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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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Last night it was a long trek to Llandovery for a pib gig on the first day of the sheep festival. The singer was picking me up with the pa but due to a local incident we left late on the 1 ½ hour journey, this meant only 30 minutes to set up, but the three other guys were already sorted which meant ok but no soundcheck.

 

It was a half-timbered pub with about an inch of clearance above my head! No pogoing! I bet @Bluewine doesn't play nearly 800 year old venues very often!

 

Pub was full and the audience was mostly older people and our very rock setlist went down well. We even had people singing along to War Pigs! One oddity was What is and What Should Never Be, which fades out gently and was met with stunned silence, very disconcerting.  Yet three people came up and said how much they appreciated it!

 

My first three-set gig, we played from eight to 11 with two 20 minute breaks. The last set was more dancy with "those songs" Dakota and Sex on Fire. Superstition went down very well too.

A fair few new songs for us, Motorcycle Emptiness didn't get dancing but virtually the whole pub was singing along. Finished with Everlong as encore.

 

We got free drinks on arrival, at the end the bar manager fetched us another free round, paid us more than the agreed fee and asked us to come back. Lots of good feedback from punters (also one said he'd come after seeing our Facebook page).

 

So we were pretty pleased with how it went. Tonight a normal 2-set gig, with the drummer from my other band standing in. 😁

 

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The Spurs , our little mostly instrumental Mexican band did an outdoor last night on Agricola St. We set up in front of Carlo Auto Service , close to the street. They’ve been doing street gigs there for much of the summer. Perfect night , the weather cold not have been better and many of the passerby stopped to enjoy , wound up with a lovely crowd. Very strange but enjoyable night , it’s always a joy to play that material. Ended at nine pm , not late returning home. Bonus! 

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edit to add live photo 

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Edited by msb
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Long day doing a fundraiser for a theatre company I’ve played loads with. It was a pick up band, so one rehearsal on the day, matinee gig and then evening. It was a community do so the musical calibre was of variable calibre and the inexperienced md, despite working very hard on the charts doesn’t have the technical chops to write with the correct musical grammar, which is a proper headache when songs in Bb minor are written in A# for example. The occasion was a 60s singalong- let’s see if any takers can recognise these two groovy classics.

 

Anyways, lots of discussion and teamwork and we managed to put a show together, did about as well as I could do gluing tempos together between a lower section brass band drummer and an enthusiast dancer with a tambourine, off for a lie down and looking forward to a regular gig next weekend. 

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Nice gig tonight at Leamington Tennis Club for their 150th anniversary.

 

I took my new 5 string P Bass out and it was a real joy to play, great tone. Band played well, people danced, we got paid and got another gig booked off the back of it. So a result.
 

Downside was it was outside and it

was freezing! So cold that I had to order a coffee… 


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Rock and Roll! 
 

😂


 

 

 

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Just back home from playing a great gig at the Anchor in Burbage, Leicestershire, depping with function band Superbad.  Looked like a regular village pub, but it seemed to be THE place to go on a Saturday night round these parts. Place was rammed, with a wide range of ages too. 

Travelled light, using just one bass (Yamaha BB604), a Markbass head and two MB traveller cabs (tho it occurred to me afterwards that my Ashdown head is the exact same size as my pedal board, so I could have taken that and plonked the pedals on top.) Next time maybe. 


Resisted the urge to stop off for a McDonalds on the way home. Got home to find leftovers of a Chinese takeaway in the fridge instead - jackpot! 

 

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Second night out for new amp (full NAD thread to follow) and whereas the previous gig’s sound had been great, last night’s first set was plagued by a pronounced boom on the pitch of the D string. No amount of amp tweaking fixed it so in the break I had a look at the PA. 3 of the 4 vocal mic channels had some bass boost applied. I pointed this out to the BL (nice enough bloke but a PA dunce!) and set each one flat - problem solved. Seems they had been picking up my bass guitar and amplifying it, causing that one frequency to ‘ring’.

 

I had done a 5-hour rehearsal that afternoon so I spent the rest of the night craving my bed. Think I’ll avoid that combo in future!

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1 hour ago, scalpy said:

Can you tell what it is yet though? One of my favourites by an all time great bassist.

I wish I could but being a lazy s*d, I never learned to read traditional music notation. At pushing 69, I fear it is now too late to learn. Are you going to put us out of our misery?

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1 hour ago, scalpy said:

Can you tell what it is yet though? One of my favourites by an all time great bassist.

 

Use of that phrase is now deprecated.

 

I can read music... at a rate of about a note a minute.  How does it go again?  Oh yeah, Greedy Bstards Deserve Fsck All... I'll figure it out by Christmas, hopefully.

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Did a cool gig in Chelmsford town (city?) centre last night as part of their Sounds Good festival. A real eclectic line up of acts - we were closing our stage and preceded by a singer/cellist with guitar accompaniment which was ace. Their cover of Smooth Operator was v cool, as was their original work.

