How was your gig last night?

[Woodinblack]

7 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Yep that's not on and i have to admit i find Rugby Clubs are typically old school ugg mentality but in fairness the ones i've seen have been relatively harmless but very boisterous. 

 

I did a rugby club gig a few weeks back, but it was actually a biker gig at a rugby club hall, so it was ok and a fun gig to do. We also go another booking from it - the band after us failed to attend (we were the 1st of 3 on the saturday and there were 2 on the sunday) and there were complaints that we hadn't been put on as the main group on the saturday as they liked us a lot, so we have been booked next month to correct that!

 

[colleya]

2 hours ago, neepheid said:

  Of course, when the camera turns to me, I flub my lines - right at the very end too FFS.

 

 

So it's not just me then? This is an inevitability whenever I'm being recorded. My new band is trying to get some 'live at rehearsal' stuff down to send to venues and I just get a mental block!

 

The band sounds great though, and I bet it's only you who noticed the little blip.

[Greg Edwards69]

A good night for us back at Birchanger Sports & Social club. They had a fete on during the day so asked us to start an hour or so earlier than usual at in order to keep people there.  It definitely worked, the place was full when we got there, all the tables were booked for dinner (unfortunately that meant the only food available to us was a couple of plates of chips and onion rings) and it stayed full.

 

The first set was good, but challenging to get people up, but once we launched into our second set, they got up and stayed dancing until the end. Whether it was because we were playing well, or the early start and therefore finish, they kept asking for more, and we ended up playing 5 encore tunes.  The manager apparently asked one of our singers, “how much for another hour?” He replied for all of us, “I don’t think I’ve got another hour in me!”

 

Quickish packdown, and were was out by midnight and home by 1am, and enjoyed a well earned lay in this morning.

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, colleya said:

 

So it's not just me then? This is an inevitability whenever I'm being recorded. My new band is trying to get some 'live at rehearsal' stuff down to send to venues and I just get a mental block!

 

The band sounds great though, and I bet it's only you who noticed the little blip.

I used to be like that but i guess i just got used to it over the years and now i just tend to ignore most times unless the camera is right in my face when i get a bit embarrassed about it.

Dave

[lozkerr]

Punk gig on Friday at the Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh followed by Roslin Fete yesterday. Definitely a tale of ups and downs.

 

We'd been led to believe we were on second at the Banshee, but we ended up going on first. Tough crowd - there was a bit of a bro vibe going on and as we were the only females on the bill, we felt a tad uncomfortable, especially when we started and the audience just stood and stared. Singist eventually had enough, so when we played a song where our guitarist takes the lead, she jumped off the stage, grabbed the only woman in the room and started dancing with her. It worked a treat - the lass came down the front and stood there starry-eyed. 

 

But overall, we felt a bit deflated. Guitarist took it quite badly. She's only 26 and I got the impression she hadn't faced a tough crowd before. But after we'd finished, a few people came up and said how good we were, which cheered us up a bit. One old punk, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Johnny Rotten was really singing our praises.

 

Then on to yesterday. There was so much fog about that I was wondering if John Carpenter was in town. But no matter, the fete was well-organised and we set up and did the soundcheck. Then it all went tits-up.

 

We were last on the programme, so after the soundcheck, we moved our gear to the back of the stage to await our turn. Then, when it came, we were bombarded with horrendous levels of feedback. The sound guy spent ages trying to track it down and we eventually started more than half an hour late feeling seriously stressed, and inevitably made a lot of mistakes. Then I discovered that (a) my monitor was turned down so far that I couldn't hear anything and (b) I was singing into a dead mic. Shortly after, the guitarist's monitor cut out completely.

 

By that time, I just CBA doing anything else other than getting through the set. Everyone else felt the same way. When I drove home, I was all set to pack in music and take up stamp collecting.

 

Then we had a lovely message on Instagram from the Johnny Rotten guy:

 

 

So yeah - I'm back on a nice even keel today! 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Played the Ex's in Penarth last night, my 'home' gig in many ways. Was expecting a half-empty room due to awful weather, but it was pretty full. It seems our loyal fans plus the local musos had come out, but not the 'casual' punters which meant lots of appreciative listening but little dancing. Awful new lights that just dazzle, hope my forceful feedback can get them toned down a lot.

 

I used my new Sire and had a great sound but felt the PA was just reinforcing the bottom end. Playing with pedals again. The drive on the mojo mojo was set too high and the octaver just made mud, but chorus, compressor and hpf all worked fine.

