How was your gig last night?

[Mickeyboro]

Inspirational stuff, @3below  - thanks for sharing, congrats on pulling it off and hope your current weather doesn’t reflect your name! He says, from sunny Chile😁

[Stub Mandrel]

11 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

We're having some difficult times with dep drummers.

 

Daryl

 

⅞, for example... 😁

[3below]

24 minutes ago, Mickeyboro said:

Inspirational stuff, @3below  - thanks for sharing, congrats on pulling it off and hope your current weather doesn’t reflect your name! He says, from sunny Chile😁

Snowed in at present.  Luckily I am a man of leisure these days so not a problem.

[Leonard Smalls]

Just now, 3below said:

Snowed in at present

S'not that bad! I made it all the way from Felindre over the top to Anchor then Clun and Church Stretton in a Peugeot estate 

[dmccombe7]

8 minutes ago, 3below said:

Snowed in at present.  Luckily I am a man of leisure these days so not a problem.

Is the snow that bad in Wales. ? Hot chocolate with cream is in order i reckon.

Dave

[dmccombe7]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

⅞, for example... 😁

Cannae beat a good Prog song in a Blues band. 

Dave 

 

too early ????

[Jack]

After being unceremoniously fired from my nascent pop rock band it was nice to play a no-pressure, little gig for an old friend. Slightly awkward as the rhythm guitarist from this band is still in the pop rock band that fired me, but there's not too many hard feelings between us as it's the singer who's the problem. Well, he'll tell you that I'm the problem, so fair enough.

 

The guitarist in my old hard rock band (that still gigs very occasionally) was turning 50 and he had assembled pretty much every musician he'd ever been in a band with to play a couple of songs each at his birthday party. Guitarists, eh? "What should I do for may party? Make everybody watch me play, because I'm GREAT!" The hard rock band did 5 or 6 numbers, but we were joined by said birthday boy's 15 year old son on drums as our old drummer is incommunicado these days. I also played with another band of his where the singer couldn't make it so the bass player stepped on to lead vocals, only to find that some songs were tricky to play and sing at the same time, so I filled in on bass for 3 songs there too. Good fun, nice to play a show again as I currently don't have a band, although one is in the works. Rig was a Warwick Thumb, into my HX Stomp and we used my QSC wedge as backline as it was also the keys and edrums 'amp' for stage volume. Weird to play a gig where not everyone has in ears these days, but the keyboardist hadn't played in 20 years and the drummer is a literal child, so I guess sometimes you have to do things the old fashioned way! Videos from soundcheck/messing around. I don't know why they're so bad, my wife has a great phone and does social media for a living, but it really struggled with the lights for some reason.

[Leonard Smalls]

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Is the snow that bad in Wales. ?

0750 this morning in my garden... Just stopped now.

 

 

 

[Lozz196]

That`s beautiful, I love wintry landscape shots and that`s one of the best

[3below]

7 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Is the snow that bad in Wales. ? 

This morning, in my bit, yes  combined with ice. Some poor unfortunate has had a bad drive this morning: car down a ditch and totally wedged sideways into a full size hedge

[dmccombe7]

5 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

0750 this morning in my garden... Just stopped now.

 

 

 

Love it. Looks like a very very nice area. Hopefully we'll get some snow this year. Been a def lack of it over past few yrs.

I do love a nice snow scene provided i don't really need to go out in it. 

Dave

Dave

[Stub Mandrel]

11 hours ago, Jack said:

After being unceremoniously fired from my nascent pop rock band it was nice to play a no-pressure, little gig for an old friend. Slightly awkward as the rhythm guitarist from this band is still in the pop rock band that fired me, but there's not too many hard feelings between us as it's the singer who's the problem. Well, he'll tell you that I'm the problem, so fair enough.

