Memorable moments in your playing career

[Bilbo]

And I means moments.

I was listening to Steve Ray Vaghan's 'Couldn't Stand The Weather' this afternoon and I remembered doing a gig with a band I had never played with and never rehearsed with although they played together often. The singer called CSTW and the guitar player looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I had heard the song but never played it. When we got to 'that' bar (an extended gap in the groove which is 'wrong'), I don't know where it came from but it was there. There was a lot of grinning, mainly from me because I knew I could have fallen on my derrière and didn't.

I remember another time playing a 'Blue In Green' by Miles Davis/Bill Evans with a guitar player and saxophonist. We were about to play the last chord (standard V I) and the guitar player whispered 'Fmaj7#11' and the most beautiful modulation I have ever heard happened. It was a rehearsal and no-one heard it but us but I still remember the feeling more than 20 years later.

Then there was the jam session about 6 years ago where the pianist called 'Beatrice' by Sam Rivers and played the SLOWEST and one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever had the honour to  play. Playing 'Isfahan' with Tony Kofi and the band performing a most exquisite and beautifully tense ending entirely by intuition. Then there was that posh, middle aged lady that sat in at a wedding gig and did the most amazing 'Tina Turner' thing I have ever heard.

It's not always the big things; sometimes it is just the magic of the moment.

Does anyone know what I mean?

 

 

[musicbassman]

I've spent most of my bass playing 'career' playing in covers bands of all descriptions.

Occasionally, very occasionally, it all comes together. You're in the right band playing the right venue with the right set list  - and the whole band and the whole venue is buzzing. It all lifts off onto another level. And, of course, you have the best bass sound ever.

And it's only a fleeting moment, and then it's all gone.

And then you have to wait three years and a hundred gigs for another of these magical moments to happen again.

But it's absolutely worth the wait   😊

[Lozz196]

My first Rebellion Festival was pretty special, being asked to play the biggest punk festival in world is just amazing.

But the gig I’ll always remember was being asked to play for a distant friend who had cancer. We were his favourite band, we did the gig and afterwards he got up on stage to thank us, I had a lump in my throat at that point, this poor guy saying how much he’d enjoyed the evening. 3 weeks later he died.  Festivals great, overseas tours great but I’ll remember playing that gig above others. Making my eyes well up typing this.

[BassTractor]

3 hours ago, Bilbo said:

Does anyone know what I mean?

I assume many people on here do.
For me personally, this is often about certain chord changes I not only dreamt up there and then but even got out of my fingers - something I knew I couldn't do but then did inexplicably.

There were other moments too that take too many words, but the most stellar moment was the day I played a Bach piece on the pipe organ, and exactly that day I played better, deeper and with more musical expression than I've done before or after. It became very hard to even finish the piece, and I was exhausted.
That was not the moment.

The moment was: unbeknownst to me, a young soprano had entered, and rather than making herself known she'd waited and listened before approaching me. When the piece was done, she came up and said:
- "You know, I've always hated the pipe organ, but you just explained it to me."
 

[scalpy]

I was doing a session for a female singer songwriter. We had finished the bulk of the track and she decided she wanted drums as it was much bigger than her original intention. My friend Gordan rocked up with his kit, and in a couple of takes had a great track pretty much sorted. However, she decided the drums should come in even earlier in the songs with an amazing fill. Gordy ran through a few fills but she wasn't happy. Having spent the day with her I thought I had the answer, so popped on the TalkBack with the instruction- 1 2 3 twa@. Everyone burst out laughing.  He promptly nailed the most perfect rim shot on beat 4, ever, the control room started high fiving- it was a great moment.

[Steve Browning]

I remember my first ever such moment. Recording a demo with a rock band and we decided to change to a reggae feel for the outro, As we went into the change, the drummer and I played a fill exactly in sync. We almost stopped playing.

