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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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Sterling effort with the Andy Wales Blues Band at the Diggle Band Club as part of the Diggle Blues Festival last night. 

A home town gig for the band leader who is from the neighbouring village. I don’t think we strictly met the criteria of “blues,” but it was entertaining and went down well to a good sized audience. 

 

Even managed to get to the local pub afterwards for last orders. 

 

We had to travel light to fit the PA, bass gear and guitar gear and two people all in my car, so ended up using my Markbass traveller rig and Yamaha BB604. 

I’d swapped one of the Yamaha’s to flats, but the one with rounds sounded way better (suited the natural sound of that bass more) so the flats are coming off as soon as I get a chance. 
 

 

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Edited by bassbiscuits
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Afternoon gig for Trentfest at Thoresby Park. It had been hosing down all day but, undaunted, the crowd were sticking it out and enjoying the bands. It's a closed event for Caravan Club members and they had provided a decent stage, PA and sound guy.

We did an hour's set and it went down really well, particularly when the sun came out half way through.

My usual gigrig of Mike Lull P4 through my Handbox R400 with matching cab.

 

Some 'just before we started' pics

 

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6 hours ago, ricksterphil said:

Afternoon gig for Trentfest at Thoresby Park. It had been hosing down all day but, undaunted, the crowd were sticking it out and enjoying the bands. It's a closed event for Caravan Club members and they had provided a decent stage, PA and sound guy.

We did an hour's set and it went down really well, particularly when the sun came out half way through.

My usual gigrig of Mike Lull P4 through my Handbox R400 with matching cab.

 

Some 'just before we started' pics

 

IMG_20240615_135717.thumb.jpg.1e8e68edce7376a9a9da08be0e0329a0.jpg

 

IMG_20240615_135723.thumb.jpg.9592a3b683e051ef3f3ee781e3cf1a91.jpg

 

IMG_20240615_135725.thumb.jpg.23a4f3a58cfc7af68a775e95a9beb34c.jpg

 

IMG_20240615_135729.thumb.jpg.a62511a78a4aae2c16913a5eff7f5e6e.jpg

 

 

 

These guys look like a million bucks !

 

Daryl

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On 12/06/2024 at 17:08, Bluewine said:

THIS SATURDAY EVERYONE!
Maple Road Blues Band plays this fantastic car show from 11am-2pm! Check it out! 
Jenny L. Abbott-Goodell
Daryl Wheeler
Max Jones
Rory Grouse
*Heidi Lange
Rods -N- Relics Car Club

 

 

We haven't played together or rehearsed in months. This is a car show, it's walk by traffic. We'll get a chance to work out the kinks for some of the higher profile summer shows coming up. Especially our 8:30 slot at Bastille Days.

 

Daryl

* I have no idea who Heidi is.

FB_IMG_1718229550231.jpg

 

 

Car Show gig was ok. 11-2. Certainly nothing to write home about.

 

Daryl

FB_IMG_1718490481654.jpg

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Played a birthday party tonight. The birthday girl saw us at our first Newport gig and liked us so much, she asked us to play. Quite flattering really! 

 

So, we were back in Newport, playing at The Cab this time. Seems to be a former 80s (?) shop converted into a venue. Decent stage, basic PA, but they do have cabs to use. I was going through a Marshall 810, which was supplying my bass sound to the whole venue. I'm pretty sure that's what an 810 is for!

 

It was a fun gig. Felt like less pressure, and I could hear myself much more clearly than the previous gig. 

 

The only unfortunate thing was that we had to go on first. One of our guitarists probably shouldn't have OK'd a gig on the same weekend as his girlfriend's birthday, so we went on first and then he drove back to his house, and then on to Cornwall. It felt like a long night after that.

 

Signal chain was:

Combustion

GX-100

Mojo Mojo

Bass Big Muff

ABM-600

810

 

And we are Hora:

https://linktr.ee/horadoom

 

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Next gig is Swindon on the 13th of July, unless we get added to a bill at Moor Brewery. 

