EBS_freak

Been there - one particularly annoying venue where the buzz was intermittent. At the END of the gig, it turns our we were playing on the same mains ring as the fridges, so every time the compressors kicked in, so did the buzz.

Quick anecdote. Played a venue where the sound limit was so horrifically low, that a member of staff moving a hostess trolley that had a squeaky wheel tripped it. On stage, I swear you could hear the acoustic sound of the guitar over that what was coming out of the guitar amp. COMPLETE DISASTER - yet the bride and groom loved it. Just proves that most clients wouldn't know the difference between good or bad. (There is some logic behind this though - if the bride and groom have no benchmark of a wedding band, then maybe they are more accepting of low volume, energy-less performances)

The venue are just trying to safeguard their permission to make noise within certain limits. Can't blame them really, as they want to continue to trade... and they don't want a third party wrecking it for them. From my experience, this is how I'd handle the situation. Doddy is defo on the right path - venues see musicians as an annoyance that they are not in control of. Respond to the venue and state the following - 1. Respond to the venue, stating that you cannot afford to pre-visit every venue that you play but rest assured, as a professional outfit, you have experience of playing with sound limiters. 2. Acknowledge the fact that the venue are worried about sound levels and state that you of course will work with the venue to ensure that the appropriate sound levels are maintained. Suggest that a responsible member of a staff is present at the sound check to confirm that the band is playing to volumes that satisfy them, bringing a separate sound meter with them if required. 3. Also state that as the venue, they have a responsibility to provide a safe, continuous supply of power to the band, hence, you will not be signing any documentation. (Don't finish on this statement as it sound confrontational). As your part of the deal, you can state that all your equipment is PAT tested and you rely on it for your livelihood, therefore it should not be put at undue risk. 4. State that you will finish the set 15 minutes before curfew and then you will play pre recorded music to naturally bring the volume of the evening to a close. (So don't start playing things like I Predict a riot, Ruby ruby ruby, Brightside etc) 5. The band will respect any requests from the venues staff for you to alter the volume as required and you fully understand the meaning of striking that happy median of playing loud enough to generate the party atmosphere and respecting the neighbours). 6. Say you will be bringing an electric kit Speak to the wedding couple and say that the venue is in touch and set expectations. 1. Performance won't be an issue but will be constrained by sound meter and you have had experience of playing sound metered gigs before. 2. Also state that the venue have a responsibility to provide a safe, continuous supply of power to the band, hence, they should not be signing any documentation. 3. State that you are sick of venues selling themselves as band friendly and say that the venue is completely shady if they have not set expectations of volumes at the time of booking the venue. (This plants the seed and makes the client have those conversations with the venue about their disappointment in a "miss-sold" fact about the suitability for entertainment.) First off, write off the fact that this is going to be a high impact, high energy performance. It's not. When you sound check - 1. Source an electric kit (if you haven't got access to one already). Every wedding band should get access to them. 2. Make the volume ridiculously low. Uncomfortably low even. It will keep the venue happy and give them the confidence that you aren't going to give them any sound pollution problems. They'll forget the signing of any meaningless documents when they realise that you are reasonable people. 3. Stand your ground if people ask you to turn up and politely encourage people to speak to the venue if there is a problem (preferably the person that was present at sound check). 4. Get through the gig. It probably won't be fun. Additionally, look at the list of "approved" bands. If they are all Mumford and Sons-esque, consider going acoustic. You will need to confirm this with the client. I know, I know... but better to give something the beans acoustic-wise and can actually be quite fun as an alternative. You'll probably find out, this is all just procedure. In reality, once you remove the email chain, it's very rare that the venue will actually be that proactive in the follow up of anything. You'll probably find out the venue are completely different to how they can come across in emails. In all my years of playing wedding venues, there's only one that comes to memory where the tone of the email matched the guy at the venue. He was a complete pr1ck - I'll write about him in the nightmare thread at some point. Anyway... For example, PAT certificates and insurance - they just want to see a document. I have never had known anybody actually validate that the insurance document, or the PAT cert actually corresponds to the equipment that has turned up. All the venue are doing, is providing an audit that they have made reasonable steps to ensure that they have done the relevant Health and Safety steps to insure that there are no mishaps. Also, looking back at the thread, good to see that somebody else is using UPS. We get 30 mins of playing time off the grid. Most amusing when venues are trying to figure out how we've bypassed the system. Good luck - and don't forget to tell us your post gig story. If it is a disaster down to the sound limiter, get the wedding party to post a review on social media. Don't kill the venue - give them a fair review but write how disappointing it was that venue did not disclose the sound restrictions up front (if they didn't... some do but some couples don't understand the significance of it). <- Mega annoyance of mine. I find it incredible that venues aren't required to disclose such massive constraints upfront. As a side note, in my contracts, I specifically call out the safe power requirements and before I enter into an agreement with any client, I get the sound limiter status of the venue. I then explain the options to the client and whether the client wants to go forward with the band playing. In reality, I don't want sound limiter gigs, so tend to price myself out the market. The only ones that I'm not too bothered by taking, are the ones where I plug into sound systems where the venue provides the PA. This is becoming more and more common. I just turn up with the IEM setup and output to venue system.... which no doubt has a horrendous brick wall limiter on it and makes everything sound awful. But hey. What can you do? Good luck and hope this helps.

