How was your gig last night?

[peteb]

14 hours ago, stewblack said:

That sounds like such a great weekend. 

It was indeed, but quite tiring! 

Always nice to be part of such a big event...

[peteb]

5 hours ago, Bluewine said:

My kind of weekend Pete.

Nice!

Blue

Blue - it was great - you would have loved it...! 

But bear in mind, I did two gigs for a total of £80 (about half of what I would normally get for a couple of pub gigs). In addition to that, we paid £110 for a hotel room, £20 in diesel and £50 or so on taxis to and from the hotel to the venue. I worked stage crew for one of the main stages, i.e. working as a roadie for about a dozen bands and my missus was in charge of backstage hospitality. In return we got to see a few great bands (when we weren’t working of course), a bit of free food and a few free beers.

As I said, you would have loved the backstage hang and had a great time, but this is one of those times when you do gig for free. In effect I did a couple of gigs for half pay and walked away at least £100 out of pocket…!

[Bluewine]

12 minutes ago, peteb said:

Walked away at least £100 out of pocket…!

Hi Pete,

Then I won't complain about the $10.00 I had to pay for parking for that cruise gig Saturday night.

Are these little cruise gigs popular in the UK?

Blue

 

[peteb]

26 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Hi Pete,

Then I won't complain about the $10.00 I had to pay for parking for that cruise gig Saturday night.

Are these little cruise gigs popular in the UK?

Blue

 

I would say no, especially not in the post-industrial wasteland oop north where I live. You might get the odd gig like that in London??

Edited August 29, 2018 by peteb

[josie]

41 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Are these little cruise gigs popular in the UK?

Bowness Blues Festival on Windermere in the Lake District runs a "Blues Cruise" - a couple of hours pottering around the lake, lovely scenery on a clear day, and typically good musicians, but poor sound quality:

http://www.bownessbayblues.co.uk/blues-cruise/

And there are some longer blues cruises from the UK to the mainland and back, good line-ups, can't find a link atm. 

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, josie said:

Bowness Blues Festival on Windermere in the Lake District runs a "Blues Cruise" - a couple of hours pottering around the lake, lovely scenery on a clear day, and typically good musicians, but poor sound quality:

http://www.bownessbayblues.co.uk/blues-cruise/

And there are some longer blues cruises from the UK to the mainland and back, good line-ups, can't find a link atm. 

Very cool,

We've been playing the Vista King for the last 5 years. 

Cons

1. Load in/out is a real challenge.

2. You play 2 hours straight for the evening. No breaks.

Pros

1. Excellent pay if you sell out you get 50% of the take. Selling out is 120 ttickets at $22.99 a pop.

2. It's a mere 2 hour gig. That's great for those of usual that play 4 hour bar shows.

Blue

[musicbassman]

Hi Blue,

in the '80's I used to play on cruise boats on the River Thames that people sometimes hired for corporate functions. The load on was usually at Wapping for the caterers and the band, and then the party goers were collected at Westminster or the Embankment.

They were strange gigs - the boats never went very far - just down to Greenwich and up to Kew, but they'd do this a couple of times during the evening. Usually the dancefloor and the stage were on the top deck, and on a summers evening the roof would be completely open so you'd be on stage playing as the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben slowly rolled by above you - all slightly surreal.

The Thames is a tidal river, so if the tide was right out at load on or load off and it had been raining, it could be more than a bit scary with a very steep and slippery gangplank to manouevre the gear down or up - health and safety was not so well considered even then.

I don't know if this scene still exists - maybe some other BCers can advise.

[zranyard]

On 28/08/2018 at 23:27, peteb said:

I have just spent the weekend at the Colne Blues Festival, playing a couple of dep gigs in pubs on the trail and working stage crew at one of the main stages.

The first gig was a bit eventful, playing as the last band in a decent sized pub with a pretty full (not to mention well lubricated) crowd. As we were finishing, the (woefully underpowered) borrowed bass amp blew up! Played the rest of the first set through the rhythm guitarists 30w combo, which only me and the drummer could just about hear! The worrying thing was that the crowd hardly seemed to notice and danced and sang along as if nothing important had gone wrong…! We got the amp working again (to a fashion) for the second set and it managed to limp through the gig on the next day.

Backstage at the main festival was great fun as usual, catching up with old mates that you only tend to bump into at events like this and making new friends that you will hopefully meet again at a festival of some sort in three or four years’ time…

Hey Pete I played at Colne on Sunday, so I must have met you or your partner, or probably both of you! Thank you for helping to put on a great festival, and for looking after us so well

[peteb]

1 hour ago, zranyard said:

Hey Pete I played at Colne on Sunday, so I must have met you or your partner, or probably both of you! Thank you for helping to put on a great festival, and for looking after us so well

You are very welcome!

What band were you with and which venue did you play?? We were based at the Hippodrome. 

[zranyard]

Ah it was a different stage I think, I play with a girl called Elles, we played before King King on what ever stage that was

[peteb]

51 minutes ago, zranyard said:

Ah it was a different stage I think, I play with a girl called Elles, we played before King King on what ever stage that was

That was the Muni stage with Chris (the big Welsh guy) stage managing. Unfortunately I didn't get chance to watch your band as I would have been heading off to my gig for that evening, but I did pop backstage to say goodbye to Chris & Marcus et al while your band were in the dressing room, so I might have bumped into you. 

[zranyard]

Ah yeah he's lovely isn't he, we played the venue he books about a month ago as well. Hope to meet you if we go back there again!

[Angelus]

Is there a “where’s your next gig?” thread? 

[lurksalot]

2 hours ago, Angelus said:

Is there a “where’s your next gig?” thread? 

