How was your gig last night?

[taunton-hobbit]

10 minutes ago, Obrienp said:

We took about 1 1/2 hours to set up

 

I'd be looking very carefully at that    ?

 

😎

[spacecowboy]

Played a fantastic venue last night in the middle of Bromsgrove for a private Christmas party. 
 

Gig went brilliantly, hired a pro sound engineer for our front of house and on stage sound and he’ll 100% be getting calls in the future for our other gigs.

 

Crowd were really involved, atmosphere was great. 
 

The only downside being I have only just bought a brand new Sire V7 5 string for the Christmas shows but at sound check I really really wasn’t feeling it, so out came the Squier P Bass and boom, there’s the tone I want there’s the feel I needed. 
 

I see a return on the horizon for the Sire. 

 

 

 

[BigRedX]

In Isolation played at The Sal in Nottingham on Friday. 

 

Unfortunately it wasn't the greatest night - the gig clashed with New Model Army at Rock City and as a result was fairly poorly attended, and only a handful of people took advantage of the half-price entry for those coming from the NMA gig. It wasn't helped by Discord & Rhyme having to cancel at the last minute due to their singer loosing her voice. On the upside we played well and those that had come to see us were most appreciative. The new songs went down well as did out cover of "I Believe In Father Christmas" and we sold some copies of the single afterwards.

 

Last gig of the year for me will be on Friday 22nd at The Fiddler's Elbow in London.

[cetera]

Played at an arts centre in Petersfield on Friday night with Leather & Lace. Venue wasn't great for onstage sound but apparently it was fine out front and the audience loved it!

Personal highlight was the sound tech who said my bass sound was best he's ever worked with live! Splendid 💜😎

[DGBass]

6 hours ago, Jackroadkill said:

@DGBass, that's a  What's the name of the band? great-sounding band you've got there.  Tight and loose in equal measure, absolutely rocking.  What's the name of the band?

We are "The Stoneaters"🙂

[Jackroadkill]

Just now, DGBass said:

We are "The Stoneaters"🙂

And a great name, too!

[Lozz196]

27 minutes ago, cetera said:

Played at an arts centre in Petersfield on Friday night with Leather & Lace. Venue wasn't great for onstage sound but apparently it was fine out front and the audience loved it!

Personal highlight was the sound tech who said my bass sound was best he's ever worked with live! Splendid 💜😎

Centre stage for bass too, just how it should be

[StingRayBoy42]

Two very different gigs this weekend...

Friday was the 4 piece rock band at the Murderer's Arms (?) somewhere in Derbyshire - Sabbath, Pistols, Motorhead, AC/DC, Zeppelin, Metallica type stuff.
After the soundcheck, a woman asked "Are you going to be that loud all night?" and a bloke said "You starting at 9? We'll be leaving at 5 past"
Not many in, those that were there seemed to enjoy it, bit of good-natured heckling and one of my jokes even got a laugh (first time for everything).
We played pretty well, couple of rough edges as usual - I think we rehearsed twice about 9 months ago when I joined.

StingRay -> Small board (Bass soul food, One Control green bass machine, MXR chorus) -> Sansamp programmable BDDI -> Mark CMD 121P.
Great setup for rock stuff, love the different crunch/distortion/fuzz options.

Good laugh, got paid.


Saturday was the Jones Jazz Orchestra's 5th birthday/Christmas bash in Coleshill.
20-odd piece big band with 4 vocalists.
Nice varied setlist, A few Michael Buble ones (MD is a big Buble fan), Live and let die, Fantasy (Earth, Wind and Fire), a few jazz standards,  Gershwin,  L-O-V-E, a few christmas numbers in the second set.. bit of everything.
It's fantastic playing in a big band, such a different vibe to 'normal' 4/5/6 piece pop/rock/indie bands.
I was wedged in between the drummer and the trumpets, thank god I had my earplugs.
Really nice to hear the different stuff the trumpets get up to - usually I only hear the loud high bits, but being next to them meant I got to hear all the quieter/subtle bits that I don't normally hear.
Highlights were the Trombone solo in Flip, Flop & Fly and the Trombone intro to Live & let die - our 1st Trombonist has got such a sweet, gorgeous tone that just sits beautifully on top of the band when she's giving it some.
Good audience, a lovely bunch of decent musicians, we sounded really good, a real pleasure to play with.
Unpaid as all the money raised goes back into the band, happy to do it for the fun of it.
StingRay -> Thumpinator -> VTDI (set to Fliptop) -> MarkBass 802.
And two Lucky Chops tunes on the Sousaphone for good measure.

A good weekend!

[Stub Mandrel]

5 hours ago, DGBass said:

We are "The Stoneaters"🙂

 

Allex Harvey reference?

[DGBass]

16 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Alex Harvey reference?