 

We invited a well respected local singer up for The Hunter which went down well. A less successful song was finishing on Sultans of Swing as Al forgot the words and got a bit lost... but e solos were ok. Lots of positive feedback, including on my playing which was an ego boost!

 

Got sent a video by a friend with apologies for sound quality. I am pleased with the little improvised diddle I managed at the end 😁

 

 

 

Edited September 8 by Stub Mandrel

[Stub Mandrel]

2 minutes ago, lozkerr said:

Punk gig on Friday at the Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh followed by Roslin Fete yesterday. Definitely a tale of ups and downs.

 

We'd been led to believe we were on second at the Banshee, but we ended up going on first. Tough crowd - there was a bit of a bro vibe going on and as we were the only females on the bill, we felt a tad uncomfortable, especially when we started and the audience just stood and stared. Singist eventually had enough, so when we played a song where our guitarist takes the lead, she jumped off the stage, grabbed the only woman in the room and started dancing with her. It worked a treat - the lass came down the front and stood there starry-eyed. 

 

But overall, we felt a bit deflated. Guitarist took it quite badly. She's only 26 and I got the impression she hadn't faced a tough crowd before. But after we'd finished, a few people came up and said how good we were, which cheered us up a bit. One old punk, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Johnny Rotten was really singing our praises.

 

Then on to yesterday. There was so much fog about that I was wondering if John Carpenter was in town. But no matter, the fete was well-organised and we set up and did the soundcheck. Then it all went tits-up.

 

We were last on the programme, so after the soundcheck, we moved our gear to the back of the stage to await our turn. Then, when it came, we were bombarded with horrendous levels of feedback. The sound guy spent ages trying to track it down and we eventually started more than half an hour late feeling seriously stressed, and inevitably made a lot of mistakes. Then I discovered that (a) my monitor was turned down so far that I couldn't hear anything and (b) I was singing into a dead mic. Shortly after, the guitarist's monitor cut out completely.

 

By that time, I just CBA doing anything else other than getting through the set. Everyone else felt the same way. When I drove home, I was all set to pack in music and take up stamp collecting.

 

Then we had a lovely message on Instagram from the Johnny Rotten guy:

 

 

So yeah - I'm back on a nice even keel today! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's awful when a bad vibe or dound screws up a gig, shame you got two in a row

[lozkerr]

7 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

It's awful when a bad vibe or dound screws up a gig, shame you got two in a row

It wasn't much fun at the time, but at least at the Banshee we weren't just playing to the sound engineer and we did gain a fan. The fete though - I think we'll need to have a wee post-mortem on that once tempers have cooled. In spite of it all, they've said they want us back next year.

 

At least the Stingray cut through beautifully on both gigs. Took my Eden backline along to the fete - WTP600 amp, 210 and 118 cabs. Managed to get the stage floor shaking quite nicely 🙂 

[Len_derby]

This afternoon my recently started acoustic duo, Desperate Cowboys, played a 40 minute set at The Wirksworth Arts Festival. Me and Mick, the singer in my covers band, started the duo as a way to stretch-out and keep busy when we have no band gigs. It was actually our first proper gig, having limited ourselves to open mics for the last couple of months. It all seemed to go well, with good audience reaction but we now need to do some tweaking of our arrangements and song choices. Those things you only discover when you do it for real. Incidentally, it was the first gig for my Taylor mini-bass, recently bought from our own @casapete. Played through my Trace Elliott Elf and Barefaced one 10.

 

 

Edited September 8 by Len_derby
Correction

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, lozkerr said:

Punk gig on Friday at the Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh followed by Roslin Fete yesterday. Definitely a tale of ups and downs.

 

We'd been led to believe we were on second at the Banshee, but we ended up going on first. Tough crowd - there was a bit of a bro vibe going on and as we were the only females on the bill, we felt a tad uncomfortable, especially when we started and the audience just stood and stared. Singist eventually had enough, so when we played a song where our guitarist takes the lead, she jumped off the stage, grabbed the only woman in the room and started dancing with her. It worked a treat - the lass came down the front and stood there starry-eyed. 

 

But overall, we felt a bit deflated. Guitarist took it quite badly. She's only 26 and I got the impression she hadn't faced a tough crowd before. But after we'd finished, a few people came up and said how good we were, which cheered us up a bit. One old punk, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Johnny Rotten was really singing our praises.

 

Then on to yesterday. There was so much fog about that I was wondering if John Carpenter was in town. But no matter, the fete was well-organised and we set up and did the soundcheck. Then it all went tits-up.