[FinnDave]

Most memorable moment on stage was probably last October, on stage with the Grateful Dudes, when we played Ripple as an encore and tribute to Robert Hunter, who wrote the song and had recently died. The entire audience joined in and everywhere we looked people had tears running down their cheeks. It was hard to get through the song without choking up. Definitely memorable.

Edited June 23, 2020 by FinnDave

[Cat Burrito]

Lots and lots but 9yrs ago today I played a show in Swindon and in the crowd was a lady who is now my wife. That's gotta stand out!

[ezbass]

I played in a band that was on the bill for a day long extravaganza at the Crystal Palace Bowl. The stage was huge. I did the required running across the stage for my ‘Woodstock Moment’ and unplugged my guitar. Rookie error, but I reconnected in time to play the signature riff of the song.

[Bilbo]

I remember attending a Jazz Summer School in Pontypridd in the mid 90s. There was a woman there who was a professional actor who wanted to have a go at Jazz. We rehearsed a tune with her for four hours, A Nightingale Sang In Berkley Square, and we really arranged it. We performed the tune in the evening's open mic session in front of all of the students and tutors on the course. You could have heard a pin drop. The singer's first ever time singing Jazz in front of a room full of Jazz musicians and she got a standing ovation. Made the hairs on the back of my neck stick up. 

[dmccombe7]

Not really got that many to be honest.

In 80's i just joined a great 3 piece rock band and we played a large gig with no stage. We set up on dance floor with monitors separating us from dancers. Singer / guitarist was quite full of himself but when we played the first song all the females ran on to dance floor ............right in front of me. None in front of him. It was so blatant and so funny i had a right giggle. He was furious.

Worst moment in same band was doing a well known Rock venue in Glasgow and we did Crossroads by Cream but unknown to me the singer and drummer decided to stop and let me do a bass solo on the spot in front of a very busy venue. I was mortified as had never rehearsed one not even in my head. They were there just laughing as he announced "the talents of our new bass player" I did it and was complimented at the end by a few of the crowd including a couple of girls. Pity my girlfriend was with me that night. 

I did a charity event in 80's when i had my WAL bass. The singer / bassist (backing vocalist with Hue & Cry at the time who was a mate) asked if he could use my WAL. He did a cover of Michael Jackson that was pretty good. At the end he handed me the bass back and said it kept going out of tune. I then pointed out it was a lined fretless. He was playing in between the lines. He did feel a bit daft for not picking up on it. He was a very competent guitarist too.

I was once asked to do a song with a band i didn't know. They were having an impromptu jam session where they would bring one member of audience up to take over whatever instrument for a song. My mates put me forward for Alright Now. Had never learned the song before so was playing it from memory. It was great fun and went down really well. The bit that really stood out was that i managed to do the correct bass riff from the mid section. 

Dave   

[Owen]

In the last century I used to "teach" singing on a Performing Arts course. One end of year show was Fame and I got all the local players in to be a pit band with me. There are some good numbers in the show and some not so good numbers. There is a ballet scene in 3/4 which has some lame music on the piano. I leant over to the pianist and said "play me something nice in 3". He proceeded to play theme and variations on Favourite Things. Bear in mind that the cast were 18 year olds hearing something unexpected coming up from the pit while they were live on stage in front of an audience. He weighted it perfectly and played the most sublime coda as the lights dimmed for the end of the scene. It was as if we had rehearsed the timing down to the last detail. Everyone in the pit knew that there was something beautiful happening. No one else batted an eyelid. The band were cooking and the written parts were becoming more and more optional, just using them for the changes and the stabs,  and by the time we got to "LA" we turned it into a beautiful groove and the 20 piece band were totally off-piste.  No one played what was on the page (other than the skeleton),  I was conducting and playing bass so basically my dynamics were everyone else's dynamics. We were breathing as one organism and it was sublime. Even the singer sounded superb - and she really was not. At the time I did not appreciate it for what it was.