 

The guitarist in my old hard rock band (that still gigs very occasionally) was turning 50 and he had assembled pretty much every musician he'd ever been in a band with to play a couple of songs each at his birthday party. Guitarists, eh? "What should I do for may party? Make everybody watch me play, because I'm GREAT!" The hard rock band did 5 or 6 numbers, but we were joined by said birthday boy's 15 year old son on drums as our old drummer is incommunicado these days. I also played with another band of his where the singer couldn't make it so the bass player stepped on to lead vocals, only to find that some songs were tricky to play and sing at the same time, so I filled in on bass for 3 songs there too. Good fun, nice to play a show again as I currently don't have a band, although one is in the works. Rig was a Warwick Thumb, into my HX Stomp and we used my QSC wedge as backline as it was also the keys and edrums 'amp' for stage volume. Weird to play a gig where not everyone has in ears these days, but the keyboardist hadn't played in 20 years and the drummer is a literal child, so I guess sometimes you have to do things the old fashioned way! Videos from soundcheck/messing around. I don't know why they're so bad, my wife has a great phone and does social media for a living, but it really struggled with the lights for some reason.

 

If the singer was any taller you'd have to raise the ceiling!

[NewMilleniumCyanideDice]

First post, but I've been enjoying vicariously living through your gig reports for a while now so thought I'd start to contribute. 

 

We played the Old Market Tavern in Altrincham last Friday. We were down to one singer due to a fixture clash and had been asked to go as light as possible as Saturdays are the heavier night there. This led to less metal and more grunge and hard rock going in the setlist, although we did save Toxicity and Bodies for the encore. Got a pretty good response, a few dancers and great feedback from the landlady so we're booked in again for next year. 

 

We're all on IEM so the soundcheck invoked making sure our mixes worked as well as the PA, after last gig where a change in PA position meant the IEM sounded awful. My basd sounded rumbly through the PA but also didn't cut through at all. A few mix tweaks did nothing until we moved the sub off the wooden floor onto the carpet, then it all sounded good. Fine margins etc. 

 

Rig was my usual Dingwall NG3-5 and D-Roc-4 bases into a knock-off Harmonic Booster, Zoom B1X4 and Darkglass Infinity board straight DI to the mixer. I didn't make too many mistakes, but being a local non-driving gig the freedom to have a few beers did mean I felt a little uncoordinated later in set 2! Added a few clips for context but I had a good time and looking forward to our next gig in December.

[Jack]

13 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

If the singer was any taller you'd have to raise the ceiling!

Our man joined the army and was sent into the armoured cavalry, until they realised that you couldn't close the hatch of the tank over his head. So he was shipped off to the horse guards to look impressive for the tourists. Being 202cm got him out of going to Afghanistan, so there's that. 

Edited November 20 by Jack

[moley6knipe]

11 hours ago, NewMilleniumCyanideDice said:

First post, but I've been enjoying vicariously living through your gig reports for a while now so thought I'd start to contribute. 

 

We played the Old Market Tavern in Altrincham last Friday. We were down to one singer due to a fixture clash and had been asked to go as light as possible as Saturdays are the heavier night there. This led to less metal and more grunge and hard rock going in the setlist, although we did save Toxicity and Bodies for the encore. Got a pretty good response, a few dancers and great feedback from the landlady so we're booked in again for next year. 

 

We're all on IEM so the soundcheck invoked making sure our mixes worked as well as the PA, after last gig where a change in PA position meant the IEM sounded awful. My basd sounded rumbly through the PA but also didn't cut through at all. A few mix tweaks did nothing until we moved the sub off the wooden floor onto the carpet, then it all sounded good. Fine margins etc. 

 

Rig was my usual Dingwall NG3-5 and D-Roc-4 bases into a knock-off Harmonic Booster, Zoom B1X4 and Darkglass Infinity board straight DI to the mixer. I didn't make too many mistakes, but being a local non-driving gig the freedom to have a few beers did mean I felt a little uncoordinated later in set 2! Added a few clips for context but I had a good time and looking forward to our next gig in December.

Good work! And best user name I’ve seen in a while!!

[MacDaddy]

Royal Blues at The Glad, that London last night. 

The evening started with my finding out I wasn't in the band pic on the flyers. A subtle hint maybe? Turns out only 2 pics from the photo shoot we did, were done portrait, and to make them fit the flyer I was cut off as I was at the end. I'm on the Instant Gram and other socials.

The venue usually put on acoustic solo or duos, in my band there are 7 of us. So it was cosy in the stage area. I was using my Ibanez UB804 which was DI'd. The stage monitor is usually used for the acoustic gigs, so the bass couldn't be turned up too much, meaning it was another gig where I couldn't really hear myself. The guitarist had the same problem.

