Franticsmurf

For me, how I personally feel about the gig at the end of the night determines whether I'd class it as successful. But that is influenced by a number of things, most of which have been mentioned above. The audience must have enjoyed (usually determined by the dancing/singing along/cheers and claps) and for a really successful gig that means they've also taken the time to talk to us afterwards. The venue must have liked us and although a re-booking on the night would be ideal, a chat with the person in charge of booking with some positive feedback ticks my box as sorting bookings on the night is not always possible. We must have played well together as a band. While the audience is the primary measure of how good we were, I'd be disappointed if I knew our performance as a band wasn't as good as it could be regardless of the first two points above. Similarly, my personal performance, (regardless of the band's) must be something I could defend if called upon to do so. I am my own worst critic, so that can be a difficult one to overcome. The sound/lights/staging/venue/performance (separate from the playing) has to be of a good standard. To me, success and enjoyment (in the context of the OP's question) can be separate. In other words, I can enjoy a gig that ticks few of the boxes above or I can come away feeling deflated from a gig that ticks most of them. The decider in those cases is usually my performance.

And there is my new band name.

A beard tester? 😄

Well done - that's the measure of success.

This happened to me once, in a rural pub. Every time I plugged in my extension (with RCD) everything in the pub went off. Took me two goes to associate the two actions. I was not popular that night! I was on BV duty at a gig a few years ago. I don't have a powerful voice so I have to almost be touching the mic during the louder songs. My beard doesn't help. As soon as I started singing I felt a little sting from the mic. I assumed it was static but it happened again the next time I sang. So I stayed away from the mic and after the song finished, unplugged from the mixer (on stage) trying not to let anyone see. I thought I could continue pretending to sing for show. Next song in, as soon as I started to sing I got a little shock again. Turns out the bristles from my beard were catching in the grill of the mic. 🧔😄

Usually I have a lift with our drummer to rehearsals (about 15 miles away, no public transport for the journey home) and gigs if I'm going through the FOH. If I have to take an amp and cabs, I'll drive myself. The drummer lives about a mile away and if my three piece is having a knock in his garage studio, I'll walk as I only take a bass and leads.

Yes, although we were on the coast yesterday, we were sheltered from any breeze. Hot and humid = sweat and many towels. 😄 This is the true test - no matter how many people tell you how good/bad/loud/quiet etc you were, if the venue re-books you, you must have done something right!

I have been using IEM for one of the bands I'm in for about a year but I've never quite been able to wean myself off the backline. But yesterday I played an open air gig with them and due to the stage set-up my back line was at the back of the stage with two people between me and it. I was really happy with the IEM mix (our permanent sound man is very good at getting a decent mix) and so I decided to leave the back line off. Our keyboard player was happy as my speakers were right behind her. There was enough spill from the PA and the monitor speakers to let me feel the bass, and my IEM mix was spot on. I can't see me going back to on stage amps with this band. I played with another band yesterday - a three piece - and although we used the same FOH and sound man, for most of our gigs we won't have a full PA and so I'll be sticking with the on stage amps for that.

I played a small festival gig yesterday with two different bands. The main band I'm in (The Hulla) organises the festival and so Friday was spent setting up the stage and marquee, sorting out the sound etc. I put a three piece band together (The Rip) to fill one of the afternoon slots in the festival and that went really well. By the time we went on there were about 200 people milling about and we got a better than expected reaction from them as we went through 45 minutes of rock covers. I lost my voice two weeks ago (I forgot where I left it - that's age for you) and it's been slowly getting back to 'normal' but my rendition of '20th Century Boy' was a bit enthusiastic and by the time I came to sing 'Comfortably Numb' I was a bit gravelly and it was hard to hit the higher notes. Our guitarist was helping with harmonies but I just had that feeling of 'this isn't working'. Then our sound guy gave me a big grin and a thumbs up and it really lifted my spirits. I managed to get through the final chorus sounding a bit Joe Cocker-esque but fortunately it was the last song I was singing lead vocals on and I managed to grunt the 'harmonies' to 'Purple Rain' and 'Sunshine of Your Love'. We've already decided to keep going with The Rip as we all seem to be on the same wavelength and the reception we got at the end was very positive. The Rip The Hulla went on at the end and, with one 10 minute break, we played for 4 hours. By the time we started there were more than double the number of people there (we'd sold 500 tickets and there were some walk-ins too) and the atmosphere was amazing. Our singer is very good at working with audiences and this crowd was up and dancing almost from the first song. The singer (on a radio mic) ended up leading a conga line through the field during '500 Miles' and completely disappeared into the darkness, still singing, during our rock 'n' roll medley. All good fun and we ended up running out of songs as the 'One More Song' chant started so we revisited a couple of earlier toons. The Hulla always go down well with this crowd (this is the third festival I've played with them) and the time flew by. The Hulla Band Kit wise, for The Rip I played my newly acquired Ibanez EHB1000s through a Plethora X3 (giving me compression and a choice of chorus or phaser, with the vintage 4x10" cab sim selected). I was using a Behringer BDI21 but it developed a buzz and so I swapped it for a passive DI box. The signal was split into FOH and a TCE BAM200 into a Trace 1x10" and a Warwick 1x10"+tweeter. I played a Crafter electro-acoustic guitar directly into FOH for Comfortably Numb, and for the end solo and the solo in Purple Rain I used a McMillen 12 Step keyboard controller with a string patch to fill the sound out. With The Hulla, I used my Sterling HH through the Plethora and directly into FOH with no back line. Our sound man had got such a good sound and a nice mix in my IEM that I didn't need anything behind me and I think this will be the turning point where I finally have the confidence to go ampless in The Hulla. I am tired this morning, though. 😃

