EBS_freak Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 54 minutes ago, Raymondo said: Yes ,yes, all well and good but the important thing is... Are they still together? Oh… for sure :-p 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubit Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 45 minutes ago, casapete said: the gig was cancelled as Aberdeen airport had shut and the punters were mainly flying in, so I just turned round and drove home, a round trip of roughly 900 miles! ( The band MPV hadn’t got so far as us, so they got off more lightly ). Did they not reimburse you for travelling? Oil companies can certainly afford it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casapete Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 44 minutes ago, ubit said: Did they not reimburse you for travelling? Oil companies can certainly afford it. I’m sure they did, and rearranged the gig too IIRC. We always got well looked after by them, hotels, drink and food etc. Reminds me of another Aberdeen gig too. Large oil company do at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. We arrived early and got set up, then most of the band availed themselves of the hospitality until we were due to go on after the official business, which included a film presentation. We got the nod it was time to go on, and started off the set with ‘Relight my fire’, to very little response. Picked up a few dancers towards the end of the set, but it was only when we came off stage that someone mentioned that a few minutes before we started playing there had been a filmed tribute to a recent oil rig fire tragedy in the North Sea. Amazingly they didn’t hold it against us and realised it was just a very unfortunate choice of song, and we did work for them again. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mowf Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 I was sound engineer for some corporate roadshow once, many moons ago. Can't remember the company (think it might have been BT?), but basically they were going round all their offices and putting on a big show talking up a massive new merger / corporate buyout they were pushing through with a rival. Head honcho would come on stage, tell everyone how great this deal was, bla bla, then a band got wheeled out to play "Can't Stop this Thing We Started" just to drive the point home. Fist pumps and chesty bumps all round. Goes without saying the merger never went ahead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 New day, new train wreck... This is from my second band (it's now 1982) although the gig involved the same "headlining" band as the last story. We had just added not one but two synth players to the line up and had sorted out a whole load of gigs to show off the new and improved band and sound. The first and second of these were "out of town" in Derby and as the other band had recently played there supporting Altered Images at the Assembly Rooms we asked them to headline in the hope that they would bring in an audience. By the time we set up and sound checked there were still hardly any paying customers in the pub, but we were running out of time so my band went on. Half-way through the first song I broke a string on my bass. This being the early days of gigging and having almost no disposable cash I had neither a spare instrument nor even a spare string. TBH I had up to this point never considered that this might happen. Luckily the bass player from the headlining band let me use his bass. Unfortunately it was a cheap violin bass copy (maybe a Grant IIRC) strung with either flats or very dead round wound strings and on an exceedingly long and non-adjustable strap. He played with the bass somewhere around his knees while in those days, I favoured mine at chest height. Tying a large knot in the strap got it to a sensible (for me) height, but overall this bass was completely alien in feel and sound to me and I could barely play it. Then for no discernible reason one of the synths kept going out of tune by about a semi-tone. We had to stop and restart several songs while he attempted to retune (this was way before the advent of affordable electronic tuners and all the instruments had to be tuned by ear). Then the other synth and one of the drum synths our percussionist used simply both working a few songs from the end of the set. We shambled on to the end, but it was a lack-lustre performance and the few people who had paid to get in looked very unimpressed. Altogether a very depressing experience and one that very nearly ended the band. We had another gig in two days time also in Derby and no time for a rehearsal to try and work out what was wrong with the synths. I said to leave all the gear at mine and I'd see if I could fix it. It turned out that the synth going out of tune was due to it not being happy with voltage one of the drum machine triggers was producing. No logical reason for it to behave like that and no idea why we hadn't spotted it before in the practice room, but at least the problem was 100% replicable, and I was able to come up with a work around using the other trigger, which was fine and reprogramming the drums for a couple of songs. I think that overall our biggest problem was that we were trying to do stuff with budget musical equipment that would still have been challenging even pro-quality equipment. In retrospect I'm amazed that much of what we did worked at all from a technological PoV! Perhaps because of the train-wreck nature of that first gig the second one (in a nightclub over a supermarket in Derby city centre) went down brilliantly, with a packed room and people dancing to our quirky low-budget New Order sound pretty much from the first song. We even got an encore! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 On the sub-subject of Setting The Tone, the BL/singist/geetard has an almost Tourettes-level compulsion to blurt things out without running them through his head (or by us) first, which has set the tone many a time; we once played a verrrr posh Hunt Ball somewhere in Cheshire; this was a Masked Ball, so the great and the good (you know, Captains of Industry and their Lady Wives) were there in DJs, ballgowns and rather swish bejewelled masks. After the first song (we were introduced by the DJ straight in), BL walks back to the mike and says 'Ladies and Gentlemen, you're all looking very smart this evening, I love the masks...did anyone watch that program last week about dogging?' The tumbleweed was only interrupted by the drummer's faster-than-usual count into the second song... 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubit Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 We used to play with a box player (we did some Scottish trad. as well as rock) I wanted to tune down to D to make it easier to sing but Our passive aggressive guitarist insisted that we only tune down to E flat. As the box player wanted to play on his white keys, this meant we had some songs in standard and some in E flat. Rather than change tunings every few songs we used to have two guitars each, tuned to the respective tuning. Obviously you could fine tune as you went but the guitars were more or less set in their tunings. We were booked to play a gig for the alcoholics anonymous annual dance. We started the first song, Crazy little Thing Called Love and the floor immediately filled (Alcoholics Anonymous will always get up and dance right away as they don't need booze to enjoy themselves, or at least that's what they convey) After a couple of bars I suddenly realised I had the wrong guitar. CLTCL is a reasonably straight forward song but I had to try and play it one fret out and sing. The audience were very kind but you could see a bit of confusion with them. I was panicking as being the singer I couldn't just stop and change guitars. It was a real beam me up Scotty...NOW moment. In retrospect the sensible thing to do would be stop, apologise and start again but I had this show must go on kind of attitude. Definitely not my proudest moment. It would have been averted if we had just tuned down to D! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
police squad Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 7 minutes ago, ubit said: We used to play with a box player (we did some Scottish trad. as well as rock) I wanted to tune down to D to make it easier to sing but Our passive aggressive guitarist insisted that we only tune down to E flat. As the box player wanted to play on his white keys, this meant we had some songs in standard and some in E flat. Rather than change tunings every few songs we used to have two guitars each, tuned to the respective tuning. Obviously you could fine tune as you went but the guitars were more or less set in their tunings. We were booked to play a gig for the alcoholics anonymous annual dance. We started the first song, Crazy little Thing Called Love and the floor immediately filled (Alcoholics Anonymous will always get up and dance right away as they don't need booze to enjoy themselves, or at least that's what they convey) After a couple of bars I suddenly realised I had the wrong guitar. CLTCL is a reasonably straight forward song but I had to try and play it one fret out and sing. The audience were very kind but you could see a bit of confusion with them. I was panicking as being the singer I couldn't just stop and change guitars. It was a real beam me up Scotty...NOW moment. In retrospect the sensible thing to do would be stop, apologise and start again but I had this show must go on kind of attitude. Definitely not my proudest moment. It would have been averted if we had just tuned down to D! many many times when I drop D my bass, I forget to tune it back up and end up bluffing my way to the end (it's not difficult to play 2 frets higher but the muscle memory doesn't like it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubit Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 36 minutes ago, police squad said: many many times when I drop D my bass, I forget to tune it back up and end up bluffing my way to the end (it's not difficult to play 2 frets higher but the muscle memory doesn't like it) As I say, dropping down to D would be easier as if you are playing with someone in standard you can play on the marked frets but just transpose it a whole step. A single fret cause all sorts of confusion if you are singing too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJE Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 I used to dep with a band who’s singer found it hilarious that our set was full of songs by artists that had passed away. When he introduced a song he would give the song and artist followed by “he’s dead” or “she’s gone now”. This was unfortunate at the best of times but was in particularly poor taste at a birthday we played that was also doubling as a celebration of life for someone who was terminally ill. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 7 minutes ago, NJE said: I used to dep with a band who’s singer found it hilarious that our set was full of songs by artists that had passed away. When he introduced a song he would give the song and artist followed by “he’s dead” or “she’s gone now”. This was unfortunate at the best of times but was in particularly poor taste at a birthday we played that was also doubling as a celebration of life for someone who was terminally ill. 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?" 