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Wedding in Taunton. 

 

Largely unremarkable with the exception of meeting one of my heroes. This guy literally changed my life a few years ago and was an absolute gent last night. Spent a good 15 mins chatting and he even added footage of us playing to his insta. 

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35 minutes ago, MichaelDean said:

One of our guitarists probably shouldn't have OK'd a gig on the same weekend as his girlfriend's birthday

If it lasts he’ll be hearing about that until the end of time … I know I am after 40 years on a regular basis, normally approaching wifey’s birthday whether we’re gigging or not 🤪🤣

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TONIGHT!

The Cantina Band at the wedding of Lewis (?) and Gemma (?) at a posh hotel somewhere near Nuneaton.

The happy couple had seen our subtle blend of extremely loud rock covers and slapdash half-arsedery at a gig a few months ago and liked the cut of our jib for some reason, so they booked us to play their wedding.
We mainly play Motorhead, AC/DC, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Clash, Ramones, Sabbath type stuff, so obviously they thought "This is the perfect band to make our special day truly memorable".

Arrival at 5:30, load in to a tiny marquee filled with very well turned out wedding guests, elderly relatives and infants sliding across the small dancefloor. This... could be a weird gig, lads.

Quick setup, soundcheck resulted in lots of bemused/disgusted looks before a quick pint and band conflab (many variations on "We're going to go down like a broken escalator/turd in a lift/Pork pie at Passover") and then we were on.

Three songs into the first set, half the people had left. I can't say I blame them. One table seemed to be quite enjoying it (including Uncle Knobhead (there's one at every wedding)) so that was something. A few hardy souls braved the dancefloor for a couple of the less overtly offensive numbers, and at the groom's request we'd learned a McFly song (!) for the bride (Five colours in her hair (that's the name of the song, not... the bride only had one colour in her hair. Two, max) which is good fun to play and more complicated than you'd think) so we got her to join in with the singing on that, which went down well (especially with Uncle Knobhead, he loved it) and dispelled some of the air of "WTF?" .
First set done, we stepped out for a vape while they cut the cake and had their first dance (not counting five colours in her hair (the song)).

Second set kicked off with Highway to Hell, and suddenly they were all loving it. Packed dancefloor, everyone singing along and having a whale of a time! The second set has a few more well known/not as deliberately obtuse rock numbers in, so it went down really well. I took to the dancefloor for Sex on Fire, and had a boogie with Uncle Knobhead and the mother of the bride, which was an absolute hoot.
The singer was recovering from a chest infection, so he was really struggling by this point... I helped him out on Jonny B Goode, then attempted to give him a hand on Proud Mary, before realising I don't actually know any of the words (apart from "Left a good job in the city" and "rolling") so it became a comedy number.

Played the Sterling ->small board -> sansamp -> MB 121.

All done, loads of people said they'd really enjoyed it (some of them even aked for our card(!)), couple of onion bhajis from the buffet, photo of the bride on the drums and the groom on Bass, pack down while the DJ played the sort of music you'd actually *want* to hear at a wedding, well paid, home about 11:15 for last nights chicken curry & dahl and a pint of old father StingRayBoy's homebrew cider (ABV unknown).

Actually a pretty good gig, considering how bad we thought it was going to be.

Edited by StingRayBoy42
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Another batch of weddings to report on, after all it is the season.

 

Friday, Glewstone Court, just outside of Ross-on-Wye. Only 90 minutes wait for food and speeches to be over, then set up the area in turbo time, carting gear in the pouring rain. Nice couple though and well received, small room (2 plugs) Venue very keen to have us back, especially as we had to shorten the sets and we hit their strict 11pm curfew with 30 secs to spare. I love having the countdown of each track in main stage. 
 

