How was your gig last night?

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

Cool 😎

 

How do you embed a video without using YouTube?

 

Nice vocals.

 

Daryl

[dclaassen]

Double duty today at a Country Music Festival at the Windmill in Peterborough. Kicked off the festivities with Stevie Daniels using my Spectracore fretless, trusty Trace head and the GB 12’s. Then on with The Praries 2hrs later using my Yamaha BNNE2 with the same amp. No provided PA, so each group had to lug that in. I provided the PA for the second group, hard to get right without a sound engineer outdoors, but it worked out ok. 

[ossyrocks]

8 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

All the best, pretty sure the adrenalin will give you a wee rush and get you thru. 

Try not to excert yourself to much, restrict any stage theatrics and stand in one place might help and drink plenty of water and maybe a spoonful of honey before you start each set.

Hope all is ok.

Dave

Tonight's gig was brought to you by Lemsip, Ibuprofen and high strength Vitamin C, washed down with Shipyard Low Tide Pale Ale. 

I seriously had to dig deep tonight.

New venue for us, The Pub on China St in Lancaster, a legendary venue locally. The setup was complicated by the fact that we haven't been there before and they have a house Bose PA system, or rather powered speakers (subs and tops) and we ran our desk into them and brought our own monitors. Once we were setup I could relax a bit and concentrate on actually being able to play and sing. Well, we managed it. Great crowd, very appreciative, some dancing, some singing along.

The stage area was tight and Covid appears to have robbed me of any spatial awareness I may have had before, so I must have bumped my mic stand or the guitarists mic stand half a dozen times with my bass! Lots of positive comments after, so I think we'll be back there in the future. Two weeks until the next gig, so that's a blessed relief, I may be starting to feel human again by then.

 

I used my new to me '70 P bass for the first time tonight, through the Bergantino Forte D and the Barefaced 3x10. It sounded just right, I cannot think how it could sound better. 

 

Rob

[EssexBuccaneer]

Well, the pub that didn’t want us to play anything too heavy…..

 

We ended up playing Rage against the machine, Limp Bizkit and others, because the punters loved it. The landlady told us that it’s not her cup of tea, but we went down a storm and she wants us back. There was also a chap who hosts a podcast, who wants to have us on to talk about the band and the local scene. 
 

One of those nights where the money is a nice bonus. Handshakes all round, and lots of compliments. 
 

Pretty stoked right now! The only complaint was that it was a *very* tight squeeze! 

[scalpy]

We were at the Corners Inn, Kingsland, Herefordshire with the 5 piece line up. New dep keyboards tonight who was still getting up to spec with the tech, so the first half he struggled with the in-ears mix but it was an easy fix at the interval. Crowd were a 70th birthday party so we took it easy on the volume and got them dancing (Sex on Fire was a sight…)

 

New toy for me, finally got around to getting a hx stomp. Need to learn more about it and tweak some of my programming but on the whole a good laugh using it. 

[tauzero]

We don't do many gigs compared to some here, and don't do prestigious ones, just plain pub gigs, so I rarely bother to relate the experience. This was a bit different to the normal though.

 

We had a rather last minute booking on Friday night at the Bridge In  in Worcester - I think number 2 guitarist found the request on Tuesday and arranged it (after checking with us). He sent a rather panicked message to us saying he thought he'd blown it as he had two windows open on his computer and sent a message saying he was going to chase them as he hadn't had a reply and hoped they weren't screwing us, only he sent it to them and not to us. Anyroadup, they still booked us in. Apparently the pub had a reputation as somewhat rough, so I decided to take replaceable instruments.

 

No car park so we parked on the double yellows outside to unload. Accosted by one elderly pissed up female who wanted to know what I did and was disappointed to find out I wasn't the drummer. Then a couple of the pub denizens offered to help carrying stuff in, so (slightly reluctantly) we gave them things to carry and everything was brought in. The pub has a section with a pool table in and the main bar, which have quite a big opening between them, and we were in the pool table bit. At the other end of the room was the gaffer doing a disco and karaoke and bingo (not simultaneously). Acoustics were rather dodgy but I just leave stuff set up the same everywhere and simply adjust monitor and FOH levels. Although it was, let us say, a somewhat rough-looking crowd, they were all really friendly and the music (assorted classic rock from late 60s to early part of this century) went down well. It was a rather strange hybrid evening, disco going when we did the load in and setting up, then some karaoke, then some bingo, then our first half, a tad more disco and bingo, and our second half. The only minor glitch (other than the normal getting lost somewhere in songs which we always managed to recover from) was that (a) I'd forgotten my Helix and the Lekato WS70 but that's more for my desire to have certain sounds than being essential, (b) though I checked the batteries on my backup Zoom MS60B that I always carry, they ran out partway through the first set, and (c) I'd only got a switched jack lead with me to run from the effects to the amp and it packed up when the batteries ran flat so I finished up with the backup Lekato WS50 wireless  plugged straight in to the amp.

