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New Year's Eve Gigs


Bluewine

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5 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Don't get to hung up on crowd size. Sometime it's out of your control and not your fault.

If the crowd is thin please don't let it effect your performance or attitude.

Play your heart out.

Blue

Exactly. We played a gig the Friday before Christmas to a family who had booked an enormous stately home for  their son's 21st birthday party. There were 34 people there and we had a ball

Tonight we will be at the same venue as we have for the past 3 years. Nice hotel, we're looked after while the guests are having their meals and it's only 9.30-12.30 with a 3 minute drive home.

I'm trying to look forward to it but after tonight there will be nothing until February so it's always a bit of a downer for me towards the end of the night as we've had such a great run of Christmas party nights and enjoy each other's company. We're not the kind of band that socialise outside of the band, we're all incredibly different people in terms of personalities and musical tastes but together it just works perfectly

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Duck n'Drake in central Leeds, playing the usual hard rock covers to a (hopefully) packed pub. 

It looks like it will be a more sober affair than originally anticipated as we are all going separately in cars, rather than all together in the van. It's a shame as part of the fee offered was free beer for the band! 

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On 12/31/2017 at 09:35, Bluewine said:

Don't get to hung up on crowd size. Sometime it's out of your control and not your fault.

If the crowd is thin please don't let it effect your performance or attitude.

Play your heart out.

Blue

 

Well that worked out ok, needn't have worried after all.....Venue has a capacity of 160, sold 200 tickets allowing for no shows and the clicker on the door said there were 184 people in there :-)

Everyone up for it from the start, we did 3 sets for a change. 9.30 till 10.30, 10.45 till 11.45, watched the fireworks till 12.15 then played until 1am when the drummer finally conked out on us. We played well, the sound was good, lights and lasers looked fab and the crowd were brill - including the 'mature' lady having sex with the crowd barrier right in front of me in the last set........get the wet wipes out.....

The owner was delighted with us "you guys are just pure rock and roll, what a night - probably the best gig we've ever had here, gave the punters exactly what they wanted, they're all going home buzzing". Job done!

A fabulous night and ended the year on a real high. 

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On 12/31/2017 at 10:14, spongebob said:

I never play NYE. Just too many drunken idiots about in venues, and probably on the road as well.

We played last Saturday, and will be back out next....but NYE itself has always been a no-no for me.

I must be blessed. I never see this "drunken idiot" behavoir at our gigs on NYE or any other time of the year for that matter.

Blue

Edited by Bluewine
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The gig at Ariba's was really cool. 3-7 great hours obviously the place was packed. I was watching FB feeds letting people know it was standing room only.

I had the chance to talk with other local musicians that we're not gigging last night but came out to support us. How cool is that!

I wasn't feeling all that great yesterday, but I made it through the night. I'd say we were on for the 1st & 2nd set. 3rd set, not so great for me 

Blue

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On 12/31/2017 at 03:41, FinnDave said:

I was booked to dep with a blues band for a NYE gig in Oxford - the venue cancelled yesterday afternoon due to 'lack of ticket sales'. Obviously too late to pick up anything else, and both myself and the band had turned down other offers for tonight as we believed we were sorted. 

I'll just wander down my local and have a pint instead. Won't be the same, though :(

Dave,

When you say "we believed we were sorted" does that mean you didn't think the gigs you turn down were good for the band?

Blue

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On 12/31/2017 at 09:40, peteb said:

Duck n'Drake in central Leeds, playing the usual hard rock covers to a (hopefully) packed pub. 

It looks like it will be a more sober affair than originally anticipated as we are all going separately in cars, rather than all together in the van. It's a shame as part of the fee offered was free beer for the band! 

Pete,

How did NYE turn out for you guys?

Blue

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25 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Dave,

When you say "we believed we were sorted" does that mean you didn't think the gigs you turn down were good for the band?

Blue

No, I mean that we thought that we definitely already had a gig, only for it to be cancelled the day before, and the other gigs we had been offered and turned down (as we believed that we were busy that night) had long been taken by other bands.

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On 31/12/2017 at 15:37, Delberthot said:

Exactly. We played a gig the Friday before Christmas to a family who had booked an enormous stately home for  their son's 21st birthday party. There were 34 people there and we had a ball

 

This proves having lots of money doesn’t guarantee lots of friends 😀😀

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But it does mean that you can have the most expensive and exclusive party :D

 

The figure I heard quoted for hiring the venue for the weekend was £15,000. It's normally £27,000 for a wedding just for the venue and waiting/bar staff.

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41 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Pete,

How did NYE turn out for you guys?

Blue

It was OK - a bit strange to be honest. 

We had a decent crowd for the first set but we were hoping that there would be a few more in to be honest. We played fine and every song was met with a great reaction. Unfortunately when were talking to people at the break it became obvious that a lot of folks were going to leave early to get taxis home to beat the rush near midnight. Sure enough the audience started to thin out a bit in the second set, which is a bit disappointing. Most of the punters left at the end seemed to live near the city centre, but at least they all seemed to enjoy themselves. 

All in all, we git a decent response from a variable crowd and we got paid double our normal fee so I can't really complain...

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1 hour ago, Bluewine said:

I must be blessed. I never see this "drunken idiot" behavoir at our gigs on NYE or any other time of the year for that matter.

Blue

Funny thing is, in a rural area, some of (quite a few) the pubs planned to lock their doors early to avoid any New Year shenanigans.

I think the city centres/big towns do it differently, different vibe.

Most of our gigs are pretty low on idiots....but they are there sometimes.....and they're a massive PITA! 

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2 hours ago, FinnDave said:

No, I mean that we thought that we definitely already had a gig, only for it to be cancelled the day before, and the other gigs we had been offered and turned down (as we believed that we were busy that night) had long been taken by other bands.

Understood,

Damn those cancellations.

Blue

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1 hour ago, peteb said:

It was OK - a bit strange to be honest. 

We had a decent crowd for the first set but we were hoping that there would be a few more in to be honest. We played fine and every song was met with a great reaction. Unfortunately when were talking to people at the break it became obvious that a lot of folks were going to leave early to get taxis home to beat the rush near midnight. Sure enough the audience started to thin out a bit in the second set, which is a bit disappointing. Most of the punters left at the end seemed to live near the city centre, but at least they all seemed to enjoy themselves. 

All in all, we git a decent response from a variable crowd and we got paid double our normal fee so I can't really complain...

Cool,

Yeah, nothing to complain about. Some guys had no NYE gig and not always by choice.

Blue

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I haven’t done a NYE gig for about 6 years now. Personal choice as the kids grow older and want to stay up late on NYE with their friends in our adult friendship group.

The usual dep guy we use always stands in for me, so no issues for the rest of the band.

To be honest I’ve not really missed it at all, which is strange, as we gig regularly and I enjoy playing. Probably because we spend NYE with friends in our village so walking (staggering...) distance from home rather than an hour’s drive home at 2-3am!

At some point I’ll probably step back into it I guess.

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2 hours ago, Captain Bassman said:

The usual dep guy we use always stands in for me, so no issues for the rest of the band.

 

Understood

We're all different and for different reasons. I'm not very confident, so my mindset is, nobody is depping for me no time and nowhere if I can help it.

Blue

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