Tonight was a funny one. We had originally been booked up in Birmingham but the event got cancelled. Tuesday night I got a call from a local sound engineer saying a band had had to pull out of a wedding due to personal circumstances and could we do it. Unfortunately the male singer and keyboard player had both managed to find something else to do, so we decided my wife could manage the vocals by herself. There was a lot of desperate ringing round to find a dep keys, Friday afternoon we found an ex cruise ship player, so I sent him the parts and we were off to the races.

 

When we turned up we found it was a large do, say 400 people, and the DJ was a proper purveyor of the boom and tizz boxes. Our FBT rig has got sufficient clout to play loud, live music in such a space but we weren’t going to able to compete, and had people asking us to turn up. Anyway, my wife got over her nerves, unusual for her, and won them round. They were a young farmers-esque crowd, the most notable moment being when a bloke fell of the shoulders, head first onto the stage into a load of glasses left on it. Fortunately no harm done but it could have been very different! 
 

Dep keyboard player remarked it was all rather different to his usual Warner hotel gig and we live to fight another day. 

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Great gig at Black Deer Festival yesterday. We may have been on one of the smaller stages (Caffe Nero tent) but the vibe of the place was great and we had a laugh. We had a special guest with us playing second acoustic guitar and - more importantly perhaps - lap steel, which added a whole new layer to the live sound. (There’s a thread on here investigating the use of the original album instrumentation tracks in the future but having Cris on stage with us was so cool).

 

Muddy as hell, all my cases, cables, pedalboard and cab need a damn good clean today, as does my car which almost got stuck in the car park when I was leaving after the mighty Sheryl Crow and her band had played a cracking set on the main stage. Oh, and there was a wicked drone show at the end.

 

I need to go re learn 1 song which I kept getting in the wrong order in my head, and learn how to live with a big hat, a mic stand and no space to move around 🤣 But other than that, awesome 🤠

 

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Just discovered an old secondary school buddy was right at the front the whole show yesterday, and I completely didn’t see him 😂 He took a cool pic though, so I stole it.

 

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Last dep gig for a while with Stevie Daniels. British Legion in Upwell in the fens. Smallish room and only 3 people in the place while setting up, counting the great bloke with a food trailer out front.I was thinking “paid rehearsal. Things got considerably better. Got a cracking bacon roll from the food guy, and the venue was filling up by start time. Lots of singing along, head nodding, and kids on the dance floor. Then the proper party people showed up and we ended up having a blast! Lots of compliments on the band and my playing, I decided to try my fretless Spectracore which sounded great. Lots less muddy under the guitars. A few weeks off now. 
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Edited by dclaassen
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9 hours ago, mrtcat said:

Wedding in Taunton. 

 

Largely unremarkable with the exception of meeting one of my heroes. This guy literally changed my life a few years ago and was an absolute gent last night. Spent a good 15 mins chatting and he even added footage of us playing to his insta. 

20240615_190348.thumb.jpg.b83051a421c5308f89dd7a3a3ab2cca9.jpg

Give us a clue…

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Good pub gig list night. Lots of people dancing and singing along to our Ska versions, it seems to work well - not just playing bog standard ska tunes or pub pop/rock covers, putting a different spin adds a bit of originality/interest while also being familiar enough for diverse pub crowd to get into. 

 

My feedback to the band will be that DJs (or at least good ones) read the crowd and play music to keep the dancefloor busy. Likewise, some flexibility in the band setlist would be good. 

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Saturday night to Trowbridge Steam Fair - usual set up, gennys rattling away, traction engines puffing about, beer tent with pallets for our stage, soggy field after epic rainstorms during the day. It was a closed event for the exhibitors who had clearly decided to have a good time and get into the cider and ale for a serious session. Our dep gitrist from Weymouth (even further to drive than my 65 miles) fitted in well, just lost it a couple of times in my sax set (he did OK considering how few covers bands in the area suddenly launch into sax-led numbers like One Step Beyond, Midnight Hour and Geno after the standard guitry crowd pleasers) 

 

Long day, got home at 01:05. Cat was not pleased at the lack of pandering since 5.30pm previous afternoon! Pic below is of me being a poseur (aka knob) on sax during 'Geno'

 

 

 

 

MM_GG_sax2.jpg

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The Earl Haig with Bluesfire today, a short-notice gig to fill in for a very good local band.

