How was your gig last night?

[essexbasscat]

Kinda odd one last night, in Croydon

The usual band's drummer split and a replacement couldn't be found in time, so the guitarist and me ended up doing a duo to his backing machine, with me on guitar for a change (played very quietly). I was really there for the vocals.

The surprising thing was the material. As it was just the two of us, the guitarist just went through his usual stand alone set with the machine and I busked along, which I'm very used to doing with him. Mostly 60's stuff, but the more unual type that bands just don't cover, as there may be orchestral parts or clever mixing.

THe vocals were a joy and we worked extremely well together. I must say I enjoyed the whole night, as it gave me the chance to really sing and harmonise (which I love doing). THe audience thought it was great and they danced the night away.

Through last night, I've come to realise the biggest obstacle to my vocals is poor monitoring. After last night, I'll be doing more lead vocals with any luck.

I'll take a bass the next time we do one of these though.

Good luck for your next gig

T

Edited August 1, 2010 by essexbasscat

[OldGit]

Went to see Pee Wee Ellis and the Funk Academy at the Cardiff Big Weekend last night.
A bit too "instrumental" for a general audience but the addition of Claire Teal to sing a couple of songs to end teh set made it better. They did a great funk soaked slow grinding speed version of I feel Good. It was great but I really wished they'd come back and encored it at racing speed
Laurence Cottle on bass was understated but spot on... Could have done with The Chicken and a few more well known tunes though.

The Big Weekend is a great weekend of free gigs, local upstarts on Friday, International names on Saturday (headlines Chaka Demus and his Pliers) and young persons bands on Sunday (Feeder, Athlete)

[hillbilly deluxe]

Not last night,but Friday.
To cut a long story short,we were dumped in the crap when our singer resigned on stage at the Americana festival,where we were headlining the night,so 3 weeks later with our new singer and 4 hours rehearsal we honoured our gig headlining at The Great North country festival,all a bit nervous,but we seemed to go down a storm,not least with the gig organiser and the compare.It was a bit rough (proberbly ony to us) but almost everyone in the venue,about 2-3 thousand,were up on their feet at the end of the night.So i would say that's a result,we just need to learn another 2 hours of material in the next 2 weeks.(3x1hr sets in the clubs in Scotland)

[jezzaboy]

Played a pub in Motherwell last night. We hadn`t played a gig for a month or so due to holidays so we were a bit rusty. Busy enough boozer but the crowd were a bit flat, not much of a reaction. Played old stuff, new stuff made no differance. We play a pub round the corner on aregular basis and we always go down a storm and it`s always full of nice ladies!!

Highlight of the night was when we were breaking the gear down and a guy chinned us for not playing In the city, his favourite. We had played it at the end of the first set and he was sitting in front of us at the time! Sort of summed up the gig.

Jez

[northstreet]

Shocking - absolutely shocking. Embarrassingly, appallingly abysmal. First time ever I've shouted at a band member on stage. Time to update my profile on musofinder.

[waynepunkdude]

[quote name='northstreet' post='912253' date='Aug 1 2010, 08:56 PM']Shocking - absolutely shocking. Embarrassingly, appallingly abysmal. First time ever I've shouted at a band member on stage. Time to update my profile on musofinder.[/quote]


Can we hear this story?

[E sharp]

[quote name='allighatt0r' post='911761' date='Aug 1 2010, 11:05 AM']Played at The Grapes in Bury St Edmunds last night.

Brilliant night as usual, except 3/4 of the way through the second set, when a friend of the band came up and i had some of her WKD. Thegirl that had been dancing in front of me and flirting lots barged into said friend of the band and told her she was my girlfriend(!!!), and a mini shoving fight ensued. The end result was a pint of beer spilt over my pedals and the area I was standing in.

The bar staff then chucked a single dish cloth over. Great!

Other than that though, it was a great night![/quote]
Yeah we're there Oct 23rd , best gig we do .

Always rammed , plenty of eye candy , but a long night .