 

We were last on the programme, so after the soundcheck, we moved our gear to the back of the stage to await our turn. Then, when it came, we were bombarded with horrendous levels of feedback. The sound guy spent ages trying to track it down and we eventually started more than half an hour late feeling seriously stressed, and inevitably made a lot of mistakes. Then I discovered that (a) my monitor was turned down so far that I couldn't hear anything and (b) I was singing into a dead mic. Shortly after, the guitarist's monitor cut out completely.

 

By that time, I just CBA doing anything else other than getting through the set. Everyone else felt the same way. When I drove home, I was all set to pack in music and take up stamp collecting.

 

Then we had a lovely message on Instagram from the Johnny Rotten guy:

 

 

So yeah - I'm back on a nice even keel today! 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes getting a response from an audience is like pulling teeth. It happens.  The best way to look at it is its a paid rehearsal and just get on with doing your songs and enjoy yourself within the band. 

You'll find that if you are good at what you do and you look as tho you're enjoying yourselves on stage then people will take to it even if not into the same music they'll appreciate a band having a good time and looking confident and relaxed on stage.

I always appreciate any band that is decent and enjoying themselves no matter what style of music they play.

Next gig you'll knock em dead.

Dave

 

[Bluewine]

8 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Well the private function last night with BLOCKBUSTARZ Glam covers was a retirement party that actually turned out a great wee night. Club wasn't full but dancers on and off the first set and almost all the 2nd set and i think at one point everyone was on the dance floor. 

Smallish stage so i set up bass rig on the floor next to stage and played there.

 

8:15pm start

9:30pm buffet that we were told to help ourselves and it was very nice with a lovely salted caramel cupcake. Mmmm

10:30 to 12-ish 2nd set.

 

We were requested to play Ballroom Blitz at the end again as the girl that booked us had said her Grandad missed the first song and its his fav song ever. 

 

Used the usual Glam rig with VM4 into Keeley compressor and Mesa TT800 (mainly the Boogie channel that i love) into Mesa SW210/115 cabs. We played a little more quiet last night and the cabs didn't quite reach that sweet spot but still a wonderful rig.

 

Packed up and left venue just before 1am and home by 2am altho a lot of mist and fog on country roads but no traffic. 

Unloaded car into garage and then my usual coffee and 2 tea biccies as part of my post gig routine and then bed for 3am

 

Back up at 8:30am with cats making their usual nuisance noises to waken you.

 

Mrs dmccombe7's birthday so loads of cake planned. I do like cake. 

Dave

 

I love " Ballroom Blitz" . And would love to see a video of you guys performing it.

 

Daryl

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, lozkerr said:

It wasn't much fun at the time, but at least at the Banshee we weren't just playing to the sound engineer and we did gain a fan. The fete though - I think we'll need to have a wee post-mortem on that once tempers have cooled. In spite of it all, they've said they want us back next year.

 

At least the Stingray cut through beautifully on both gigs. Took my Eden backline along to the fete - WTP600 amp, 210 and 118 cabs. Managed to get the stage floor shaking quite nicely 🙂 

Have to say its pretty poor that the sound guy didn't nail down the feedback fairly quickly. 

I don't know you or the band but knowing what causes feedback and understanding it can help everyone identify the cause of it on stage. No need to be an expert just a basic understanding. 

I'm lucky that i worked with a PA hire company back in late 80's and learned a lot from the SE who was also the guitarist in our band plus my age means i've had a fair amount of experience over the years.

Dave

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

I used to be like that but i guess i just got used to it over the years and now i just tend to ignore most times unless the camera is right in my face when i get a bit embarrassed about it.

Dave

 

Dave,

 

I love the camera.

 

During our break last night, I walked around looking for attention and anyone who wanted to take a picture with me. Lol

 

A guy my age finally approached me and shared his whole life history with rock & roll with me. Lol

 

Daryl

Edited September 8 by Bluewine

[dmccombe7]

14 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

I love " Ballroom Blitz" . And would love to see a video of you guys performing it.

 

Daryl

We keep asking for the many folks that take vids to post their clips on our FB page but they rarely do. I'll see if we have it Daryl. To be honest our audience are regularly from an older generation (my age) and not too savvy with technology.

Dave

[dmccombe7]

20 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

I love " Ballroom Blitz" . And would love to see a video of you guys performing it.

 

Daryl

Not the best sound quality but hope you like it Daryl. Someone posted it from their phone.

Dave

http://www.facebook.com/marion.harris.10/videos/2356025798119902/?idorvanity=559305587911326

[Bluewine]

1 minute ago, dmccombe7 said:

We keep asking for the many folks that take vids to post their clips on our FB page but they rarely do. I'll see if we have it Daryl. To be honest our audience are regularly from an older generation (my age) and not too savvy with technology.

