How was your gig last night?

[KevB]

But the Henry Rollins quote is the exact opposite of what ironkerton experienced in getting bullied by an incompetent sound tech who was deflecting his own shortcomings and in front of the audience to boot. Cowardly and a bit of a c*nt's trick frankly.

[MacDaddy]

23 hours ago, martthebass said:

I refer you all to......sorry couldn’t resist it.

None of the Techs would have cared if it was David Bowie?

derrière gravy!

[BreadBin]

1 hour ago, KevB said:

But the Henry Rollins quote is the exact opposite of what ironkerton experienced in getting bullied by an incompetent sound tech who was deflecting his own shortcomings and in front of the audience to boot. Cowardly and a bit of a c*nt's trick frankly.

This, Henry's quote is good but irrelevant in this case. I've worked both sides of the curtain and would never do something so nasty. A tech is there to support the artists, not demean them. 

[Muzz]

On 16/07/2019 at 13:52, martthebass said:

I refer you all to......sorry couldn’t resist it.

While there's much to applaud in the above, the second paragraph can clearly work both ways, as the OP has highlighted.

I'll be more impressed with the last sentence when I see actual evidence of Mr Rollins exchanging salaries with his techs. Although at this stage of his career there might not be much in it... 😀

Edited July 17, 2019 by Muzz

[martthebass]

4 hours ago, KevB said:

But the Henry Rollins quote is the exact opposite of what ironkerton experienced in getting bullied by an incompetent sound tech who was deflecting his own shortcomings and in front of the audience to boot. Cowardly and a bit of a c*nt's trick frankly.

Erm.....I posted it as a bit of light hearted p155taking. That was also the spirit in which it was given at the backstage shown - the techs were great. Please view it in the spirit it was posted.

As you were.....

[Bluewine]

Not a great performance, we're not tight and the parts are not great but it's where we're at and what we're doing this summer.

Blue

 

[ironkerton]

5 hours ago, martthebass said:

Erm.....I posted it as a bit of light hearted p155taking. That was also the spirit in which it was given at the backstage shown - the techs were great. Please view it in the spirit it was posted.

As you were.....

Oh yes - both can be true! Most of my band are or have been techies, when things are bad it's 95% this attitude and only 5% where the problem is the techies! 

We played a god awful festival once where we went on stage SEVEN HOURS late and they asked us to cut our set from 40 mins to 3 songs. Before we went on, our singer asked the techie who we'd spent all night with "are you gonna cut us if we play on?" - he laughed and shook his head. We played on ha ha 

[radiophonic]

15 hours ago, ironkerton said:

Oh yes - both can be true! Most of my band are or have been techies, when things are bad it's 95% this attitude and only 5% where the problem is the techies! 

We played a god awful festival once where we went on stage SEVEN HOURS late and they asked us to cut our set from 40 mins to 3 songs. Before we went on, our singer asked the techie who we'd spent all night with "are you gonna cut us if we play on?" - he laughed and shook his head. We played on ha ha 

Sometimes that works to your advantage. One band I played with in the early 90s did a hippy festival in rural Norfolk. The techies were so out of it that we went on 5 hours late, which bagged us a 10.30pm Saturday slot in front of a suitably intoxicated, large and appreciative crowd. We didn't cut our set either.

[Stub Mandrel]

19 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Not a great performance, we're not tight and the parts are not great but it's where we're at and what we're doing this summer.

Looks good form here, I even recognised the song from the intro!

Camera angles might have been better, until 4:34 🙂

Is that Charlie's violin?

[BreadBin]

20 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Not a great performance, we're not tight and the parts are not great but it's where we're at and what we're doing this summer.

Blue

 

I think you may actually be the coolest dude on this forum 😎

[Oopsdabassist]

Sounded pretty good to me Blue...thats a nice gig you got there mate.

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, Oopsdabassist said:

Sounded pretty good to me Blue...thats a nice gig you got there mate.

Thanks,

It's so important to have fun. Easy to have fun at these big crowd gigs. The challenge is bringing the fun and positive attitude to the not so big problematic gigs.

Blue

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, BreadBin said:

I think you may actually be the coolest dude on this forum 😎

Thanks BreadBin

I don't get enough of playing big crowd gigs, so I savor every moment of these gigs 

When I'm on stage singing and looking out at that big crowd I remember dreaming of this type of experience  when I was kid just starting to gig back in the mud 60s.

Blue

Edited July 18, 2019 by Bluewine

[Bluewine]

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Looks good form here, I even recognised the song from the intro!

Camera angles might have been better, until 4:34 🙂

Is that Charlie's violin?

Thanks Stub,

Yes, it was backstage sitting in a big case on top of a whiskey barell. 

Blue

[T-Bay]

Third year on the trot at a local school leavers event, odd really as we play 80s-90s mostly rock covers but always seem to go down well. Another fun event with about 100 plus of the 200 there dancing for last few numbers and about 80 odd up for every song. We did it as a favour the first time but really enjoy it, been asked back next year.

[stewblack]

Couple of pub gigs this weekend. Well received and a couple of people even noticed the bass player. I was accosted in the car park and complimented. A very pleasant footnote. 

These gigs are a  bit rough and ready, people out to get hammered, have  a dance and a singsong, but not out specifically to see us. I have no snobbery around this at all; I'm a  musician, my job is to entertain people not judge their lifestyle. 