[E sharp]

Did a dep last night with a group of young uns near Norwich .

I mean I'm only 41 , but listening to them talking to their mates whilst outside on a fag break , I suddenly felt quite old .

Just the standard fare of Hendrix , 12 bar and the like , plus a few originals . Their lack of gigging and experience was obvious at times , and I felt like I was holding it down for them , but if I'm honest , remembering how I played at 15 , then they're miles ahead of where I was .

[OldGit]

[quote name='E sharp' post='912329' date='Aug 1 2010, 10:47 PM']Did a dep last night with a group of young uns near Norwich .

I mean I'm only 41 , but listening to them talking to their mates whilst outside on a fag break , I suddenly felt quite old .

Just the standard fare of Hendrix , 12 bar and the like , plus a few originals . Their lack of gigging and experience was obvious at times , and I felt like I was holding it down for them , but if I'm honest , remembering how I played at 15 , then they're miles ahead of where I was .[/quote]


I'm constantly amazed at how good kids play these days but I'm also amazed the highlights of their sets are the Hendrix and SRV done as karaoke versions.

Don't they have new heroes?

[cheddatom]

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='912303' date='Aug 1 2010, 10:15 PM']Can we hear this story?[/quote]

+1 and i'd like this one too...

[quote name='hillbilly deluxe' post='911937' date='Aug 1 2010, 02:56 PM']To cut a long story short,we were dumped in the crap when our singer resigned on stage at the Americana festival,where we were headlining the night[/quote]

[hillbilly deluxe]

[quote name='cheddatom' post='912498' date='Aug 2 2010, 08:57 AM']+1 and i'd like this one too...[/quote]

We knew that he was leaving,but it was'nt supposed to be until after Xmas.It was a bit of a shock,but at the same time a relief because there was tension in the band.We had allready lined up his replacement,but thought that we had plenty of time to rehearse until the changeover.It turns out that we had less than 3 weeks.Luckily/unluckily we only had to rehearse for a 1hr 15 mins set with it being for our debut at a festival.
Our new singer lives in Yorkshire and we are based in Glasgow,so there was lots of over the internet rehearsal.She would send us the songs with her singing and playing guitar to a click track,kind of the reverse of playing to a backing track.................very strange.

[cheddatom]

Ahhh, when you said "resigned on stage" I thought it was half way through a song or something. Perhaps a girl in the front of the audience shouted "oooh the bass player is so sexy!" or the like, and he stopped the song half way through shouting "f*** you all!!" rather than "i'd like to announce tonight that i'll be leaving the band, we've had some great times.......

[hillbilly deluxe]

No,he resigned as he introduced the encore.He nearly had an unexpected stage dive.As for your other comment,of course,it happens all the time.
The resignation is on youtube.

Edited August 2, 2010 by hillbilly deluxe

[Bottle]

Went to the Funk Jam in Cambridge last night at La Raza. Took my trust steed i.e. the Ibanez Jazz bass - OMG, that was a tasty tone I got. Used the house amp - TE into an Ashdown cab (probably a 2x10 vertically). House bassist had a lovely looking 'Ray - had a noodle on that the last time I was there. There's something to be said for humbuckers - next bass project will deffo be a Jazz conversion to take a 'bucker.

Friend of mine also got up to play with my bass, and I was genuinely shocked at how good she's gotten recently - put me in the shade. Guess I've got some work to do to catch up!

Need to 'get my groove on' - can't keep plodding away on the root for the rest of my life

HTH, Ian

[tauzero]

Two gigs, one on Saturday, one on Tuesday, but it's been a bit hectic (you'll see why):

[b]Open mic night, Highbury, Birmingham[/b]

A friend of mine used to run an open mic night at the Roadhouse in Birmingham - in fact, that's where I met him, and where Mrs Zero started singing. He packed it in a couple of years ago but the bug stayed with him, and he's been running another unplugged singers' evening. He did a plugged open mic on Saturday, and Mrs Zero and I attended. I got cast in my old role of house bassist and finished up playing with various people, all of whom were familiar from the Roadhouse days. I shall be reprising the role at one of the performer's party this coming Saturday (looking at the weather forecast, that could be in his massive conservatory).