Dave

 

Dave,

 

None of our band members seem to have much interest in taking pics or video. I'm the only one that trys to take gig pics.

 

Last night was an exception.  Most gigs were playing to folks with one foot on a banana peel and the other in the graveyard. 

 

Daryl

[dmccombe7]

9 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

Dave,

 

I love the camera.

 

During our break last night, I walked around looking for attention and anyone who wanted to take a picture with me. Lol

 

A guy my age finally approached me and shared his whole life history with rock & roll with me. Lol

 

Daryl

At the end of the Glam gigs we regularly get asked for photos with the band and that's ok but usually i just wanna get off stage and cool down a bit then pack up and head off home as sometimes my drive can be up to 2-3 hrs each way. The furthest was 4hrs each way for a biker festival that the female singer attends every year and knows everyone there.

Dave

[Bluewine]

5 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Not the best sound quality but hope you like it Daryl. Someone posted it from their phone.

Dave

http://www.facebook.com/marion.harris.10/videos/2356025798119902/?idorvanity=559305587911326

 

Thanks Dave,

 

Do you guys do the intro?

 

Great looking band. I love the costumes, the energy and all the movement on stage.

 

Daryl

Edited September 8 by Bluewine

[dmccombe7]

16 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

Thanks Dave,

 

Do you guys do the intro?

 

Great looking band. I love the costumes, the energy and all the movement on stage.

 

Daryl

Yep our singer does the "are you ready Dave ?" round the band and we all reply in one way or another then we go into the song. Its the first song we do so a great starter. We start with Sweet and end with Blockbuster including the sirens that i trigger from a sampler pedal. Encore or our last song to be honest is Shang-a-Lang by Bay City Rollers with the guitarist doing some Scottish themed songs during the intro before we actually get into BCR song itself.

We usually pack the dance floor with that one. 

Dave

[lozkerr]

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Have to say its pretty poor that the sound guy didn't nail down the feedback fairly quickly. 

I don't know you or the band but knowing what causes feedback and understanding it can help everyone identify the cause of it on stage. No need to be an expert just a basic understanding. 

I'm lucky that i worked with a PA hire company back in late 80's and learned a lot from the SE who was also the guitarist in our band plus my age means i've had a fair amount of experience over the years.

Dave

He thought it might have been the snare mic feeding back through the drummer's and my monitor. Possibly, but I think we need to work it through with cool heads. Said mic was an SM57 rather than a drum mic - I'm not enough of a PA expert to know if that's relevant or not. The singers' mics were feeding back too and they were a fair way away from us.

 

The way we set up was to have everything going through our own XR18, with the outputs going into the PA power amp. We've done it that way at other gigs and it's worked well, but something was definitely wrong yesterday. I video all our gigs and I've just had a look at yesterday's footage. The FoH sound is awful - bass and guitars randomly cutting in and out, vocals buried deep in the mix, drums sounding like the Battle of Jutland... we deffo need to dig into what went wrong yesterday.

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Yep our singer does the "are you ready Dave ?" round the band and we all reply in one way or another then we go into the song. Its the first song we do so a great starter. We start with Sweet and end with Blockbuster including the sirens that i trigger from a sampler pedal. Encore or our last song to be honest is Shang-a-Lang by Bay City Rollers with the guitarist doing some Scottish themed songs during the intro before we actually get into BCR song itself.

We usually pack the dance floor with that one. 

Dave

 

Do you guys do "Saturday Night " ?

 

Daryl

Edited September 8 by Bluewine

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Yep our singer does the "are you ready Dave ?" round the band and we all reply in one way or another then we go into the song. Its the first song we do so a great starter. We start with Sweet and end with Blockbuster including the sirens that i trigger from a sampler pedal. Encore or our last song to be honest is Shang-a-Lang by Bay City Rollers with the guitarist doing some Scottish themed songs during the intro before we actually get into BCR song itself.

We usually pack the dance floor with that one. 

Dave

 

 

I love that drum beat in the intro.

 

Daryl

[Simon C]

15 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

 

No video. However here's a few pics. All humorous comments are welcome. Lol

 

Daryl

 

 

 

We were loud enough that the deer herd 😀

 

Edited September 8 by Simon C

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, Bluewine said:

 

Do you guys do "Saturday Night " ?

 

Daryl

 

We do. One of my favourite basslines for trying out a new bass.

[dmccombe7]

10 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

Do you guys do "Saturday Night " ?

 

Daryl

We do. Great song. Doesn't work in every venue tho.

Dave