There is a forum to post upcoming gigs 👍 

https://www.basschat.co.uk/forum/11-gigs/

[josie]

13 hours ago, musicbassman said:

in the '80's I used to play on cruise boats on the River Thames that people sometimes hired for corporate functions. The load on was usually at Wapping for the caterers and the band, and then the party goers were collected at Westminster or the Embankment.

UK alcohol licensing laws then enforced much more limited opening hours than now - pubs had to close between 2pm and 6pm. There was an exception for - don't remember exactly - it can't have been "moving vehicles"! But  moving boats were certainly exempt, so it used to be common to hold a party or executive jolly on a canal or river boat which would potter up and down just enough to qualify for the exemption, so people could buy drinks in the afternoon. It would make sense that they might have  a live band as well. I (dimly 🙂 ) remember one that had a jazz band that sounded pretty good by the end of the "cruise" 🙂 

[josie]

11 hours ago, zranyard said:

Ah it was a different stage I think, I play with a girl called Elles, we played before King King on what ever stage that was

Elles Bailey! Great voice. Not quite to my taste, but respect! Saw her at Scarborough Blues last March - were you there? 

[zranyard]

16 minutes ago, josie said:

Elles Bailey! Great voice. Not quite to my taste, but respect! Saw her at Scarborough Blues last March - were you there? 

Yeah I was there, top secret blues festival, is that it? Can't remember it but I was there!

[josie]

That's it. Best blues festival in the UK by far 🙂 

[casapete]

Had a good start to the autumn leg of our tour tonight in Glasgow. The Kings Theatre is a great venue, and the crowd were their usual self, loud and lively! We always have a good turnout too, one of our favourite gigs. The gig itself could have been a bit dodgy - we have a new lighting engineer and it was his first gig with us. Also one of the cello pickups played up and had a problem with the drums just before starting, but miraculously all went well. Lighting guy was amazing, got most of the cues and didn’t leave me in total darkness!  Was good to be back doing it after a month off. Stoke tomorrow, then Halifax on Saturday and Bristol on Sunday, so will be knackered Monday no doubt. 

[Bluewine]

16 hours ago, musicbassman said:

Hi Blue,

in the '80's I used to play on cruise boats on the River Thames that people sometimes hired for corporate functions. The load on was usually at Wapping for the caterers and the band, and then the party goers were collected at Westminster or the Embankment.

They were strange gigs - the boats never went very far - just down to Greenwich and up to Kew, but they'd do this a couple of times during the evening. Usually the dancefloor and the stage were on the top deck, and on a summers evening the roof would be completely open so you'd be on stage playing as the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben slowly rolled by above you - all slightly surreal.

The Thames is a tidal river, so if the tide was right out at load on or load off and it had been raining, it could be more than a bit scary with a very steep and slippery gangplank to manouevre the gear down or up - health and safety was not so well considered even then.

I don't know if this scene still exists - maybe some other BCers can advise.

Cool Musicbassman,

Thanks for your comment

 Our Vista King Cruise is really a big drink-athon. We lucked out selling out to a supportive engaged crowd.

Blue

 

 

[Bluewine]

The Harley Davidson 115th Anniversary Bash was ok. We opened for Beatalica.

Great weather and nice crowd, but adapting to any big stage is always a challenge for us.

Blue

Edited August 31, 2018 by Bluewine

[FuNkShUi]

On 29/08/2018 at 11:51, EBS_freak said:

 and great for loading in/out.

One of the best for that!! Can drive right up to the playing area

[Stylon Pilson]

Last night was my first gig with the 80s covers band that I joined a couple of months ago (c.f. "Number of songs for audition" thread). It was at the Maiden's Head in Maidenhead - decent venue, easy load-in/out, the crowd picked up over the course of the evening. However I did have to deal with a situation that I'm not sure I've ever encountered before, but which is probably going to become a regular occurrence: hollow wooden stage with no PA support. The EQ that resulted in a good sound out front meant a little area of extreme boominess within a radius of about 2m of my bass amp.

My new bandmates were absolutely elated with my performance and the way the band sounded as a whole. I made a few flubs, but well within my range of acceptable tolerances for a first gig with a new band.

I also got to wear a shirt that I bought about 15 years ago, but have never worn because it's fairly hideous. Yet perfect for an 80s band.

S.P.

 

[Maude]

Had a great night last night after nearly a month without gigs due to bandmembers holidays and a bereavement. The Dastardlys played The Kings in Exeter and we had a great turnout. The great thing with this band is that you can see who's there to see you and who's a just the pubs punters, lots of Mods, Skins, and Rudeboys, plus some other 'characters' :D. 

Easy load in and out, bit of a strange area to play as there's a raised area with a post in the middle that obscures us from each other but it was all good, our soundman got plenty of compliments on the sound which made his night. 

Here's a clip that's surfaced on Facebook, mobile phone recording so not the best but it's OK, hopefully the link will work. 

 

Down in the tubestation at midnight

[cheddatom]

Friday night we played a small local festival. Our guitarist did a quick line check on both his DIs (one acoustic, one electric through a Pod) and everything sounded fine. Half way through the first song his acoustic started cutting out. He swapped all of his cables for spares but it kept happening. Despite that the soundman refused to believe it could be anything to do with him. We figured as the electric had been fine at the line check we'd just abandon the acoustic and do the whole set electric. Nothing came out of the monitors. Again the soundman was no help at all. We plugged his Pod into the guitar amp on stage to get some sound. It worked but we couldn't hear him properly at all. Despite all this, we seemed to go down very well, loads of people singing and dancing etc. 

Saturday night was an even smaller festival, but this time without any of the technical problems. We all played really well and loved it so much more, despite a rather lukewarm reaction from the crowd!