How was your gig last night?

[neepheid]

1 hour ago, Bluewine said:

I'm getting old. I didn't remember I have a gig tomorrow night.

 

I'm transparent to a fault so I'll share the text I received this text this morning. 

 

"Hey all! The scoop for Maple Road Saturday @Traditions;

Surprise 40th Bday Party. I'll be there early to setup, you can all arrive anytime after 4 to load in. We need to be soundchecked by 5:40, the Bday girl arrives shortly before 6, set time is 6-9pm. Let me know if there are any questions!"

 

I know some of you have played a lot of these Birthday parties. I guess they can be good or bad.

 

Daryl

 

 

Have you ever tried replying to one of those texts with "new phone, who dis?" just to wind them up?

[dmccombe7]

3 hours ago, Bluewine said:

I'm getting old. I didn't remember I have a gig tomorrow night.

 

I'm transparent to a fault so I'll share the text I received this text this morning. 

 

"Hey all! The scoop for Maple Road Saturday @Traditions;

Surprise 40th Bday Party. I'll be there early to setup, you can all arrive anytime after 4 to load in. We need to be soundchecked by 5:40, the Bday girl arrives shortly before 6, set time is 6-9pm. Let me know if there are any questions!"

 

I know some of you have played a lot of these Birthday parties. I guess they can be good or bad.

 

Daryl

Did a surprise birthday party on Sun last week same venue as our Sat night so all the gear was left in situ apart from taking my basses home but to be honest it turned out a great gig. 

Just have to make the best of it and just think about having fun with it. Enjoy what you do and the audience will follow suit.

Have a good one Daryl.

 

Look on the bright side, i have a gig 2hr drive to Dundee, up 3 flights of stairs and its a ticket deal so depending on numbers that turn up will determine my fee. All that with a badly twisted ankle from Xmas day. So bad i'm gonna use the venues bass cabinet to save trying to lift heavy gear up and down stairs. Got it strapped up for extra support. 

Good news is its an 11pm finish (2 x 1hr sets) so should be home by 2am.

Thankfully my wife will be there as usual and will give me a hand with the little gear i'm taking.

 

Dave

[Bluewine]

45 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Did a surprise birthday party on Sun last week same venue as our Sat night so all the gear was left in situ apart from taking my basses home but to be honest it turned out a great gig. 

Just have to make the best of it and just think about having fun with it. Enjoy what you do and the audience will follow suit.

Have a good one Daryl.

 

Look on the bright side, i have a gig 2hr drive to Dundee, up 3 flights of stairs and its a ticket deal so depending on numbers that turn up will determine my fee. All that with a badly twisted ankle from Xmas day. So bad i'm gonna use the venues bass cabinet to save trying to lift heavy gear up and down stairs. Got it strapped up for extra support. 

Good news is its an 11pm finish (2 x 1hr sets) so should be home by 2am.

Thankfully my wife will be there as usual and will give me a hand with the little gear i'm taking.

 

Dave

 

We occasionally play the Road House in Dundee WI, a 20 minutes commute.lol

 

I'm going to make the best of the surprise birthday party gig. It's a 20 minute commute for me ,however it's well over an hour for our guitarist.  I want to keep him in good spirits.  I'm the cheerleader in the band for let's have a good time and not take ourselves to seriously.

 

Daryl 

Edited December 27, 2024 by Bluewine

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, neepheid said:

 

Have you ever tried replying to one of those texts with "new phone, who dis?" just to wind them up?

 

Actually my my biggest fear has  been getting a call from the BL at 7:00pm on a Friday or Saturday night saying; " Where Are You? " lol

 

Daryl

[taunton-hobbit]

Picture the scene - it's my mothers' funeral (crem job). The few mourners, including my father, are sitting patiently. We sat patiently for almost a quarter of an hour until someone (me) thought to get up & enquire of the undertakers (still outside) what the (politely) was going on.

 

Quiet panic followed & someone managed to get the female vicar type person on the phone.- she had forgotten & was in the shower................

 

Once she arrived, it was the 'backroom boys' lunch hour, complete with radio & non-too quiet conversation.

 

😎

[dmccombe7]

50 minutes ago, taunton-hobbit said:

Picture the scene - it's my mothers' funeral (crem job). The few mourners, including my father, are sitting patiently. We sat patiently for almost a quarter of an hour until someone (me) thought to get up & enquire of the undertakers (still outside) what the (politely) was going on.

 

Quiet panic followed & someone managed to get the female vicar type person on the phone.- she had forgotten & was in the shower................