Fender?

This made me chuckle. A pub band that I used to play with occasionally knew that if I was available, I would play just for the fun of it. If I could fund the petrol money to get to the gig there and back, then all was good. One of the other bass players however, his going rate was twenty quid and five viagra. The guitarist in the band had them prescribed, so it would work out to be a way to get a cheap bassist for the gig. It became, obviously, a long standing joke - in that we'd talk about the gig fee in terms of number of viagra.

Maybe I should get on it. Will have to get all my accounts out to go through all the gigs, look up the venues to see what causes my mind to be jogged. I have to admit, out of everything, the locking of somebody to the van I thought was very elegant! As I say, I don't think I'm anything out of the ordinary - if you do enough gigs, this stuff will happen to you. I used to do a hell of a lot of wedding and party gigs, so I guess that's part of it.

Im sure there's a few people on there who have been caught out like I was... You can agree the set. You can agree the keys. What you can guarantee is that the keys player is playing everything in a different key and using the transpose function on the keyboard to try and get in the same key as the rest of the band... which of course, they totally failed to do. Even worse... it's the first dance. Fortunately MD's ear had detected it was a half step out and gave the signal... but of course, not everybody in the band could transpose on the fly. The horn players were fumin'. Sorry Sarah and James. 😕

As above. Work on your core. I had catastrophic back failure resulting in 5 surgeries. My saviour was swimming. Just front crawl and backstroke. Nothing else. If your core is not good enough to get your backside to the surface of the water, get yourself a pair of buoyancy shorts to help you until you can - it's certainly a lot easier than a pull buoy. (You may be self conscious wearing them - but believe me, nobody gives a hoot when you are swimming). I did pilates - but do go somewhere to do it... as it's easy to do it wrong and not get the benefit. It's deceptively difficult - simple moves but needs to be very slow and controlled. That's where the strength comes from. No strap is going to address the problem... it's just a sticking plaster that is delaying what could be in the post.