Me too. Had to turn my head to one side to read it. 🤣

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm😃

Self taught - initially on guitar pre-YT. I learnt on the job - once I'd got the basic chords sorted my mate and I formed a band and I learnt what I needed for the next song. I had an old bass, which I used to record demos, but it was very much root note stuff. Later I was offered a well paid spot as bass player in a duo, which became a trio and after a while I thought I ought to make an effort to actually learn to be a bass player. I picked up a few things along the way from fellow musicians. Once YouTube was available I went looking for some techniques and practice exercises there but most of the learning for me was, and still is, practicing specific songs for gigs.

Me too - the guitarist at the time was going through a phase of having too much bass dialled in on his guitar amp. He would also refuse to do soundchecks (usually because 'we don't have time' or 'it looks unprofessional(!)'. I asked him to cut back several times. In one gig, I actually got at his amp and turned the bass right down which confirmed my suspicion and made the sound good. But for the next few gigs it was back to booming distorted rhythm guitar. So I would randomly stop playing, and I'd make sure he could see me not playing. He never admitted he was wrong, but he sorted his amp out.

Bruce to his band: "Stop." Bruce to bloke 60 yards away at the other end of Villa Park: "Did you say you were in a band too? Come on up, brother, and join in. Plenty of room on stage." 😃

You'll be on the live recording when it's released. It'll be forever known as the 'Hey Man, We're in a band too' tapes. 🤣

I've often thought this - recently I've been rehearsing in a series of different spaces (big hall, small hall, medium sized recording studio) and I always record the rehearsals on a small Tascam digital recorder. The sound varies so much, like it does in venues, that it seems pointless tweaking the sound to perfection for anything other than a studio recording session.

Currently our guitarist uses pedals and an amp, but we're not always using FOH for every gig. To be fair, it's a great sound and not too loud. I think it would take him a lot if time and money to recreate it without and amp.

"Hey, man. We're in a band too but you're so much better than us, and you have gigs."

Gong: Live on TV 1990. My first band (in which I Geetard) was heavily influenced by Gong (with Steve Hillage). We never got on TV.

I guess that applies to whoever you choose to follow and as you say, sometimes stopping and making light of it can be the best way out. I've had to do both, and they both work. It's great if you can make a joke out of it. But I think it's also good to have some plan about what to do if there is a arrangement faux pas because in most of the cases I've experienced, we've got away with it without the audience noticing by following the singer, despite it being his mistake. Absolutely no recriminations on stage and I'd even say none in the dressing room, because potentially you're still on show to the guys that book you. I was the lead singer for one song and for some reason, against the arrangement we'd rehearsed, the main singer chose to sing with me,. But he ended up singing exactly half a verse behind me. Which singer do we follow? 😃 Fortunately the band knew the singer well enough to guess that he either didn't know he was wrong, or didn't care, so I stopped singing, made sure the others knew, and we followed him. Oh how we laughed on stage. 😬 He's working on his solo act now.

The BDI21 was my first pre-amp/DI box about 3 years ago and it's just gone back on my board as the overdrive is just what I'm after at the moment. In between, it's been gigged, rehearsed, left in a gig bag, lent to a mate (who broke the 9v socket) and resurrected. No reliability issues from it. I now power it from the battery terminals using a converter lead and it's sounding as good as it did on day 1. I'm even considering getting a second one as a back up and/or to try out the mods mentioned in this thread.

When it turned out the the band I was auditioning for had him on guitar and vocals, I walked away. Didn't look back. Don't think I missed out on much there... 🤣

Add me in to the mix. 😃

I saw/heard David Gilmour make a mistake on one of the opening four guitar notes to 'Shine On'. (You had one job, David). It got huge round of applause and the only reason I remember it is because when I got the Pulse album (I was at the night they recorded it), it has been edited out. But you can still hear remnants of the crowd cheering. As you say, who cares. 😃

Yeah, exactly. And where is he now, eh? 🤣