 

Katy Hurt and band hadn’t even seen each other properly since August because of various things so it was a bit under rehearsed but we had great fun. Stage was great, sound guys were lovely, sound on stage was awesome (and oh my god the Handbox WB-100 is a SUPERB amp, sounded ace on stage and sound men loved its DI). TBH I feel I played pretty average at best, but I got through it and just simplified some things I’d normally actually over do…

 

I was channelling my inner Negan with my clothing choice so everyone was lucky I wasn’t brandishing my bass line a baseball bat covered in barbed wire* 🤣

 

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*Walking Dead reference for anyone going 🤷🏼‍♂️

Edited by Merton
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44 minutes ago, Obrienp said:

I wish I could but being a lazy s*d, I never learned to read traditional music notation. At pushing 69, I fear it is now too late to learn. Are you going to put us out of our misery?

That is supposedly Son Of A Preacher Man. I had to just use another transcription I found online for that one which lead to a minor iPad calamity swopping charts, but that ☝️is gobbledygook.

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Nice fairly local gig for the glam lads last night. Wasn’t expecting much as it was an early start (7:45) and the pub was fairly empty when we went to the change room (read kitchen….that’s why all my stage wear smells of chip fat) however we came on to a full pub of enthusiastic punters.  Had a great night and it was a fairly early finish, I was home and feeding the dog bits of my cheese sandwich before 12.

First proper gig with the new to me Sterling Stingray shortscale; struggled a bit with the sound (couldn’t get that nice ‘fullness’ for some reason) which I never do with my Sandberg Lionel’s. Still, there’s always room for improvement on the eq.

 

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2 hours ago, JapanAxe said:

BL (nice enough bloke but a PA dunce!)

Snap! If he drives a car like he drives a mixer he would be banned!

 

On to Friday's Gig. Annual Bowls Club Supper Dance. The less said about the supper the better. The audience were not the youngest we have played to as you can imagine but they were up and dancing from the start. The main lights in the hall were on all night so it was a bit more like a rehersal than a gig but we mostly had fun.

 

Usual set up for me Fender Aerodyne Bass, Bugera Veyron amp, Zoom B2 Four plus Cand Heat Cables made by my very own hand🤩

 

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Edited by Chienmortbb
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Long drive yesterday but the expense was offset by there being two gigs. 

First one in a 'cidery' which was basically a cider farm with a building converted into a kind of cafe bar.

Lovely atmosphere, friendly folk, polite rather than enthusiastic, but they enjoyed it.

Then a 45 minute drive to the second gig which was a private party somewhere near Stratford on Avon. They used a field on a caravan park and set up a marquee for us.

It was in truth a little late in the year to be playing outside but we started early (7pm) so didn't lose feeling in our fingers until nearly at the end of the set. 

Despite the distances involved I was home before midnight, which for me is a win.

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1 minute ago, stewblack said:

It was in truth a little late in the year to be playing outside but we started early (7pm) so didn't lose feeling in our fingers until nearly at the end of the set. 

We have an outdoor gig this afternoon, I will be using my practice gloves for this one. 

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Last nights gig with Emergency Exit punk covers was at The Riverside in Dumfries. The band has been playing this venue for 7yrs now (3yrs with me) but unfortunately due to noise complaints from locals that moved in recently the venue has suffered from noise complaints and the owner Ann has finally had enough and has decided to retire so i think that will be the end of live bands in this venue.

She retires next week so we were privileged to be asked to play for her. Sad moment but she had been to court so many times in past 2 yrs with it and won because she was putting live music on before these people moved in.

Decent turn out and very enthusiastic dancing around the bar and conservatory areas. 

1hr drive home so that was easy too.

Guitarist had a senior moment when he started Teenage Kicks in Db instead of D and he just couldn't get out of it and it was a disaster moment but we just made a joke of it and the audience appreciated its live music and sometimes we have senior moments. We did cut it short tho. :biggrin:

 

Band has a meeting this Thursday to see if we want to continue doing the punk covers band as venues that will accept punk are becoming less and less and the audiences are dwindling from 3 yrs ago. Its odd because any time we play we get a great response from all generations and age groups. Original member from 78 is doing a Ramones tribute too and is thinking its maybe time to call it a day. I'm 50/50 on it mainly because i like the people in the band and i really quite enjoy playing the songs. They have a lot of energy especially the SLF songs which have become my fav songs in the set.

 

Will see how it goes.

Dave

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Edited by dmccombe7
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A long journey down to Fordingbridge yesterday to play the Hart of Martin mini festival thing. Had a good laugh, a couple of huge brain farts, so far from my best performance ever, but we enjoyed ourselves. Second year we’ve made the journey but probably won’t do it next year - just too much driving for the small crowd and little or no money.  

 

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