[b]Wedding, Solihull[/b]

The first gig for me with The Lightning - and it wasn't any old wedding, it was Sub Zero, my stepdaughter's wedding. The audience were mainly Sub Zero's age group, early twenties, plus a smattering of fortytofiftysomethings and a small number of eightysomethings (my parents, who were seeing me perform for the first time ever, and Mrs Zero's mum). So it was quite interesting for a band who only know (badly) one number from the current millennium to play to large quantities of goths.

It was rather hot inside the room and the audience was largely composed of smokers, so the audience in the room was pretty small for the first set, but after the break Mrs Zero and new son-in-law Zero Offset rounded them up and herded them in. I was glad we'd chucked Mustang Sally into the set at the last minute, Mrs Zero got them dancing to that. We'll be gigging at one of their favourite pubs in September so I expect the place to be rammed from the compliments we got afterwards. Plus it looks like we'll have a fair selection of good photos for the band web page, as the photographer is a friend of Sub Zero's (and also a musician, as it happens) and took lots of photos of us.

[thisnameistaken]

Tricky one.

During soundcheck the two backing vox (me and drummer) were asking for more level in the monitors. Sound guy said he wasn't getting enough level from us on stage. Sound guy then asked drummer to get closer to the mic and belt it out, drummer said "No". Sound guy came on stage and demonstrated how loud he wanted drummer to sing, drummer said "No, I don't sing that loud".

Then the sound guy tells me I'm not loud enough, I tell him his gear is f***ed and I am f***ing yelling into his mic. He says I need to yell more. I check my mic with a couple of lines from Pressure Drop, but it goes "It is you, you, you / your mics are sh*t". I make the point that the lead singer of the headline band literally f***ing mumbles through every song and I could hear him fine during their soundcheck. Singer of headline band helpfully nods in agreement.

An hour later the sound guy is telling me how the venue won't let him replace all the f***ed gear because they're about to have a refurb, and that he didn't think he would even have enough cables to do the gig. I asked him why he told me and the drummer that we were the problem when he knew his gear was all f***ed. He didn't have an answer for it.

We did the gig, nobody heard the backing vocals, which is probably for the best because we couldn't hear our vocals in our monitors either. Apparently everything else sounded alright. We won't play there again.

[allighatt0r]

Two pretty fantastic gigs this weekend.

We played The Larling Beer Festival on Friday, in front of more than 1200 people. The most people we've ever played in front of. It was fantastic! Until I blew the speaker in my combo... (during Won't Get Fooled Again for god sake!!!) So had to play the last 6 or 7 songs without being able to hear myself at all (was still coming out of the PA).

We were on a lorry trailer, and during the last song (Sweet Child of Mine) I stood at the very edge of the stage and surveyed the audience, then felt two girls stroking my foot! Very odd!!!

There were also some SERIOUSLY drunk nutters there, dancing as though they were having a fit. One looked like Lou from Neighbours!

[JTUK]

Well, I thought I was playing a beer festival and it turned out to be a charity do...
They had put some money into the PA and lights but set-up time was too fraught and did we need such a large PA in a hall?
I think it was loud and we would have been better off mixing ourselves, in hindisght.

Lesson to heed...don't take these things without a lot of thought and time as rushing to make the schedule helps no-one..
We did fine, but it should have been better, IMO..????

oh yeah...Deliverance....!!