 

And they want us back.

[Merton]

40th birthday party for a friend last night. Said friend runs a livery yard and decided to have the party in the school. It’s a very sandy outside school a good 500m+ from any power, so thankfully her partner had two 3kW generators. We only used one, the second as a backup, as we never went beyond a load of about 0.7kW. I have to say I was dubious about the plans but we got by without a hitch pretty much. The guitarist’s pedal board was being dicky and I’m not sure how much of that was power-related vs just having a few soft connections.

 

I’d spent the morning putting down the “staging” and building a gazebo to cover the band, then the afternoon dismantling my music room and transporting it over there. Why? Because our normal roster of drummers were all unavailable and so we came up with the novel solution of using both my son (15) and the keyboard player’s son (also 15). Therefore not only did I need my basses and HX Effects but all of Theo’s kit, which is normally planted in the music room.

 

Both boys did brilliantly and it’s fair to say I had a bit of a proud dad moment going on throughout the parts of the sets my son played. Feedback from the crowd was that, if we’d not said anything about it, no-one would have noticed. Can’t get better than that. MiniMert now gets to say he earned some of his money for a school Ecuador trip next summer by playing drums for money. I hope it spurs him on to do more!

 

 

 

Edited July 28 by Merton

[rwillett]

6 hours ago, EssexBuccaneer said:

Well, the pub that didn’t want us to play anything too heavy…..

 

We ended up playing Rage against the machine, Limp Bizkit and others, because the punters loved it. The landlady told us that it’s not her cup of tea, but we went down a storm and she wants us back. There was also a chap who hosts a podcast, who wants to have us on to talk about the band and the local scene. 
 

One of those nights where the money is a nice bonus. Handshakes all round, and lots of compliments. 
 

Pretty stoked right now! The only complaint was that it was a *very* tight squeeze! 

 

Wow, that is tight. This is where an Ibanez Mikro comes into its own. Not sure you could even turn round with a normal bass.

 

Well done. Dead impressed 

[dmccombe7]

BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers last night in our fav venue The Dreadnought in Bathgate. Has to be the best run venue i've ever known with the best owner, manager, Sound Engineer and even the bar and door staff are all just really nice, helpful people.

Decent audience circa 100+ based on what we got paid at the end of the night so that was good. (ticket deal)

Very hot even with the venue's large fans going on the stage. 2 litres of water over the full set.

Sound guy Pete said that's the tightest the band have been and we had people dancing from the stage barrier all the way back to the bar area. Audience were brilliant and really into from the first song. We requested the stage barriers this time as last time a rather drunk guy fell onto the stage and damaged the singers wireless unit and knocking her mic stand and giving her a burst nose and black eye.

Had 3 new songs added to the set for last night with a little bit of nerves on them when we played. Few minor fluffs that no-one else noticed but the band and were well covered by the band. 

As guitarist pointed out at the end "you know you are doing well when the front row are all women and girls dancing away all night or hanging over the barrier to watch." 

Used my Sandberg VM4 thru Shure wireless into Ampeg SVT7 and Mesa SW210/115 rig. On stage sound was a bit odd almost like a touch of bass boom / rumble and i was tweaking for a bit to sort it out only to find it was the guitarist's cab that was booming on stage as i use a gramma pad. Full PA support and FOH was spot on as always in this venue.

Home for 2am, bed for 3am.

Dave

 

[Mickeyboro]

2 hours ago, rwillett said:

 

Wow, that is tight. This is where an Ibanez Mikro comes into its own. Not sure you could even turn round with a normal bass.

 

Well done. Dead impressed 

This was mine last night, depping with a five-piece in the New Forest. Don’t think I moved a muscle all night…

Somewhere in the background is two Barefaced One10s and an Elf. Flea Jazz in front.

Thankfully they turned the Olympics off!

 

Edited July 28 by Mickeyboro

[Gasman]

On 26/07/2024 at 17:48, Gasman said:

Yea verily! To add to my sense of doom, we have another mini-fest looming this Sunday, with yet another scratch line-up; the killer being that the band on before us features TWO of our ex-guitarists!