This just popped into my head after reading some of the latest updates. Myself and @stingrayPete1977were at a local blues jam at one of my local bars. It wasn't great - no, seriously, it was terrible. We only used to go to get a drink and catch up (and inappropriately slap our way through Mustang Sally if the opportunity arose (it was always the closing song of the evening)). It would seem that there really was only a "stock set list" that was limited to the following songs. Tore Down Stormy Monday Hey Joe I Shot The Sheriff *generic blues noise with no vocalist. Mustang Sally Seriously, that was about it. Didn't help that there was literally only 2 or 3 vocalists - and they had a repertoire of 1 or 2 from the above There were some notable folk (for all the wrong reasons). They included some of my faves - organiser (bass player) who brought all the gear, dubious organisational skills and very short temper. Lets call him Tony. - harmonica player (who was played over absolutely everything) - a guy that would turn everything into reggae - and usually got up to play Hey Joe, just after the previous jammers had played it - drummer guy who wasn't a great player was terrible. He owned a massive drum kit. Think stadium rack kit with probably over ten toms... double kick drum set up... Lets call him Jim. - a guy that came down with different pedals, amps etc each week... played a Strat, and whatever he played through, it sounded like "him". Lets call him Willy. - a lady singer - lets call her Fearne. (Fearne is clearly with Jim but not with Jim if you ask either of them). Anyway, myself and Pete are having a drink in the "viewing area"... and an argument breaks out on stage where Tony and Jim are absolutely screaming and shouting at each. I can't really remember why - but I have the feeling it was over Fearne. Not that there was any romantic link or anything like that, I just think Tony was protective of singers (and lack of them) at his jam. Maybe Pete will remember better than I can. Anyway, the next sequence of events still come up it our conversations now and again to this day... Argument escalates and the the c word starts making its debut. Jim starts pulling on Tony's ponytail and that was the final straw for Tony. Tony reaches down and picks up the bass drum above his head, scattering Jims drums everywhere... and then throws it offstage. On it's journey earthwards, it flies past Willy's guitar (which is on a guitar stand off to the side of the front of the stage), clipping just the top E string, snapping it instantaneously. Guitar remains motionless on the stand. Willy of course jumps up into action and gets involved and the whole thing just erupts into chaos. Of course, myself and Pete did what everybody else would do in such situations, continue drinking having a little chuckle between ourselves. And before you say anything... (I appreciate that it may seem far fetched) that missing of the guitar and just clipping the top E string... lord only knows what chances of that would be. One half a mm the other way and the whole guitar would have been part of the action. Local amateur jams. Brilliant.

Just make sure you wear lots of makeup... or go on full on slipknot.

If you ever want to hate on a bass player... give them a dep gig. "Yeah, just standard stuff, no sweat". Just don't tell them it's jazz standards.

I suspect this is about keeping some sort of events around. What you've got to remember, there are still going to be a lot of people that won't entertain going around densely populated areas, so better that the event goes ahead in some sort of fashion, than not at all. I would wager there's many exhibitors that won't be exhibiting due to the uncertainty of the numbers and this may be one approach to trying to solve that problem. Rock and hard place. Better that there's some show of some type than none whatsoever. I think we are at just the beginning of the recovery of shows. C19 has battered lots of people and this is just a continuation of that.

Oh crumbs, glad that I'm not the only one! I've had that in reverse. Did a gig, unloaded the car and I must have put the bass next to the side of the car as I was taking everything else back into the house. Woke up the morning, doing a gig the next day and I found that I was a bass short. In the middle of a breakdown, my neighbour knocked on my front door. "We noticed you'd left a guitar out on the drive this morning when we went out, so we put it in our camper van so it'll be safe as we'd already locked up the house and set the alarm. Relieved doesn't begin.

Clearly somebody with big balls.

Give JTUK a shout and see if you can borrow the gig strides.

Oh man, talking about inappropriate things over a mic, that's just sparked a memory. Playing a thalidomide society ball, (I kid you not) without thinking, singer just goes and introduces the next song, "c'mon people, get your hands up in the air and clap those hands" I had to turn and face the back of the stage in shame. I didn't want to be on the same stage at all. It did spark off an interesting conversation on the journey home... "just how do thalidomide folk wipe their derrières?"

Oh… for sure :-p

That is clearly fishing for compliments. The guy asking how it sounds doesn’t care for your opinion or want to make use of somebody that could help better their sound, they are just looking for that ego boosting affirmation of “yeah, that sounds amazing. Best band I’ve ever heard. You guys should go on the X Factor” PS - if you find yourself in this situation and it’s clear that they are arrogant enough to not take on board anything you say… Always throw in the X Factor bit. It’s highly insulting to any pro musician and helps to cement the message of letting them know that you know exactly why they are asking you.