Of course, moments can be bad as well as good. We also did West Side Story and I conducted that. There was one number (I honestly cannot remember which) which was a really slow 3. In the band call I gave the option of beating it in 3 or 6. The band chose one of those and I wrote it down because the potential for disaster was epic. Come the first show half had remembered what we had arranged and half had not (to be fair, if I was playing I would have forgotten). We all played the first note together and then there was a hilarious half time/double time at the same time for 4 bars while my brain melted as I tried to work out what happened. The fact that our first child was 3 months old and I was pretty sleep deprived did not help. I had to stop and start again. 

Much later on we had established a music course in the college and we used the students as a pit band. We did West Side Story again so I tabbed it all out and we did it in a rock style. I would not recommend it, but it had a certain vibe and the students got an awful lot out of it. Obviously there were bits which needed support so we had a piano part on CD for quite a few of the numbers. Everyone in the pit was on cans and one student was running the CD player and the monitor mix. The number before the first half finale ran into the finale on the CD but there was a gap of about 5 seconds before the actual finale started. There was a significant rall at the end of the song before the finale and he turned the CD off because he thought it was over. Bear in mind this was at about 3 minutes and 23 seconds into the track so there is no way we could have queued it up again. After getting my head around what had happened I hissed at the girl behind the pit piano "give me a G". She looked surprised so I had to ask again. I then started singing "The Jets are going to have their way tonight" (or whatever it was) really loudly on my own and the whole cast joined in and did the whole number unaccompanied - moves and all. How we all laughed a few years later. 

[police squad]

Gets you thinking doesn't it.

Playing for departed friends, funerals that kind of thing.

But thinking about it, I was doing a pub gig, standing in for a band that had just fallen apart (they were called Cunning Stunts)

We were a very average pub band with a great singer, boundless energy and I had been playing bass for 6 or so years.

The drummer and guitarist of the defunk band were there and we decided they should join us on Freebird.

HOLY COW!!   I'd never played with a drummer that could actually really play. He could spin his sticks through his fingers and he nailed every single fill. I had never felt connected to a drummer in my playing career.

And then it was like having Steve Vai on guitar. He was a fab player, again full of energy, fabulous licks and it turned out to be a bloody nice bloke.

We started a new band that weekend, learned 15 songs around sunday lunch and gigged that evening.

Roadhouse!!. Gigged all over the south east, Hastings, Chiddingly, East London and Kent. 1988-1990 ish.

But that version of Freebird, that night in the pub, that was special. It was a lights on moment for me

[chris_b]

I was 17 and studying for my A levels, when my mate and singer in my school band, Pete Bond, called me from Charing Cross Road. It was a Wednesday, he'd bought the early issue of Melody Maker and was phoning about an advert. "Bass player wanted for professional Chicago blues band". I called and was given an address and time to be in East Putney the next day.  I turned up with my trusty Framus Star bass, to be met by Peter Green. He was forming a band and needed to find a bass player as John McVie wouldn't join. I spent a stunned half an hour sitting on his mum's sofa trying to play bass. I was hopelessly out of my depth but he was very nice and gave me time. Sadly I didn't unfreeze until about 4 hours later.

[police squad]

6 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I was 17 and studying for my A levels, when my mate and singer in my school band, Pete Bond, called me from Charing Cross Road. It was a Wednesday, he'd bought the early issue of Melody Maker and was phoning about an advert. "Bass player wanted for professional Chicago blues band". I called and was given an address and time to be in East Putney the next day.  I turned up with my trusty Framus Star bass, to be met by Peter Green. He was forming a band and needed to find a bass player as John McVie wouldn't join. I spent a stunned half an hour sitting on his mum's sofa trying to play bass. I was hopelessly out of my depth but he was very nice and gave me time. Sadly I didn't unfreeze until about 4 hours later.

Great Story

[LeftyJ]

That one time when the guitarist / pianist / organist of my old band emailed a sketch for a new song with just keys and guitar, and everybody actually did their homework! Next rehearsal we played it for the first time and it all clicked in one go. Just felt so good! Of my 4-5 years with that band, it's still the song I'm most proud of. 