 

Once she arrived, it was the 'backroom boys' lunch hour, complete with radio & non-too quiet conversation.

 

😎

So sorry to hear of your loss. Our thoughts are with you at such a sad time. Take care.

Dave

[taunton-hobbit]

Thanks Dave, but it was a very long time ago. I made a point of talking to the undertakers when it was Dad's turn that she wouldn't be any where near.

 

😎

[Bluewine]

On 25/12/2024 at 05:57, 12stringbassist said:

A venue in St Helens.

I began to get misgivings about this evening's gig when I first saw the venue's advertising for it. Just as they did last year, the venue advertised us as a specific glam rock band, which we are NOT. We play some glam rock, but we would never say that glam is what we do.
 

Our own poster was far more honest.
 

A message during the day that someone had complained last year (they put images of Roy Wood and The Rubettes on the poster, two bands that we don't touch) set my nerves jingling. We talked amongst ourselves about how to rearrange the show to survive such critics. We were assured that it was just one person and that we should do our regular show. I dressed up. Some people at tables were dressed up glam-style and I felt nervous, but we went on and played two great sets.
 

After the show, a Chinese lady took me off to a room to pay me. Our fee was £100 short. I showed her the message with the agreed fee and she directed me to talk to the chap who had booked us. We had a circular conversation about how the Chinese lady at the venue lies to him about attendance and rips him off, the attendance being a bit short so they couldn't pay our full fee (that he had agreed in July), and how, if I took money out of HIS pocket then we would never play there again.... He invited me to think about that.
 

After thinking about it for a fraction of a second, I said that we did not want to deal with a rogue venue who cheats bands. He's got an ego about being The Man Who Puts Bands On. I walked away from him and he followed me, shouting pathetic insults about me politely asking him not to use his smoke machine, as they mess my throat up and I live in fear of them.
 

Our drummer Graham went for a lengthy chat with him and came back with some more money, but not our full fee. I presume this means we will not be playing there again. I don't want to play there again.
 

He was very affronted when I said I would not be blackmailed and ripped off. I said that if he paid a plumber part of an agreed fee for doing a job, the plumber would hit him.
 

I came home very annoyed.
Happy Christmas.

 

 

 

Nice pic Ian.

 

Wow! Getting shorted, it's happened to us, but not in a long time. None of us should deal with rogue venues. 

 

Daryl

Edited December 29, 2024 by Bluewine

[12stringbassist]

Who's Mike?
I'm Ian.

[Norris]

5 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

Actually my my biggest fear has  been getting a call from the BL at 7:00pm on a Friday or Saturday night saying; " Where Are You? " lol

 

Daryl

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt 😂. It was a meal in a posh restaurant with my then-girlfriend's family.

 

Then there was that other time when the drummer had been on a bender all day and we had to send a couple of audience members to his house to wake him up 😂

[jezzaboy]

Played the Cathouse in Glasgow with my acdc mob last night. It`s a bugger of a place right in the city centre. You can`t drive down the street due to a bus gate and if you could there is sod all parking. Oh and there is a rather steep set of steps leading up to the main venue. Because of this we used the venue`s backline.

 

I arrived at 4 pm and asked the guy where the Marshall heads were to go with the cabs that were there. He got the heads out but no speaker cables! Luckily enough Kenny`s music is just down the road so jumped down and got a couple. Then we discovered that the bass drum had only 1 leg and there was no drum seat, cue drummer boy rushing home to get the missing gear. The good thing was there was a Rumble 500 for me which is what I use anyway. Not to self: never trust what it says on the venue`s list of gear!

 

Only played for 1 hour due to Bon DC being on after us but we had a blast and went down really well, maybe a little to well for the other mob  but it was a great night with lots of nice comments. But gigs in city centres are getting harder all the time.

[Stub Mandrel]

Just found a photo from our guitarist's other band's last gig... Capital Radio's firework night. I'm not jealous...

 

 

[dmccombe7]

Due to Singer losing his voice today we have had to cancel our BLOCKBUSTARZ gig at Beat Generator in Dundee.

Also just found out today that one of the band member's daughter in law committed suicide on Xmas night after leaving the family get together. Not a good time for the family and our thoughts are with them all.

Put a bit of a downer on today. Can't quite get my head around that.

Dave

[Paddy777]

8 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Due to Singer losing his voice today we have had to cancel our BLOCKBUSTARZ gig at Beat Generator in Dundee.

Also just found out today that one of the band member's daughter in law committed suicide on Xmas night after leaving the family get together. Not a good time for the family and our thoughts are with them all.