Then there's those annoying jerks that want to play soundman. OK, it's a given that sound check somebody will say, "that's too loud, you'll have to turn down", but the most memorable incident was when playing in a converted church, the "self appointed expert" came up to me and suggested I was running too much reverb on the desk. Everybody here will already know that the desk had zip reverb on... and yet, there that clown was, keeping going on and on about the excessive reverb that I had apparently applied on the desk. Mind you, perhaps I should have listened, after all, he did sound for The Drifters* * I actually know the sound guy for The Drifters. He's a good egg. I only added that comment for comedic effect.

Im dead. lol

That's no excuse. Just go to the churchyard and dig up their old bones... That reminds me. My nan insisted that my grandpa came with her to my brothers wedding... as a pile of ashes in a box. Had his own space at the table, much to my brothers annoyance (at least I think he was... it's one of those things we dont talk about) Is that normal? Or not? I'm not sure. But there's a first time for everything I guess.

Reading the words "The Drifters" automatically made me laugh. Round my neck of the woods, singing or playing in "The Drifters" has become a bit of long standing joke - or even a rite of passage. So long story short, there are no original Drifters left, none of the singers or musicians involved with "The Drifters" have anything linking them to the original band. It's just a name owned by a group that is throwing musicians together and touting them as "The Drifters" or the "The Official Drifters". If you find any predominantly midlands based musician, likelihood they have in their credits, played with "The Drifters". In reality is a theatre tribute show. I remember auditioning somebody for a band at the time who was obviously quite proud of this achievement... to which I replied, "Crumbs, it's harder to find somebody who hasn't played for The Drifters nowadays". Lets just say, management had an interesting management style and she sacked people as quick as she hired them. And I loves that fact that on the talkback mic, there was the MD on stage... and her from the back of the theatre shouting at everybody on stage. So yeah, "F#ck the Drifters". Absolute farce. Check out the wiki page - members and litigation paragraphs are probably the ones to focus on.

Get yourself out playing as many gigs as you can, and you'll be part of the stories before you know it... The crazy thing is, you don't even realise you are part of these crazy stories at the time because even though the funniest incidents aren't guaranteed to be a regular occurrence, they start popping up more times than you realise. I mean, hasn't everybody played at least one wedding where the cops have been called and blood been shed? And despite what you would think, the more monied and pompous the clients are, the worse the "unplanned and unwanted events" seem to be. Corporate gigs are mostly uneventful in comparison. Yes, you can play some fantastic events - but it also usually involves a whole day or just waiting around in a small roof that fast becomes hot, stuffy, stinky (food and fart related usually) and immensely boring. The only that I can remember having a great time when waiting to go on, is when the comedian booked to host the night was was in the room with us. I was hurting due to the amount of laughter.

I can relate. I dont do military baracks gigs anymore - every one I have done has been met with incident. No need to recall the stories, they are as you'd imagine... and pretty much as Bassman68s story. Turn up > wrestle with IDs getting entrance to the venue > everything is a pain in the derrière as you are clearer an outsider > Play gig > something kicks off > chaos follows > try to get yourself and your gear out of there as quick as you can. Nothing gets you sweating like a drunken squaddie screaming "play only Oasis" in your face.

Sorry if my posts are all a bit garbled as I just typed them out at speed whilst doing a brain dump. I'm going to have a look through my photos tonight to see if there's any gems that I've forgotten. I defo think Gap Year and the Stripper at the Red Lion are my favourite though. Weddings and birthdays always have far more drama than corporates! Actually, just remembered another one... some b8stard thought it would be funny to handcuff a drunken groom to the drivers door handle of the bands van. Not cool when you are 200 miles from home and wanting your bed. (that prompted a change to our contract where we could seek compensation for interference/damage to band equipment, including vehicles).