Despite all that, the place was packed and the punters loved it, and the promoter is going to book us for a bigger venue. One guy said to me after "what you did on that bass was unbelievable". I chose to take it as a compliment

😆

 

[moley6knipe]

12 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

Royal Blues at The Glad, that London last night. 

The evening started with my finding out I wasn't in the band pic on the flyers. A subtle hint maybe? Turns out only 2 pics from the photo shoot we did, were done portrait, and to make them fit the flyer I was cut off as I was at the end. I'm on the Instant Gram and other socials.

The venue usually put on acoustic solo or duos, in my band there are 7 of us. So it was cosy in the stage area. I was using my Ibanez UB804 which was DI'd. The stage monitor is usually used for the acoustic gigs, so the bass couldn't be turned up too much, meaning it was another gig where I couldn't really hear myself. The guitarist had the same problem.

Despite all that, the place was packed and the punters loved it, and the promoter is going to book us for a bigger venue. One guy said to me after "what you did on that bass was unbelievable". I chose to take it as a compliment

😆

 

Great stuff… I love those Ibanez fellas, I’d forgotten about them! I want one now…

[asingardenof]

14 hours ago, moley6knipe said:

Good work! And best user name I’ve seen in a while!!

I'm liking the band name too

[Norris]

A bit of a strange one tonight. A new venue we've not played before and we're in the corner of the room. It was rammed and hot when we turned up and we had to set up on a sixpence - you know, where every piece of kit gets moved 6 times as you shoehorn it all in. First job was to turn the darned radiator down.

 

Once we start playing the guitarist singer was not at all happy. We were not loud by any means, but he seemed to be in a spot where the bass and the snare was making his ears ring. I backed off the low frequencies quite a bit and in the first break he fitted his ear plugs, but it didn't make that much difference. We persevered and all perked up a little when we played War Pigs, but he still wasn't his bright bubbly self. It sounded great to me and the drummer btw.

 

Of course we got loads of compliments saying how great we played and how fantastic it sounded. It just goes to show, eh? Even if the band were not buzzing it must have sounded half decent. To cap it all the barman came up with the money at the end of the night and told us we were not charging enough!

 

Anyway next time the guitarist and I will swap sides to see if that helps. It would allow my amp to be a little further out of the corner

 

 

The usual Sire P7-5, Boss GT-6B and Fender Rumble v3 500 btw

[StingRayBoy42]

LAST NIGHT!

The Cantina Band at The Boat in Minworth - a pub that wants to be nice but hasn't got round to it yet.
Easy load in, horrible setup as we were crammed into a corner marginally bigger than a matchbox (a standard size one, not the big Swan Vestas ones).

A fairly drunk bloke collared me as we were setting up and asked me what Bass he should buy 'for metal' then wouldn't leave me alone all night - throughout the evening, he confidently asserted that I was at Live Aid (I wasn't), I like 90s metal (I don't), I love Bon Jovi (I don't), I should listen to Slipknot (I shouldn't) and Nirvana were the best band ever (they weren't) amongst other things.
He also asked how should he tune his Bass 'for metal' and what the notes are (presumably 'for metal').
I did my best to answer his questions as best I could and encourage him and he was friendly enough to be fair, but being talked at all night got old pretty quickly.

No dancefloor as there wasn't room for one, total 'Meh' of a gig - not terrible enough to be a good terrible gig story, but not good enough to be actually any good.
The closest thing to a funny story was a bloke with no legs coming in as we were playing 'Walk this way' 😳
A couple of dancers for the last two songs was about the highlight.

Had the usual setup for this lot - Sterling -> small board -> amp board (have I mentioned how much I love the Sansamp VTDI?) -> MB CMD121P
The Pleccy playing is getting better, I *think* I've decided where to put my right hand.

Finished earlyish, paid, packed up, an hour home to a pint of Westons Vintage Pear cider (6.0% ABV), a cheese, ham and Pips La Barbacoa hot sauce toastie, a pint of Gwynt Y Ddraig Black Dragon cider (7.2% ABV) and a James Acaster Netflix standup special (very good, I recommend it).

