Rich

Mrs Rich was at the Birmingham date on this tour. She reckons Skynyrd totally wiped the floor with the Dutch fellas, to the extent that people were leaving halfway through the GE set.

If my lightweight class D head and neo cab are robbing me of some 'heft' or other such thing, then to be honest I'm willing to play that price. The best sounding cab I've had was my old SWR Triad. It weighed nearly 100lbs... I was recently looking with some keen interest at an old Trace RAH600SMX, until I looked at the specs -- it might be an absolute sonic monster but it's 15 times the weight of my current class D minnow... I simply can't go shifting those sort of weights around any more, my back would be destroyed within a month.

What are those ultra-short scale 6-string basses with the thin strings?

First concert - The Beat, supported by The Alarm and Aztec Camera -- Hammersmith Palais 1983 Last concert - Take That, Birmingham. See below Best concert - dead heat between Dream Theater on the Metropolis 2000 tour and It Bites on the Eat Me In St Louis tour Worst concert - Pat Metheny trio at Birmingham Symphony Hall. The band were utterly superb, but a jazz trio in a symphony hall? Ludicrous venue choice and zero atmosphere. Loudest concert - Vow Wow at Reading Majestic, 1988ish. Seen the most - Mike Stern Most surprising - Take That, Birmingham. I was dragged along expecting to hate it, but it was actually great. Sh*t hot band, and Rick Astley in support was superb. What a voice he has now. Next concert - Not known. Wish I'd seen - Miles Davis, Prince.

100%. Absolutely nothing to lose, but plenty to gain.

Bass-wise, you could do a lot worse than this: String it BEAD and destroy everything in your path

The grown-up approach: Send a polite email wishing them well. What I'd do: Send a polite email wishing them well, but fill it with well-disguised withering sarcasm. Tell them you've had a lucky escape and they're a bunch of c.starfish, but make it sound like you are pledging undying lifelong friendship.

Not necessarily... This is what I did too. I have a 9-to-5 and am in no way a pro muso, but I provided youtube links and band Facebook pages which demonstrated that I am in quite busy and popular bands, and I was accepted on the strength of that. It seems to me that in reality the main criterion is how much you play, rather than how much you earn. It's 40 quid bloody well spent.

I do hope Shep pokes his head round the door here. Would be great to hear from him again.

Yes! What was the name of his duo project? They made some outrageous noises.

Ovation Magnum, big lairy old amp, and a pedalboard the size of The Isle of Wight.

Assuming he'll change the shape of that godawful headstock.

I just bought Paul's Zoom pedal thingy. Quick and easy, buy with confidence. (n.b. the transaction was quick and easy, not Paul )

Exodus by the Skatalites

Aww no fair, I wanted the dirt Agreed wholeheartedly. Noise at these shows needs to be policed.

One of my bands uses Farcebook messenger. The other uses Whatsapp and Doodle. Both use Google calendar. They seem to work ok so far.

Whose was that booth?

This ^^ How hard would it be to duplicate the front input jack on the back?

Elixirs all the way for me. I find them to be just bright enough without being stupidly toppy, and they stay that way for ages. The set I've just taken off my Sire are 18 months old, and I've put 4 of them onto the Thunder 1A as they're plenty lively enough yet. The main thing I love about them is the silky feel though. I wouldn't use anything else now.

It's even better with a horn section 😁