Well spotted. We are all SAHB fans and the name comes from a track on their album Tomorrow Belongs to Me.

[Piers_Williamson]

23 minutes ago, DGBass said:

Well spotted. We are all SAHB fans and the name comes from a track on their album Tomorrow Belongs to Me.

We played with Hugh McKenna on Keys for about 20 years.  He very sadly passed away just before lockdown.  He was a natural keys player, couldn't read notation, but taught our children to play mean boogy woogy piano, and was a gentle and gifted soul.  I miss playing with him.

[markbunney]

Played with The 77s at Drakes Cork & Cask in Maidstone on Saturday.

Brilliant gig which was very well attended by regulars of the pub, and various groups of Xmas parties coming in and out.

 

We added in a few songs that we had not done for ages, as we need to extend our set list for our NYE gig. We hadn’t rehearsed them all together so they were a bit rusty, but on the whole OK. 
 

Ended up doing two extra encores which we hadn’t planned on, but we were happy to keep playing.

 

Played my Duff McKagen Jazz Bass Special, Darkglass AO 500 and Orange cab.

 

They asked us to go back next year which was a nice bonus.

[steantval]

9 hours ago, cetera said:

Played at an arts centre in Petersfield on Friday night with Leather & Lace. Venue wasn't great for onstage sound but apparently it was fine out front and the audience loved it!

Personal highlight was the sound tech who said my bass sound was best he's ever worked with live! Splendid 💜😎

Cetera, any specific reason why the drummer was set up off to the right and not centre stage ?

[Stub Mandrel]

3 hours ago, DGBass said:

Well spotted. We are all SAHB fans and the name comes from a track on their album Tomorrow Belongs to Me.

 

Well it should get you more gigs than "Ribs and Balls" 🤣

[casapete]

Final gig this year at my favourite venue ‘The Lookout on the Pier’ in Scarborough with our

acoustic duo. It was their Christmas party for invited guests so plenty of familiar faces and

song requests. We did a smattering of Christmas stuff, ( Run Rudolph Run, Please come home

for Christmas etc) but also plenty of others including’Happy Together’ by The Turtles (great 

tune I’ve never played before) and ‘It’s getting better’ by Mama Cass ( ditto!). Played two

sets, 1x45 and 1x70 mins, fingers aching a bit today! Used a little Rok Tek graphic eq for 

the first time which just cut an annoying touch of feedback.
We have two gigs a month booked in starting Jan 2024, so really pleased. 

 

(Sorry for the crap pics, too busy playing to take any others)

 

 

 

 

[cetera]

10 hours ago, steantval said:

Cetera, any specific reason why the drummer was set up off to the right and not centre stage ?

 

We're a 7 piece band (2 lead vocalists), drums keys, 2 guitarists and bass. In a theatre type environment it allows us to set the stage in a much more equal way visually. 

[Franticsmurf]

The Hulla band played an 'acoustic' night for a local drop-in centre for homeless people last night. We've worked with their volunteers before, backing their choir and raising funds for them, and the centre manager sings with the Hulla band occasionally, so it was a very relaxed and friendly affair. I say 'acoustic' because I was led to believe it would be unplugged, but in the end there were several amps and fortunately I had one to myself. 

 

The set was distilled from our usual Christmas party list to the more popular Christmas songs. There was some doubt over whether 'Fairytale of New York' was appropriate given the potential audience of disadvantaged and homeless folk, but the centre manager said ok, so we played it and it went down really well. We were asked to play on so out came some of our rock n roll classics and we played for twice as long as originally planned. It was a good atmosphere within the band and, of course, great to bring some smiles to faces of people who may not be celebrating Christmas the way most of us will this year.

 

The Hulla band only plays for charity donations - its a community based band so the playing standard varies but we have a great vibe going. I love playing gigs but something like this one this brings an extra dimension of satisfaction.

 

We all had tea of coffee before the gig - hardened musicians all. 😃

     

 

The gig was in a church - great acoustics.

 

I appear to be the star of the show (I'm sorry, the bigger boys made me write that).

 

[Tim2291]

Our gig on Saturday was a bit of a disaster... Missing kettle leads for guitar amps, a lead failed in the rack mounted PA and whilst replacing it with a spare, multiple others got pulled out and we ran out of time... we had to use the venues system instead! My amp sounded shocking because I was in a corner and for some reason my hands weren't working properly. Got rebooked and paid so not a total disaster!

[Woodinblack]

Saturdays gig, the last one of this year for us, due to the singers year on / year off family christmas thing.

Played a local pub that isn't one of my favourites. The acoustics are terrible - wall of reflections, feedback on everything acoustic, and it always feels like something is going to kick off there, although it never has directly when we have been there. Also you don't really get that much involvement with the crowd, it is a big pub and it is a long way to the back, you can't turn it up more because of feedback at any sort of volume.