O'Neills Leicester tonight with the other band - always a good gig, fingers crossed.

Actually, thinking about it, the toastie was probably the highlight.

[StingRayBoy42]

On 20/11/2024 at 23:40, MacDaddy said:

Royal Blues at The Glad, that London last night. 

The evening started with my finding out I wasn't in the band pic on the flyers. A subtle hint maybe? Turns out only 2 pics from the photo shoot we did, were done portrait, and to make them fit the flyer I was cut off as I was at the end. I'm on the Instant Gram and other socials.

The venue usually put on acoustic solo or duos, in my band there are 7 of us. So it was cosy in the stage area. I was using my Ibanez UB804 which was DI'd. The stage monitor is usually used for the acoustic gigs, so the bass couldn't be turned up too much, meaning it was another gig where I couldn't really hear myself. The guitarist had the same problem.

Despite all that, the place was packed and the punters loved it, and the promoter is going to book us for a bigger venue. One guy said to me after "what you did on that bass was unbelievable". I chose to take it as a compliment

😆

 

Love the outfit. 👌

Or as the kids would say "Your drip is sick"

[dmccombe7]

6 hours ago, StingRayBoy42 said:

a pub that wants to be nice but hasn't got round to it yet.

Actually, thinking about it, the toastie was probably the highlight.

Brilliant lines from your post had me laughing a lot. 

Hopefully tonight will be a belter.

Dave

[MacDaddy]

On 20/11/2024 at 23:40, MacDaddy said:

Royal Blues at The Glad, that London last night. 

The evening started with my finding out I wasn't in the band pic on the flyers. A subtle hint maybe? Turns out only 2 pics from the photo shoot we did, were done portrait, and to make them fit the flyer I was cut off as I was at the end. I'm on the Instant Gram and other socials.

The venue usually put on acoustic solo or duos, in my band there are 7 of us. So it was cosy in the stage area. I was using my Ibanez UB804 which was DI'd. The stage monitor is usually used for the acoustic gigs, so the bass couldn't be turned up too much, meaning it was another gig where I couldn't really hear myself. The guitarist had the same problem.

Despite all that, the place was packed and the punters loved it, and the promoter is going to book us for a bigger venue. One guy said to me after "what you did on that bass was unbelievable". I chose to take it as a compliment

😆

 

 

Vids from the gig:

 

 

 

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Last night was at a venue I've played with Bluesfire but first time with Bendricks Rock. Always gets quiet later so told band not to take that personally.

 

Felt really weak (sugar crash) when I got out the car, had to eat a double mars bar then a cheese and onion roll... I've had a bad bug all week then heavy night on the pop yesterday and nothing to eat for five hours before the gig. Felt better after snacking.

 

Was expecting an 8:30 start tonight, turns out Landlady forgot to tell me 7:30 to 10... so we went on about 8 and played to 10:30. Numbers declined after 9...

 

Seems the place empties early and they want bands to keep the early evening drinkers in longer.

 

We are wanted back though. Got some nice comments and one punter asked fir a photo with the whole band. Next bit is from the passive active thread:

 

Set up tonight with two basses. Thunder 1 (passive,but scary loud) and Sire P10. Soundchecked fine with the Sire but it seemed a bit prone to interference.

 

Just about to start the first set... nothing! Worked in passive mode, but not very inspiring on a quick plink. Swapped to the Westone which sounded huge but under whirling disco lights I could barely see the neck dots.

 

For the second set I played with the amp eq and gain enough to get the Sire sounding good. No lack of grunt when we did a stirring Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting.

 

 

Wild lighting...

 

 

Edited November 24 by Stub Mandrel

[lozkerr]

A memorial night at Colinton Bowling Club in Edinburgh for a friend in another band we know who died last year. Five bands, with our friend's old band as headliners. The stage was surrounded with Christmas lights and looked very pretty:

 

We broke our record for packing down and loading out -35 minutes from the last note being played to driving out of the car park. That might sound a lot, but as the gear included four Hughes & Kettner PA cabs, a heavy amp rack and the lights as well as our backlines, I think we did pretty well.

 

Here's my bass rig - Sterling Stingray, Eden WTP600 amp atop a 210 and 118 cab: