Franticsmurf

Yes, I have to play through songs quite regularly (monthly, or thereabouts) to be ready to play with any confidence, although I have found that once the song starts and I've played the first few notes, the rest tends to fall into place with little problem. I guess it's largely a psychological thing for me.

I don't think you're unreasonable to expect being paid your share of the cost of the gear as the band (and new bassist) will be benefiting. Personally, and as long as it doesn't compromise the buy out, I wouldn't be worried whether or not I was playing the gig. You've done the decent thing and offered to cover it, if they choose not to use your services, that's ok. But I would certainly want clarity on when the buy-out was going to happen. How they organise that within the new line up is up to them but I would be thinking that the money should come to you within a couple of gigs.

I have two basses for sale in my mate's shop and usually that would be the justification (ok, excuse) for looking around for something new/different. But so far nothing is calling. At best, I see something, think 'that would be nice to have and play' and then move on.

The last song I played was an extended, audience requested version of Proud Mary as an encore with the Hulla Band at our Hullabaloo festival in Gower. I was playing my Fender P bass through a Zoom B6 straight into the desk with in ear monitors.

I believe that is a conversation for Gongchat. 😂

And in Cardiff on Monday. Nick said the band welcomed the audience videoing but to switch the little light off as it annoyed the bass player. Guy added that the light didn't work (it doesn't in that context). Later he introduced Guy as the less annoying bass player. But it all felt as if it was part of the stage banter.

Thanks. 😀

I played with the Hulla band at their annual Hullabaloo festival yesterday. On the preceding few days we were glued to the weather forecasts as there was rain about. We set up the covered stage on Thursday evening and did all the wiring and line checking Friday morning. I sound checked with the support band I put together ('50% Dave', as two of the four of us are Daves) as a kind of 'is it all working' check (it was!) The Hulla band sound checked in the evening and we usually play a mini gig (30 minutes or so) as a thank you to the helpers and to let the visitors know we're around. (The festival is held on the village green about 20 yards from a popular beach and within a couple of miles there are several large holiday caravan sites - we usually get a few people wandering in to see what's going on. Just as we finished, the heavens opened and after the rush to tie tarps down and seal the stage, we settled in to a fish and chip supper. Saturday's weather was great - not too hot and with a breeze blowing as we did the last minute checks before sound checking the other acts. By the time the first act went on there must have been upwards of 200 people there and by the time my first band went on (around 4pm), perhaps 400 were seated around the green. We'd sold around 800 tickets and as it's a charity event we don't expect all the people who bought tickets to turn up but we were also having a lot of 'on the day' ticket purchases so by the time the Hulla band went on at about 7pm, the place was packed to capacity. Two songs in to the set and it was clear that the singer's voice wasn't going to last - he'd been croaky all day and comparing the whole event hadn't helped. The set called for seven up tempo, rocky numbers (think 'Town Called Malice', 'I Fought The Law' etc) to start with before a local choir joined us for another 5. One of the female backing vocalists and I sang with him (I was sight reading the lyrics from the Sax players music) and we managed to get through to the choir section. After the choir left the stage, the choir leader joined us on stage (she sings with us a lot) and after a few more numbers the singer's voice started to improve. We managed to get through the rest of the set (about 3.5 hours in total) and carry off a couple of encores before his voice finally called it a day. It was a great day - the support acts were really good mix (sea shanties, blues, punk rock (my band) and the choir. We had around 100 people upfront dancing from the start of the Hulla set until the end. I'm just back from the post gig site breakdown which we managed to do in the drizzle, so we were very lucky with the weather. My kit for both bands was my Fender P bass through a Zoom B6 DI'd to the desk. For 50% Dave I also had an Epiphone Les Paul going through a patch on the B6 set to give me just reverb and a dab of chorus, with an EHX Hot Wax pedal for drive and lead sounds. With the Hulla band, I used my in ears via a Behringer P16m monitor mixed receiving the pre-fade signals from our X32 desk as there's quite a din on stage with brass and percussion. With 50% Dave, I was able to hear the monitor speakers. The Crowd Our singer 50% Dave