2 years later I got kicked out because they decided an upright matched their sound and image better.

[PaulWarning]

Introductory stage at Skegness Butlins, big crowd, the band were well up for it, good sound, some of it got filmed really well, and we won the day against two better known bands

[Leonard Smalls]

First time we played to a full Marquee Club was pretty good...

But in terms of "Kwality", my old improvisational jazz band once decided to do a live thing on the roof of the studio the guitarist lived in in Shoreditch. While we didn't have any songs and everything was improvised we had the (possible!) advantage that the drummer and I had played probably 300+ gigs together with our other band, and he was proper funky. So we started playing - simple funky groove, occasionally slapped and occasionally Bootsy-wah-bass, with African percussion, Marc Ribot-a-like guitar and horn players who also played with Lol Coxhill (i.e. crazy every note possible). And before the Police turned up 4 hours later to stop us there were a hundred or so people dancing in front of the pub below (Bricklayer's Arms), windows opposite were lined with people hitting congas, tambourines and nobody threw anything at us!

[toneknob]

Playing "Turn It On Again" at a Genesis tribute gig in the back room of a well-known Kingston music pub to an enthusiastic (ie drunk) but not exactly sold-out crowd, when a young lady went topless for the final go round. No one saw except me.

Many years later, no toplessness but a Saturday afternoon slot on a balmy summer afternoon at the local (but massive) Country Fair. Falconry, jousting, sheep shearing, Chucklehead cider in polythene jugs, and jazz rock classics from my lot. Playing the 8.30 version of Birdland to a crowd including several disparate groups of mates, my wife, her friends, and her parents etc etc was something else.

[Roger2611]

A couple for me:

Playing main support to Midge Ure at a festival some years back was an experience

Headlining a festival in front of 6000+ people was fun

Recording at Sony's Whitfeild Street Studio was a scary experience especially as the Spice Girls had recorded there the week earlier

Best of all was playing to 200 or so Downs and profoundly disabled kids at the Rocking Roadmender club night, the sheer joy on the faces of the Downs kids was absolutely priceless and is what making music and entertaining should be about!

[BassTractor]

Not a musical moment, but a memorable moment to me, which I may have told about earlier:

I received some teaching in composition from Krzysztof Penderecki, and one day shared a table with him when drinking coffee.
Now he wasn't the most easy going guy, so I just had to try to defreeze him a bit:

- "Mr Penderecki, do you ever listen to jazz - or rock like Frank Zappa?".
- "Not interested. Shallow music."
- "C'mon. I love your music, and I love jazz and Zappa. Gimme some credit!"
- "I am more musical than you are."
🤣

(He was right about me, but that kinda is not the point. 😀 )

Edited June 23, 2020 by BassTractor

[Owen]

3 minutes ago, BassTractor said:

- "I am more musical than you are."

 

Hilarious!

[bassfan]

So many as I love playing in bands... 

I think Wembley arena must be of the most memorable moments. No nerves. Just loved it....albeit the one song!  😃

Edited June 23, 2020 by bassfan

[Bilbo]

I remember leaving a band over musical differences. I was musical, they were different. 

 

I remember playing a gig in a prison on 11/9/2001 (an easy date to remember). The singer, a serving prisoner, asked to room for a minutes silence for the World Trade Centre victims. Nobody asked him to do it. It was his idea. 

 

And he sang like Marvin Gaye. 

[Bassman Sam]

I played a charity gig at the Shepard's Bush Empire in the Late 90's I got the shivers at the soundcheck as Bowie played there the week before. After the set, I was in the dressing room and our promoter came in and said" I would like  you meet my mate, he thinks You're a solid player."  I was gobsmacked that his mate was Martin Turner from Wishbone Ash.  We had a couple of beers together and he complemented me on be a tight player. Martin is one of my biggest influences having played in a Wishbone tribute band in the '70s.