Well, doom arrived early for the gig today!  Pub landlady at the venue for this fringe mini-fest emailed all five bands last week (booked last November with fee agreed) saying that there would now be no payment, but we could 'pass the hat around' if we wanted. Her rationale was that she couldn't afford to pay any of us as she'd provided a small tent, and 'if we were any good people might want to give us something'. Hmm, my immediate thought was to wonder whether she was also adopting this approach with her brewery, food and staff, but of course not, how silly of me!

 

Our dep gitrist politely declined to drive 100+ mile round trip on the off-chance of getting a fiver towards his fuel. If he had been prepared to do that I would (grudgingly) have been shamed into doing the same (also 100 mile round trip) but in the circumstances I didn't have to, and so the BL pulled the band out of the gig (as did some of the other BLs too). 

 

This is a new landlord who apparently has never run a pub  or booked bands before. Hopefully, if their client-base crashes as it surely will, they'll soon be in a position where they never get the chance to do either again...

[dmccombe7]

44 minutes ago, Mickeyboro said:

This was mine last night, depping with a five-piece in the New Forest. Don’t think I moved a muscle all night…

Somewhere in the background is two Barefaced One10s and an Elf. Flea Jazz in front.

Thankfully they turned the Olympics off!

 

Cozy 

Surely that isn't access thru the stage area is it ? 

Dave

[dmccombe7]

11 minutes ago, Gasman said:

Well, doom arrived early for the gig today!  Pub landlady at the venue for this fringe mini-fest emailed all five bands last week (booked last November with fee agreed) saying that there would now be no payment, but we could 'pass the hat around' if we wanted. Her rationale was that she couldn't afford to pay any of us as she'd provided a small tent, and 'if we were any good people might want to give us something'. Hmm, my immediate thought was to wonder whether she was also adopting this approach with her brewery, food and staff, but of course not, how silly of me!

 

Our dep gitrist politely declined to drive 100+ mile round trip on the off-chance of getting a fiver towards his fuel. If he had been prepared to do that I would (grudgingly) have been shamed into doing the same (also 100 mile round trip) but in the circumstances I didn't have to, and so the BL pulled the band out of the gig (as did some of the other BLs too). 

 

This is a new landlord who apparently has never run a pub  or booked bands before. Hopefully, if their client-base crashes as it surely will, they'll soon be in a position where they never get the chance to do either again...

That's an abysmal state of affairs. To expect bands to play for nothing is shocking. You did the right thing. We would have pulled out too.

Dave

[rwillett]

1 hour ago, Gasman said:

Well, doom arrived early for the gig today!  Pub landlady at the venue for this fringe mini-fest emailed all five bands last week (booked last November with fee agreed) saying that there would now be no payment, but we could 'pass the hat around' if we wanted. Her rationale was that she couldn't afford to pay any of us as she'd provided a small tent, and 'if we were any good people might want to give us something'. Hmm, my immediate thought was to wonder whether she was also adopting this approach with her brewery, food and staff, but of course not, how silly of me!

 

Our dep gitrist politely declined to drive 100+ mile round trip on the off-chance of getting a fiver towards his fuel. If he had been prepared to do that I would (grudgingly) have been shamed into doing the same (also 100 mile round trip) but in the circumstances I didn't have to, and so the BL pulled the band out of the gig (as did some of the other BLs too). 

 

This is a new landlord who apparently has never run a pub  or booked bands before. Hopefully, if their client-base crashes as it surely will, they'll soon be in a position where they never get the chance to do either again...

You could think of this as evolution in action. Sadly you get stuffed by it, and for that I'm sorry. 

 

I think you did the right thing and pulled out. Hopefully every other band pulled out as well and she had a ended up with an empty tent.

 

Once you set the precedent of playing for nothing, that's what they'll expect from now on. At least she didn't say you could play for "exposure". 

 

Best wishes 

 

Rob

[msb]

Our Mexican band played in my favourite old dive last night , not a huge crowd , but a great night. We had an opening band and it was a good thing I arrived early as their bassist just assumed there would be a bass amp there. It did make the transition much easier. I used the big orange Gretsch all night , gorgeous big deep woody thump. 

[Mickeyboro]

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

Cozy 

Surely that isn't access thru the stage area is it ? 

Dave

Thankfully not!

I did peer at the audience through a window-shaped hole in a wooden screen, however. 
Live music, the glamour eh?😁

 

[Mickeyboro]

9 minutes ago, msb said:

 

 

Love the bass but that protrusion at the end spoils it. 
And no, I’n not referring to the player😂

[msb]

 I usually leave the tuner on ,it makes it easy to check , I’m directly into my amp , no pedals. I also had two trumpet players between me and my amp.