Having experienced venues with back stage rooms, riders, quality PA and all that jazz there are times when I think how nice it would be to be back up there again. However I quickly squash such thoughts, reminding myself that not long ago I couldn't get any kind of gig at all. 

[tubbybloke68]

Played a one hour set at the marvellous festival near Bracknell/Wokingham way with ‘ no jacket required ‘ Phil Collins tribute.sun was shining,crowd were fantastic and the backstage crew and organisers were brilliant getting bands on/off with minimal hassle.all round a very enjoyable time! Great stuff x😊

[Bluewine]

On 18/07/2019 at 11:57, Stub Mandrel said:

Looks good form here, I even recognised the song from the intro!

Camera angles might have been better, until 4:34 🙂

Is that Charlie's violin?

Thanks Stub,

Yes, it was backstage sitting in a big case on top of a whiskey barell. 

Blue

[Bluewine]

Last week's gig with The Charlie Daniels was fantastic.

Yesterday we played a Harley Davidson Bash, 12:00-3:00. Harley always runs top notch events. However, we were not good yesterday. The crowd was small and we had to tear down when a huge storm blew in. It passed and we set up again. Then another storm came through and it poured. The sound crew's monitors got soaked.

This has happened to many of you and it doesn't make you hate gigging. Like many other things it is part of the job, it goes with the territory.

We'll all be laughing about it in the future.

If stuff like this makes you hate gigging it's probably time to step down .

Everybody has  experienced bad gigs. Even The Stones  & The Beatles  had bad gigs.

Blue

Edited July 21, 2019 by Bluewine

[MikanHannille]

Awesome gig last night. Played outside a pub right next to river severn. very responsive audience. Band never sounded so good before. 

[Bluewine]

5 minutes ago, MikanHannille said:

Awesome gig last night. Played outside a pub right next to river severn. very responsive audience. Band never sounded so good before. 

Fantastic!

Blue

[stewblack]

41 minutes ago, MikanHannille said:

Awesome gig last night. Played outside a pub right next to river severn. very responsive audience. Band never sounded so good before. 

Sounds beautiful, where was the venue?

[Maude]

We had one of those unexpected turnarounds last night. We were booked to play a comrades club and I'm usually a bit wary of members clubs like this as, rightly or wrongly, they're normally a bit sh!t. Last night was packed, with everyone up dancing and we found out afterwards that this was triple their usual crowd size which is great. I only recognised two faces from the 'scene' when we play that area but quite a few others were clearly into the same scene and transpired were down on holiday and heard about us somewhere. The rest were just locals who'd come along to see us. Got some great feedback at the end with loads of people coming up to thank us and say how much they enjoyed it, including the staff. It was far from the best gig but after preparing for a let down it was a really fun gig. It's nights like these that make it all worthwhile. 

Edited July 21, 2019 by Maude

[Woodinblack]

A weekend of two halves as often is the way.

Yesterday played a sports and social clubs 40th anniversary. The place was fairly packed, but there was a main bar and the alley where we were playing. We didn't see that many people in the area we were playing even though aparently we went down well round the corner where we couldn't see. Didn't enjoy that much.

Today, we had an afternoon slot that was extended as I assume someone dropped out, so most slots were 50 minutes, but ours was an hour and 20. On the back of a truck, opposite 2 3 story pubs with balconies on weymouth quayside - ie, litterally, it was behind the truck, every so often you could hear the sound of the bridge going up for yachts to pass behind us. It was the coolest of the days and in the morning it actually looked like it wasn't going to be great with a bit of rain, but it got hot again by the afternoon and was pretty perfect.

Professional sound setup and went down really well, thoroughly enjoyed it.  There was noise coming from my helix for reasons I don't understand but I skipped that and went straight into the backline and all was well. Hope it wasn't the new update.

 

[Stylon Pilson]

On Saturday night we returned to a venue that we last played at in September. We had fairly low expectations for the night - when we played there before the turnout was medium in size but low in energy, and our drummer plays there with his other band and generally finds that that's as good as it gets.

So we showed up with the plan to basically play, get paid, and go home. I'm first to arrive, and as I'm unloading I notice "Happy Engagement" balloons on the tables and a finger buffet in the corner. "This looks promising," I thought to myself. So we set up, sound check, play the first set. One woman actually dances during the first set! While this is not the first time that this has ever happened, we usually find that the audience doesn't tend to loosen up until a couple of pints later in the night. At the interval, a few people come up to us and pay us compliments, encouraging us to partake of the finger buffet, and I think that one woman was trying to seduce our drummer with the promise of a roast dinner.

We begin the second set and the response is fantastic. No-one's dancing in the space directly in front of us, but that's fair enough because it is rather small. However we can see people dancing further back in the room. There's a fairly drunk guy sat at the front centre table and with every song we start he's yelling in delight - you can tell that our choice of songs is right up his street. We get to the end of the night and the roaring for an encore is so loud that I worry that this is about to degenerate into a riot. We play two more songs and they're still yelling for more, even louder. But our drummer's got to work at 6am so he scrabbles for the ipod to put the playlist back on, the universal symbol of "nope, there's not going to be any more."

As we try to make our way to the patio doors to cool down, we are intercepted by almost every person on the way who wants to shake our hands and thank us. When we finally make it out into the dark midnight air, the three of us just look at each other in silence for a few seconds. "Well, " remarks our guitarist measuredly, "it's the nights like that that make it worth it, isn't it?"

S.P.