 

Good numbers, maybe 100 at the start, quite a few more by the end. Setting up, a dodgy di lead on my amp was freaking when the spots turned on. Took a while to track down. But we had the full light show, there will be photos.

 

First half it seemed ok to us, but apparently sound was very harsh. Our sound guy unfamiliar with house pa. Second half sounded better apparently. Audience randomly joined in the vocals for sharp dressed man, quite a lot of dancing and upriarious applause. Although some of the time we couldn't see the audience for smoke. Lots of happy, enthusiastic punters and great feedback. Alex got a few sets of applause for his solos, was like a jazz gig! Apparently the bit where we co-ordinate and Alex does trills and I do finger tapping was 'epic' - we think it's silly but fun 😁 Lost track of time so started to finish early but ended up doing three encores.  Were taken aback to get applause just for starting Purple Rain.

 

Final song was let's stick together which gets manic and my fingers started behaving oddly and then virtually cramped up... just made it to then end.

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21 hours ago, Merton said:

Just discovered an old secondary school buddy was right at the front the whole show yesterday, and I completely didn’t see him 😂 He took a cool pic though, so I stole it.

 

IMG_2398.jpeg.83d0bc11e36f08752b15072993d40d7e.jpeg

 

You guys look great.

 

Daryl

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On 16/06/2024 at 07:17, MichaelDean said:

Played a birthday party tonight. The birthday girl saw us at our first Newport gig and liked us so much, she asked us to play. Quite flattering really! 

 

So, we were back in Newport, playing at The Cab this time. Seems to be a former 80s (?) shop converted into a venue. Decent stage, basic PA, but they do have cabs to use. I was going through a Marshall 810, which was supplying my bass sound to the whole venue. I'm pretty sure that's what an 810 is for!

 

It was a fun gig. Felt like less pressure, and I could hear myself much more clearly than the previous gig. 

 

The only unfortunate thing was that we had to go on first. One of our guitarists probably shouldn't have OK'd a gig on the same weekend as his girlfriend's birthday, so we went on first and then he drove back to his house, and then on to Cornwall. It felt like a long night after that.

 

Signal chain was:

Combustion

GX-100

Mojo Mojo

Bass Big Muff

ABM-600

810

 

And we are Hora:

https://linktr.ee/horadoom

 

PXL_20240615_164600569.NIGHT.thumb.jpg.4b5d4ce0eb73b967ea8e0d60a37ea13b.jpg

 

Next gig is Swindon on the 13th of July, unless we get added to a bill at Moor Brewery. 

What's with the bass drum reso head?! 

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41 minutes ago, Boodang said:

What's with the bass drum reso head?! 

I'm assuming it had been split at some point and was held together with gaffa tape. It wasn't the worst bass drum sound I'd heard. Definitley not the best either though!

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23 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Were taken aback to get applause just for starting Purple Rain.

 

To be fair, if I'd been there I might have done a bit of sex wee when you played that song, so be grateful it was only applause!

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Great ska gig on Saturday night, as per usual the PA was vocal/guitar/keys/kick/snare only so my Genz/Barefaced stack of doom was roaring away at the back. I love it when I have to crank it up a bit. 

Using the Spector, as per usual on the ska gigs, I experimented with a couple of sounds... usually for 'Time Bomb' I use a slightly grubby SVT model on my Zoom MS60B, but this time I also stamped on the Wine Cellar for an extra bit of grit and oh my god it was HUGE. Without a doubt the best pick sound I've ever had. 

Edited by Rich
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