Edited July 28 by msb

[Obrienp]

Not sure this counts as a proper gig but the covers band I’m in played at my partner’s 70th birthday bash. We had 50 plus folks, a pizza van and enough booze to have bought a very decent medium priced bass, plus marquee and gazebo. Well you are only 70 once. I have yet to catch her up on that but some of our band members are well passed that milestone. 
 

Anyway, I spent all morning rigging the PA so band members could just turn up, plug amps into the DI lead provided (drummer uses an electronic kit) and connect their mics: job done. Drummer and rhythm guitarist were there at the start of the event (1pm) had tested their set up and were able to enjoy a few drinks, eat some pizza, etc and chill. We had agreed to play from 3-4:30, leaving the lead guitarist enough time to pack up and rush off to a gig with another outfit starting at 7pm.

 

Two o’clock no sign of lead guitarist. Two thirty still no sign. All of us sending WhatsApp messages like: “Get here quick pizzas running out” and “ we left a space for you to park on the drive”. 10 to 3 lead guitarist arrives and has brought an amp without a DI and we can’t connect his monitor (he brought a street cube instead of his normal Laney wedge). I have to frantically search to find a DI box buried at the bottom of some kit box. I get that running but the “monitor” defies all my attempts, so I move mine over. By this time some guests are drifting off. We eventually get going at 3:30. To make up for lost time he seems to be playing everything at about 20 BPM faster than the original. Fortunately, faced with doing the solo in Sultans of Swing he slows down to just 10 BPM faster than the original. I don’t think I have ever done as many songs in an hour before! About half way through his monitor sparks into life: Sod’s Law!

 

Anyway, apparently the guests liked it but then most of them were around our age and probably not used to liberal lunchtime drinking 😀. One or two did say “that was a bit frantic”! Fortunately the birthday girl (actually her birthday was in February but that’s not the greatest time for a garden party) was well pleased.
 

Won’t bore you with the full equipment list but I used my LFSys Monza with Blackstar U700 and custom made P/J shorty from Tony Edwards Guitars who lives round the corner from us. I can’t get over how good the Monza is. It’s not just me: some friends did a spontaneous gig after us at much reduced pace: very chilled. Bob the bassist loved it and his fretless Ibanez Aerium sounded amazing through it.

 

 

[Mickeyboro]

2 hours ago, msb said:

 I usually leave the tuner on ,it makes it easy to check , I’m directly into my amp , no pedals. I also had two trumpet players between me and my amp.

Blame the trumpet players! I love it😈

[StingRayBoy42]

1 hour ago, Obrienp said:

Won’t bore you with the full equipment list

 

 

This is NOT the Basschat way!

[grapefruitmoon]

Wild Hogs played The Cave in Paisley last night, not a bad wee gig, great venue. Bit of a trek as most of us are based over the east and there's horrible roadworks. Our sound was a bit off, not much time to get set up after the previous band (who were excellent) and guitarists being too loud as usual. Bit rusty in the first set, managed to absolutely mangle Poison somehow. The had a comedy of errors - my bass strap snapping halfway thru a song, drummer losing a drumstick mid-song, drunk dancing guy accidentally kicking over the singers water and almost frying the mixer and a pedalboard. All that aside, crowd got right into it, so all good. Until...not for the first time recently, I made a slight wee error. Had parked the car in a nearby multi-storey...not realising it shut at 9pm! Ooops. Logistics meant a couple of us were stuck, so ended up shelling out for a hotel and racing to get there before check-in closed. I'm such an idiot, I'll never hear the end of this one. Venue staff let me leave the PA and my gear there overnight, so picked it all up today and got home eventually, about 14 hours later than expected. 

[msb]

ouch

[Bluewine]

On 20/07/2024 at 17:59, msb said:

Here’s the new Jet , and me shortly after buying that big orange one.

 

I guess I’m becoming a Gretsch guy , didn’t see that coming. I was originally a Pbass guy and for years that was all I had. Then I got into Rics , and somehow into Danos after that. Then it was Gibson short scales , now Gretsches. 

 

Man, those things look cool.

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

15 hours ago, msb said:

Our Mexican band played in my favourite old dive last night , not a huge crowd , but a great night. We had an opening band and it was a good thing I arrived early as their bassist just assumed there would be a bass amp there. It did make the transition much easier. I used the big orange Gretsch all night , gorgeous big deep woody thump. 

 

That's a cool look. The red whimsical shirt and that red Jet.

 

Daryl