Most of the time I'll work out the bass line from repeated listens to the version we are working from (often a different tuning for the singer). I'll aim to get the basics right so that I can play through the song quite quickly but without trying to add the fiddly bits. I'll learn the song properly with repeated play-alongs, and this is where I'll start developing the fills and working out the key bass parts (the hooks and riff that have to be played) .The Hulla band has a habit of changing arrangements so initially I'll stick with the 'no frills' version for rehearsals, bringing in the hooks and fills as I nail them and as the arrangement requires. It takes me a while to learn a part so early on I'm using notes and charts as necessary but as the rehearsals go on these become smaller and smaller pieces of paper. For example, during the month of so of rehearsals leading up to our gig on Saturday I've had to learn 6 new songs, four songs re-arranged to include a choir and to familiarise myself with the rest of the set. My notes went from 3 sides of A4 down to the current 3/4 of a side as I picked up the parts and arrangements. Now I have what is effectively a setlist with keys, prompts for starts, tuning down/up, and the odd middle 8. There are two songs with key changes that always throw me, so they are in. Where I'm singing, I'll also have prompts for the first word/phrase of the line if necessary.

It's a great feeling! After years of playing standard/generic pub rock, the drummer suggested a side project of Abba songs rocked up a bit. While it never took off properly, we rehearsed a set and it was such a breath of fresh air. It gave me a new respect for the Abba songs we were learning, gave me incentive and motivation to learn new bass techniques. With a new singer bringing in some more modern chart/pop which we also gave the 'rocked up' treatment we played a few gigs which went down really well.

This is Steve Hillage! 😃

For years I played in a band whose BL was excellent at reading the audience on the night. While we stuck largely to 'the set', the order often changed and there was a pool of additional songs we could launch into if necessary. He inevitably got it right. But then something changed and he became really bad at reading the audience. There would be noticeable gaps between songs and we'd either end up doing songs from his solo act or from the repertoire of songs he was teaching students at the time. For some reason he got obsessed with playing Sweet Caroline in every set. Nothing wrong with the song as such, but as a Blues Rock band it stood out badly. His justification - they all loved it and anyway someone asked for it. The former excuse was hard to argue against as, inevitably after the juice of the barley had flowed, people would sing along to it. But no one ever requested it within my earshot or eyesight.

I've seen a few of the YT videos of Jon and the Band Geeks, and enjoyed them. So I was interested when this new single and album were announced. Having listened to the single it takes me back to the Jon Anderson Yes days. Yes from 1967 to when Anderson finally left were my favourite band and it's great to hear something definitely new but with the elements that made Yes the band I was into. CD will be ordered.

Last full rehearsal with the Hulla band for next Saturday's Hullabaloo festival headline (well, we organise it so we get the best slot 😃). It went very well - tightest I've heard the band play. Add to that tea and biscuits during the first half and you have a very refined evening. Our BL is a massive Springsteen fan, so he bases the set duration on Bruce's marathons. We were just over three hours start to finish last night, with perhaps 10 minutes of break. In previous years, the crowd participation, extended intros and requests for encores has taken us to the 4 hour mark. I'm also playing with a scratch band made up of three Hulla bandmates in a support slot earlier in the afternoon. Our last rehearsal is Thursday. Friday is set up day - we have a large marquee to cover the stage which is set in the village green and most of the band help out with that in return for breakfast and fish and chips at the end of the day. Our sound guy does the event sound and I'll be helping with that too. A busy week ahead. 😃

Fair point - I didn't take into account the 'originals' part - and, according to their post they're looking for support slots. I still think it would have been better left out of the post - as you say they can cover their lack of PA with a hire job if necessary and no one would be the wiser.

I've just seen the Facebook post. It doesn't help that they don't have a drum kit or PA either. 😀

I don't know about fees as our was a long time ago but it was higher than the social club gigs we were doing at the time (iirc double) and if they were any distance away we would have accommodation included (usually the cheapest caravan). Mixed audience (one night we went on immediately after the kids entertainer and played to a bunch of screaming 5-8 year olds for about 20 minutes), usually drunk (the parents not the kids, although...). We were doing a few parks before the trend in stag/hen weekends so our audiences were generally better behaved than the pub/club circuit.

I did that last week - tuned down for 'I Fought the Law' and failed to go back to E for 'Town Like Malice'. What's worse, despite the solo bass intro I didn't notice until the last note of the song. 😃 It may be time for me to move to Ukelele.

Last night was the penultimate full band rehearsal before our mini-festival headliner on the 22nd. It was more of a request night as I had suggested everyone should nominate songs from the set that they wanted to go through to iron out the wrinkles. As usual, only a few actually did that, but we managed a couple of hours getting the first five or six songs from the set sorted, plus a couple we hadn't played for a while. Tonight we have a reduced band workout with a local charity choir with whom we'll be performing 5 songs at the festival. We've played with them before (and a percentage of the festival takings goes to support the homeless drop-in centre they run) and it's always good to have them on board. Last year they performed 'One Day Like This' on their own and it was amazing, so this year we're playing it with them. Replacing the strings intro is our sax player and until last night I was a little skeptical of how it would sound, but he nailed it with a breathy performance. Our regular sound man wasn't there and although he's got the whole mix set up properly, we couldn't get the monitors to work. There were many faces staring at the two monitor amps - I managed to eliminate the desk as the cause but amidst much muttering and in-taking of breaths we couldn't figure out why there was no signals from amps to speakers. We ended up using the main PA alone which, to be honest, was fine but the sound was a little 'unrefined'. I expect the solution is some switch that we all overlooked. We have one more full band rehearsal and a run through with the 4 piece mini band I've put together to play a support slot on the day. As there are two Dave's in the four piece, it has been christened '50% Dave'.

I would say that as the BC collective is generally a friendly bunch (yes you are), and this thread doesn't have any serious consequences (no prizes/awards at the end) then let @Geek99 stay. Absolutely the last thing I would want to do in any thread is to prevent a BCer from being able to drown out a geetard. 😃

When I started, we had no engineer and I was just taking a line from the headphone out on the mixer for vocals. At that point I was still using backline and it was mainly to give me clearer vocals (we rarely had any monitors, relying on the main PA spill). I agree that the IEM sound is only as good as your monitor mix, which relies on the competence of the person doing the sound. And if we accept that what we do is performance, then the look of the rig plays a part in that. 😃

Same as @uk_lefty above. I've been using earplugs to manage the onstage volume for years so to move to in ear monitoring wasn't as much of a change as it could have been. It does leave you feeling a bit isolated, but if your monitor mix is good (and it took me a while to get it right) then there's little problem. Some folk get around the isolation by having one or more ambience mics feeding into their mix - these pick up the audience and the general stage ambience which can help with the isolation thing. I started off just having the bass and vocals feeding in to a Behringer P1 and using earpieces that didn't completely isolate me from the rest of the band (who weren't using IEM). I found it was easier for me to hear my vocals, which was the main reason I started using earpieces. Now I'm playing in the Hulla band, there are 13 regularly on stage and being able to isolate from the brass is great. I've just started using a Behringer P16 which connects via Cat5 cable to the pre-fade of the FOH X32 so that I can control my own monitor mix in real time. I certainly wouldn't rule out playing with backline again - as I said I miss that sound behind me - but for what I'm doing at the moment, the IEM set up works well. And I can't advocate ditching the drummer as he gives me a lift to and from rehearsals! 😂

I've been ampless/IEM in the main band for 18 months now and I like the simplicity of carry-in/out (although I no longer have an excuse for not helping carry the PA gear now 😃) but I miss the sound of the bass behind me. The IEM set up gives me much better sound clarity, particularly with the backing vocals, and as we have a permanent sound man, I know I'm getting a good and consistent sound out front. I still have an amp and speakers for depping and any other band work I do.

In the early years of my career, while I hadn't been saved and was still a geetard, the bass player and keyboard player in the band were managing to wind each other up passively - each found things the other did annoying and/or frustrating but nothing was said out loud. We gigged and rehearsed and since they were on opposite sides of the stage the gigs were ok. But then we went into the studio to record a demo (in the days of cassette tape demos) and the keyboardist took charge, mainly because he was on a Music Tech course and he'd managed to blag studio time at the college he was attending. The bassist kept changing his arrangements (to me it seemed it was on a whim). The whole band was getting frustrated at what should have been a simple evening's recording of songs we'd been playing and rehearsing for a year as it turned into a two day event. There were mutterings but it was at the next rehearsal, in a cramped and sweaty basement studio, where the detonation occurred as the keyboardist, fed up with another 'if I play this line instead' moment from the bassist, hurled a large metal bar stool across the room at him. There was an impact, fortunately not full on and somehow it missed the kit lying around. There was a shocked silence from the rest of the band, some swear words that wouldn't be allowed on here and the bassist left. We got a dep in to fulfill the gigs that had been booked, spent some time looking for a permanent replacement and slowly the band faded away.

Off to see Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets in Cardiff on the 24th June.