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJE Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 Not sure if this was really a train wreck as we had a decent night, but we did fancy wedding where the main reception and speeches were in the house and they were moving to the very nice marquee for more buffet food, cake, and a well stocked free bar. We were all set up earlier in the day and went back for an anticipated “2100 hours” start which was drilled home to all of us by ‘The Major’ who was the brides father. We were back at 8 to allow for flexibility (because when does a wedding ever run on time) and we’re told to just get comfy and have a drink until people came down, and we gladly obliged! We could see the room in the country house where it was all happening and the night went on with various updates from ‘The Major’ saying “any minute”. We got to 10pm and the best man got a projector out and the slideshow/speech started and the laughing and cheering picked up. By this time we were several beverages in and had started on the buffet as they were only just being served pudding with approval from the caterer and bar staff. At 11:45 they start wondering down, we were tired and a bit drunk but hey let’s have a good night and play some music. We did the first dance, one good rocking opener and then I get pulled aside by the very nice venue manger who said “guys we have a noise curfew at midnight so make this the last one”. We announced the last tune, wish everyone good night and start to pack up. ‘The Major’ who was steaming by this point, comes over and I am expecting some displeasure at the length of the set despite it not being our fault. He walks up, hands me a massive wedge of cash and says “bloody good night chaps, all the best”. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len_derby Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 Oh yes, the potential train-wreck that turns out well. About five years ago, playing at a private party event. I proudly wore my black vinyl ‘leatherette’ trousers. You can guess. Sudden split down the inside of one leg from crotch to knee. Much mirth on stage at my expense. At the end of the night the host laughingly bunged us a hefty tip on top of the fee to, in his words “buy some decent stage wear”. My lasting lesson is to always have some cable-ties in my gig gear. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 3 minutes ago, Len_derby said: Oh yes, the potential train-wreck that turns out well. About five years ago, playing at a private party event. I proudly wore my black vinyl ‘leatherette’ trousers. You can guess. Sudden split down the inside of one leg from crotch to knee. Much mirth on stage at my expense. At the end of the night the host laughingly bunged us a hefty tip on top of the fee to, in his words “buy some decent stage wear”. My lasting lesson is to always have some cable-ties in my gig gear. Give JTUK a shout and see if you can borrow the gig strides. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len_derby Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 2 minutes ago, EBS_freak said: Give JTUK a shout and see if you can borrow the gig strides. Who could fill those trousers? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted January 28, 2022 Share Posted January 28, 2022 7 minutes ago, Len_derby said: Who could fill those trousers? Clearly somebody with big balls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted January 29, 2022 Share Posted January 29, 2022 Back in 1990ish we managed to get a headline at the Powerhaus in Islington... We were quite chuffed about this, loads of folks were coming plus a promised support of The Dickies at the Mean Fiddler. So after soundcheck we went looking for food and found an all you can eat Indian buffet just round the corner. So we got our money's worth, eating more than we could eat... When we got back to the venue we realised this was a serious mistake as all of us we so stuffed we could barely move (we were quite a boisterous punkfunk band with lots of jumping about and crazy costumes)... So we got some chairs and just about managed to play the gig seated, until the keyboard player got a bit excited in the last song, jumped up and promptly chucked up on his Roland Surprisingly, our new almost Kraftwerkesque lack of movement went down very well! And we got the Dickies support! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boodang Posted January 29, 2022 Author Share Posted January 29, 2022 I was working abroad for a bit and joined a covers band that consisted of musicians from the expat community. Basically a conglomerate of people who just wanted to play, consequently we had more than one person on bass, drums, keys etc so we would take it turns to play certain numbers. Good fun but quite random. And a strange mix of talent, some had never played live before, others were seasoned covers veterans, and even some who had played at the proms in a previous classical career. What a mix! None it seems though had any talent as a sound engineer. First time out after just joining, a new active Yamaha PA with 15" tops, 18" subs and 12" foldbacks was produced... for the v small pub. The evening consisted of bass feedback (quite an impressive achievement I thought), no vocals as the feedback threshold was so low, and the pub windows nearly been blown out! The audience were very patient and forgiving though and just appreciated the effort which made it a fun evening despite everything else. At the next gig the 18" subs were safely locked up out of harms way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blisters on my fingers Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 The best thread ever on Basschat ? Thanks to you Boodang https://youtu.be/IxAKFlpdcfc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nige1968 Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 My list of shame from the “worst gig ever” thread: To find this post I had to Google “girl fight meat raffle“, in case anyone needs a band name. Love this thread. Keep ‘em coming! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boodang Posted January 30, 2022 Author Share Posted January 30, 2022 11 hours ago, blisters on my fingers said: The best thread ever on Basschat ? Thanks to you Boodang https://youtu.be/IxAKFlpdcfc I thought there must be some good stories out there in BC land, so thanks to everyone for sharing. There's been some great anecdotes, very amusing reading! