time, he was about 20 minutes late. [/quote] That's even worse. He must have been aware for nearly 20 minutes that he should have been cutting the length of his set. Another thing that we've had to do when wedding/function speeches go on faaaaar to long. Although probaly not his fault going on late is just as unproffessional. Saw Richard Bona at Jazz Cafe. Doors art 7.30 for 9.00 start. He didn't start until nearly 10pm. On a week night. Most of the audience missed the end of the set to get the last train.

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1342424295' post='1734460'] ... Just goes to show that Boris is an old fart who should be put out to pasture and not be allowed to run London. [/quote] Don't be fooled. Everything Boris says and does is carefully stage managed. He even arrives at events early so that his hair can be given that perfect tassled look before facing the public.

My friend was involved in an accident. He wasn't carrying band gear. The only injury he sustained was being knocked out by the car stereo speaker which hit his headrest doing about 60mph. Ouch.

What is totally unprofessional is coming on for an encore without being asked. Seems to have crept into a lot of gigs I go to. So much in fact that when the band say thank you and good night, most of the crowd sit down and wait for them to come back and do a few more tunes. It used to be that everyone would be left calling for more for a good 5 mins before someone would reappear on stage. In function bands that I've played in we make it clear 2 songs before the end that we're playing 2 more, then that's it. We stop and fade up an MP3 already cued on the PA. In pub gigs we just finish and turn off. Always leave them wanting more. We have on occasions had to turn back on and play another tune or two but that's an exception when the landlord has agreed and the crowd has had a very good evening. Marks them out as really amateurish and as was said before they obviously don't get to play out much. Which doesn't surprise me, if they over-run every time.

They organise an event for 80,000 people and can't get the basics of set timings right. Makes you wonder what else they couldn't get right.

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1342352757' post='1733550'] If we're going to have a whole new thread about this, I'd just like to say: 'IBTL'. [/quote] Well, the guy who said that is delusional if he thinks the mikes were turned off to curtail his use of free speech. I'm sure they would have had plenty of warnings from the stage manager that they were in danger of running over. Surely these big events have some leeway in the program to prevent running into the curfew time?

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1342348543' post='1733456'] 'When did England become a police state?' 'Around forty years ago, Steven'. [/quote] Yes. They drive around in tanks and torture people for having the wrong political views all the time in my village.

Anyone can play a part that's been written by someone else. It's the writing of the part that only one person can do. Plenty of writers don't perform their own material. Don't confuse 'nobody can' with 'don't want anyone to'.

[quote name='flyfisher' timestamp='1341941696' post='1726700'] Anyone 'tinkering' inside equipment needs to be even more careful because an RCD won't always offer any protection. For example, any current leaking to ground AFTER a mains transformer will NOT result in a Live-Neutral imbalance and an RCD on the mains side WILL NOT trip. Most of the time, this is not a big deal because A) you can't normally touch any wiring inside an amp and most amps use low voltages on the secondary side of the mains transformer. BUT, valve amps use high voltages and if you come into contact with them, then the RCD will happily keep providing mains current to the amp because it cannot 'see' anything on the other side of the mains transformer. [/quote] See my earlier comment about missing earths and transformers.

[quote name='dood' timestamp='1341937120' post='1726552'] I wasn't referring to the transformer having a fault, but as you know a transformer will have an impedance (or DC resistance when read with a multimeter) I simply wanted to know if the tester unit was meant to be used without anything plugged in to get a proper result or if the loading of the mains transformer on the circuit (if the amp is switched on of course) would interact with the tester? I mean, for example, you wouldn't try to measure the impedance of a speaker whilst it is connected to another speaker cabinet as the reading would not be true. I wanted to know if the tester simply measured open/short circuits or if it relied on resistance too. If it did, would loading on a mains socket cause the threshold for those readings (and alarm) to change. Make sense? [/quote] Yes. The transformer comment was separate to my answer. But the first part stands. Test BEFORE you plug any of your kit in. So it's a bad idea to have it permanently connected with the rest of your kit.

I made the comment about the transformer. The RCD will only detect an imbalance in the current flowing between live and neutral on the mains side of the transformer in the amp. If the earth is missing then the case voltage can 'float' up to the transformer secondary voltage. When you earth this through another amp you get a shock. Because this current is isolated from the mains current by the transformer it will NOT trip the RCD. It's painful usually you get a spike on the lips or a tingling in your fingers, but it's not usually enough to be fatal.

[quote name='dood' timestamp='1341916746' post='1726012'] Guys, Would this tester work if, say it was plugged in to the end of an extension lead that was plugged in to a faulty (say bad earth) mains socket? I'm thinking yes it would. I was wondering as I have a spare outlet on the extension fitted to the back of my rack case. I'd happily leave one of these plugged all the time as a visual guide to the status of the socket I am plugging in to. [edit] actually, I'd have to unplug all the devices from the extension first for a proper clear reading wouldn't I? [/quote] It would, but the idea is to test the mains outlet BEFORE you plug anything into it. Saving damage to equipment. The RCD will be reducing your risk of electric shock. You can still get shocks off gear from after the transformer. Ie mike to guitar even with RCD fitted. Hopefully they're lowish voltage.

When we make a decision we do it with all the information we have available to us at the time. The only thing you should ever regret is not asking enough questions. You should never regret making a decision, however bad it may seem with hindsight. Next time you should express your feelings to your band mates and ask them if they have any comments. You have to ask why they didn't try to persuade you to stay if they knew about the gig. Are you sure that the new bass player didn't get them the gig? Often when someone leaves a group it upsets the balance and makes the remaining members think about why the person left. If you hadn't left things would have probably carried on for a while with no much happening. You can only hang around for so long.