 

Anyway, did the set, had a bit of interaction in the first half, but the second half was actually pretty good, quite a bit of interaction, more than usual, so actually, apart from the sound being terrible, we played fairly well and went down not bad. So not bad, that when we finished, the manager came over to book us for next new years eve, the singer asked me how much they should ask for, I gave my 'not really bothered if we price ourselves out of it' price (ie, twice a normal gig), they came back with a figure 50% higher than that, so that is where we are next new years!

 

It also seems that whatever the pub, merry christmas everyone is a popular song. Who knew (which is incidently also a popular song on our set)

 

 

 

[Combed20]

Friday 8th, we (Public Service Announcement) played the Queens Head in Aylesbury. We have played there once before and it was a great evening - we were really looking forward to it. We would be providing backline and promoter supplying PA/Soundperson.

 A couple of days before the gig promoted messaged us to ask if we could supply the mic's and stands. This set alarm bells ringing. We also then saw online that a second band has been added to the event...

 The gig came, and as expected,  there was the most basic vocal PA, only 2 monitors and no sound person. 

Vocals only through the PA (I normally like some kick drum in my monitor) and no monitor for the drummer meant this wouldn't be the easiest gig - but we've had worse.

Once we completed soundcheck, the second band took the stage. A anarcho-punk band made up of three 15 year olds who hadn't thought to bring any amps or ask us if we could kit share. Just some cymbals and gutiars. Ordinarily, I'd refuse to loan my gear in this situation. I'm happy to kit share if arranged in advance,  but my thoery is if you haven't the manners to arrange in advance, how do I know you have the manners to respect my equipment?? Anyway, we were all young once, so I plugged up my little Warwick gnome, and let their bass player use that. 

 Once they finished we set up, and as we were about to go in, former England football player Stuart Pearce came in. We knew he was planning to come, but part of me hoped he wouldn't show once we realised the sound wouldn't be great. Anyway, we did our best - and the crowd loved it. At the end of the day, we can't really ask for any more. Mr Pearce came to say hello at the end - unfortunately,  we were unable to get a band pic with him. Next time...

 

 

[dmccombe7]

11 hours ago, cetera said:

 

We're a 7 piece band (2 lead vocalists), drums keys, 2 guitarists and bass. In a theatre type environment it allows us to set the stage in a much more equal way visually. 

Plus the bass player should always be front and centre anyways. He is the most important band member. 

Dave

[ossyrocks]

An unusual gig for me on Saturday night. The Sufjan Stevens Songs For Christmas concert at Lancaster Priory. Around 45 people in the orchestra, electric band and choir combined. Only 5 rehearsals which included one the night before and one the morning of the concert. It was sold out, packed with people. Lots of the other musicians had done it before, but it was my first time. Incredible experience, really moving and emotional at times. I used the Elf and the BF One10 which was also DI’d into the PA. I do hope I’m asked to do it again when it comes back to Lancaster. 
 

A pic during setup.

 

[Devers95]

Bit late to it but my original rock band played our end of year headline show over the weekend. Some drunken football hooligan dickheads came for some reason and threw a pint which literally landed in the digital sound desk during the changeover. We sold about 100 tickets too, massive shame.

 

Still sounded good out front but the faders started moving by themselves and the sound engineers had to constantly correct for an hour long set.

 

I don't use amps on stage so when the faders lowered bass through the PA until the soundguys corrected it, it was noticed but fortunately only by muso friends. 

 

Football hooligan dickheads also chanted constantly, including whilst we tried to talk on stage. It was honestly a flipping nightmare and it should have been awesome. We still had a good time and people loved it but we still came away with a really sour taste.

Edited December 11, 2023 by Devers95
Spelling

[Lozz196]

Should have smacked one of them 

[dmccombe7]

10 hours ago, Devers95 said:

Bit late to it but my original rock band played our end of year headline show over the weekend. Some drunken football hooligan dickheads came for some reason and threw a pint which literally landed in the digital sound desk during the changeover. We sold about 100 tickets too, massive shame.

 

Still sounded good out front but the faders started moving by themselves and the sound engineers had to constantly correct for an hour long set.

 

I don't use amps on stage so when the faders lowered bass through the PA until the soundguys corrected it, it was noticed but fortunately only by muso friends. 

 

Football hooligan dickheads also chanted constantly, including whilst we tried to talk on stage. It was honestly a flipping nightmare and it should have been awesome. We still had a good time and people loved it but we still came away with a really sour taste.

Football should be banned.

Don't think i would be very chuffed with them and that could have resulted in some very heated discussion to say the least.

We have an Irish singer and an ex-marine in our band so you can imagine where that's gonna end.

Dave