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 Some time in 2006 I had a gig with the motown band I was in at a bar on site at RAF base in Northcote, NE London. A band that @Beedster stepped in to replace me after I moved on. It was a 20 minute drive from Shepherds Bush and I managed to get to the gig about half an hour before we went on. Everything under control. My girlfriend at the time even decided to tag along just to hear the band as well. So I started the unloading process...speakers...amp...cables....and... No 1979 Musicman Stingray. I turned to my gf and asked in slightly concerned tones Me: 'F***! Where's my bass?!' Her: 'You didn't pack it?' Me: 'You carried it out for me, remember? You were in the car when I closed the car boot so I assumed you packed it. Where did you leave it?!' Her: 'I left it leaning against the fence next to the car ready for you to put in the car.' Me: '!?*!!%#@!' There in followed a twenty minute mercy dash back to my flat only to find nothing outside. I frenetically searched the apartment and was about to give up when there was a knock at the door. I sloped down the stairs to find my Russian neighbour two doors down from me, holding my bass. Apparently he'd caught a shifty looking couple walking off with it. He pulled them up and they claimed someone had left it out for recycling but thankfully my neighbour knew it wasn't the kind of bass that someone recycles I nearly cried with relief but there was no time. Back in the car for another dash up the A40 back to the gig and I made it...ten minutes late, sweating like a pig but with bass in hand. 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EBS_freak Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 50 minutes ago, Kiwi said: Some time in 2006 I had a gig with the motown band I was in at a bar on site at RAF base in Northcote, NE London. A band that @Beedster stepped in to replace me after I moved on. It was a 20 minute drive from Shepherds Bush and I managed to get to the gig about half an hour before we went on. Everything under control. My girlfriend at the time even decided to tag along just to hear the band as well. So I started the unloading process...speakers...amp...cables....and... No 1979 Musicman Stingray. I turned to my gf and asked in slightly concerned tones Me: 'F***! Where's my bass?!' Her: 'You didn't pack it?' Me: 'You carried it out for me, remember? You were in the car when I closed the car boot so I assumed you packed it. Where did you leave it?!' Her: 'I left it leaning against the fence next to the car ready for you to put in the car.' Me: '!?*!!%#@!' There in followed a twenty minute mercy dash back to my flat only to find nothing outside. I frenetically searched the apartment and was about to give up when there was a knock at the door. I sloped down the stairs to find my Russian neighbour two doors down from me, holding my bass. Apparently he'd caught a shifty looking couple walking off with it. He pulled them up and they claimed someone had left it out for recycling but thankfully my neighbour knew it wasn't the kind of bass that someone recycles I nearly cried with relief but there was no time. Back in the car for another dash up the A40 back to the gig and I made it...ten minutes late, sweating like a pig but with bass in hand. 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. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Webby308 Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 I think karma (in a bad way) exists, as I was telling our drummer about this thread on the way to our gig last night and we we saying we've got off lightly compared to some of the stories here... so guess what? It was out turn last night... Firstly our lead guitarist amp failed 4 songs in - the only time he didn't bring a spare because he was car sharing with out other guitarist... fortunately one of the audience (who plays in a Bowie tribute band), went home and lent us his spare. Lucky or what? At this point my phone in my pocket managed to dial 999 twice - it turns out Iphones can be fired up without human intervention when performing.... Then the singers wireless mic started weird feedback hums at random, then the other guitarist broke a string, so one song was bass, drums and 5 of the usual 6 strings whilst amp surgery was talking place... The second set started ok, then the 2nd guitarist's IEM's stopped working, then to top it all about 30 minutes from the end I got a huge nose bleed that covered everything (shirt, jeans, shoes, bass). It's bloody tricky to play and sing with blood and snot adding to the rock and roll look... Oh well, hopefully that's our chunk of chaos this year, but you never know these days... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leonard Smalls Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 Back in the 90s (again) the band lived together in a housing co-op house in Pimlico, 'twas a very nice Georgian Square just a stones throw from Scotland Yard... So we decided, after having been given our notice to leave (that's the way it was with co-ops) we thought we'd have a party, with the band playing. So we set up the 5kW PA in the big upstairs living room, there was a house full of folks and we started playing. We were just about to do our last number when a large police inspector came in (at least we thought he was, there were lots of shiny bits on his epaulettes!). He told us that if we didn't stop playing now the vanful of police outside would come in and make sure we did... Just as we were assuring him that we would do just that, and we were terribly sorry about the racket, our roady's large and very fluffy dog ran through the inspector's legs - he didn't notice the dog but he did notice that his nether regions had been heartily caressed by something quite hard and hairy, and that something he also couldn't see was wetly sniffing his bottom. By the time he looked round Merlin had gone, and by the expression on his face we can only assume he thought he'd been fiddled with by some sort of conjured-up rock'n'roll succubus! As he ran out he shouted over his shoulder "and don't do it again!". Otherwise a most excellent party, and we had invited all the very posh neighbours but I suspect they felt they might not fit in... And one of the Carter Unstoppable boys broke his arm falling down the stairs! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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