Put a bit of a downer on today. Can't quite get my head around that.

Dave

Sorry to hear that, I’ve lost a couple of people close to me this way and the aftermath for everyone is awful, makes everything else pale into insignificance 

[mikebass456]

Lost my younger brother to suicide just over 4 years ago now. Part of my christmas ritual now is on christmas eve to go sit where his ashes are scattered for while, then go for a coffee and cake where we used to go for ice cream when he was needing to talk and get away from things for a while. It certainly puts the rest of christmas into perspective. It doesn't get any less of a loss, just slightly easier to carry each year.  Thoughts are with you and your band mate.........

[Stub Mandrel]

59 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Due to Singer losing his voice today we have had to cancel our BLOCKBUSTARZ gig at Beat Generator in Dundee.

Also just found out today that one of the band member's daughter in law committed suicide on Xmas night after leaving the family get together. Not a good time for the family and our thoughts are with them all.

Put a bit of a downer on today. Can't quite get my head around that.

Dave

 

God that's awful 😞

 

[jezzaboy]

1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

Due to Singer losing his voice today we have had to cancel our BLOCKBUSTARZ gig at Beat Generator in Dundee.

Also just found out today that one of the band member's daughter in law committed suicide on Xmas night after leaving the family get together. Not a good time for the family and our thoughts are with them all.

Put a bit of a downer on today. Can't quite get my head around that.

Dave

Sorry to hear that Dave.

[Bluewine]

18 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

Who's Mike?
I'm Ian.

 

Sorry, I got the posts mixed up Ian 

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

4 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Due to Singer losing his voice today we have had to cancel our BLOCKBUSTARZ gig at Beat Generator in Dundee.

Also just found out today that one of the band member's daughter in law committed suicide on Xmas night after leaving the family get together. Not a good time for the family and our thoughts are with them all.

Put a bit of a downer on today. Can't quite get my head around that.

Dave

Sorry to hear about all this Dave. Very sad.

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

5 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Just found a photo from our guitarist's other band's last gig... Capital Radio's firework night. I'm not jealous...

 

 

 

 

You're not jealous?  I am. Lol

 

Impressive crowd!

 

Daryl

[Stub Mandrel]

Actually some good news ... the guitarist from the blues band has picked up a gig on the 23 Jan.

 

Good news - 7pm to 9pm

 

Bad news - Womanby Street Cardiff. Worst parking in the city.

Edited December 28, 2024 by Stub Mandrel

[peteb]

5 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Due to Singer losing his voice today we have had to cancel our BLOCKBUSTARZ gig at Beat Generator in Dundee.

Also just found out today that one of the band member's daughter in law committed suicide on Xmas night after leaving the family get together. Not a good time for the family and our thoughts are with them all.

Put a bit of a downer on today. Can't quite get my head around that.

Dave

 

That's awful mate. Not much you can say, but best wishes to the family. 

 

[neepheid]

8 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Due to Singer losing his voice today we have had to cancel our BLOCKBUSTARZ gig at Beat Generator in Dundee.

Also just found out today that one of the band member's daughter in law committed suicide on Xmas night after leaving the family get together. Not a good time for the family and our thoughts are with them all.

Put a bit of a downer on today. Can't quite get my head around that.

Dave

 

That's awful.  I know you're a degree of separation from it but it's still going to have an effect.  We're here for you, buddy, if you gotta vent, vent away.

[Bluewine]

On 27/12/2024 at 08:48, Bluewine said:

I'm getting old. I didn't remember I have a gig tomorrow night.

 

I'm transparent to a fault so I'll share the text I received this text this morning. 

 

"Hey all! The scoop for Maple Road Saturday @Traditions;

Surprise 40th Bday Party. I'll be there early to setup, you can all arrive anytime after 4 to load in. We need to be soundchecked by 5:40, the Bday girl arrives shortly before 6, set time is 6-9pm. Let me know if there are any questions!"

 

I know some of you have played a lot of these Birthday parties. I guess they can be good or bad.

 

Daryl

 

The Birthday was a decent gig. The dep drummer was pretty good too. We sounded pretty good with a few high points throughout the show.

 

The dancing started a little later after the booze kicked in. Lol

 

Sorry, the pics aren't very good. But, you get the idea 

 

Daryl

Edited December 29, 2024 by Bluewine

[12stringbassist]

22 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

....  Put a bit of a downer on today. Can't quite get my head around that.

Dave

I'm so very sorry to read that, that's just dreadful.
Christmas is such a hard time for some.