Edited August 8, 2010 by JTUK

[barneyg42]

Lion Brewery in Ash, Saturday.....on the way there I get a txt from the keys that the M25 is closed so it's panic stations. I'm there, vocs and guitard are and we are planning an acoustic night if we have to. Keys turns up but drummer who lives in Croydon is nowhere to be seen. Phone him up and you guessed it he's stationary on the 25. Guitards stepfather(our occasional dep) is there but no kit! Put a call out around the pub and start making calls ourselves. We then hash together a first set with a drum machine and/or stepfather playing drum bits on one of the keyboards. This included a version of The Chain-Fleetwood Mac. So stepfather plays the bass drum beat in the verse and guitard switches on drum machine for the beat in the chorus, all in time! Then we get to the F1 bit at the end and give it my bit and the guitard adds the snare over the top and then starts the beat whilst starting his lead guitar bit! Amazingly it worked and we got a standing ovation at the end of it! Totally wild. Then an ad-lib version of Wipeout with stepfather and keys playing the drum solos like maniacs on the keyboard with me shouting "Keep up you buggers!" By the end of the hashed together 1st set the crowd are totally on our side with the drama going on. One of the girls in the pub has spoken to a drummer friend who was on his way over to see us and he turned back and got his kit, so between him and stepfather we got a proper second set together. Was a total blast in truth, living on the edge! As for the band drummer, he was stuck for 5 fecking hours between junctions and got home at midnight having never got to us at all!
I got home at 2am and had to be in work for 6am for a few hours work.........I'm going back to bed now! Good night!

[obbm]

Glad it worked out for you in the end Colin.

[casapete]

Turned up last night to play at wedding in marquee (usual stuff for us) - and it was brilliant!
Great crowd, free bar, lots of lovely women and our PA sounded good too!
Also had a stand in trumpet player (John Dunn from Darlington - 'Johnny Dep!') who despite his lack of years (21 the bu*ger)
did an excellent job.
Best gig we've had in a while, wish they were all like this etc.............

[barneyg42]

[quote name='obbm' post='918629' date='Aug 8 2010, 11:31 AM']Glad it worked out for you in the end Colin.[/quote]
Cheers Dave, couldn't get hold of Alan but a guy called Doug from a band called SKP saved the day, I think he's a regular down there.
Was an interesting night!

Colin

[Bass Culture]

We played at 50th birthday party in a back garden in Prenton last night. The whole night was spent imagining feeling drops of the rain that thankfully never came. The police were called by some neighbours who lived 300 yards away apparently but, in fairness to the boys in blue, they were cool as hell about it - said it didn't sound that loud to them and told the host to forget about it. Great bunch of people who all had a good time and we got an offer of more gigs out of it afterwards from another one of the guests. There's worse ways to spend a Saturday night!

[OldGit]

[quote name='thisnameistaken' post='918500' date='Aug 8 2010, 02:48 AM']Tricky one.

During soundcheck the two backing vox (me and drummer) were asking for more level in the monitors. Sound guy said he wasn't getting enough level from us on stage. Sound guy then asked drummer to get closer to the mic and belt it out, drummer said "No". Sound guy came on stage and demonstrated how loud he wanted drummer to sing, drummer said "No, I don't sing that loud".

Then the sound guy tells me I'm not loud enough, I tell him his gear is f***ed and I am f***ing yelling into his mic. He says I need to yell more. I check my mic with a couple of lines from Pressure Drop, but it goes "It is you, you, you / your mics are sh*t". I make the point that the lead singer of the headline band literally f***ing mumbles through every song and I could hear him fine during their soundcheck. Singer of headline band helpfully nods in agreement.

An hour later the sound guy is telling me how the venue won't let him replace all the f***ed gear because they're about to have a refurb, and that he didn't think he would even have enough cables to do the gig. I asked him why he told me and the drummer that we were the problem when he knew his gear was all f***ed. He didn't have an answer for it.

We did the gig, nobody heard the backing vocals, which is probably for the best because we couldn't hear our vocals in our monitors either. Apparently everything else sounded alright. We won't play there again.[/quote]

Worth getting your own mic, I reckon. I just upgraded to a used Beta58 that I got for £50. Very nice and better than a normal 58 but still as tough..

[Toddy]

Played a Warners Hotel last night in Sommersett,,, great night ,,,, drove down from Hull, did the gig,, and drove home again......long bloody way...

Why oh why are agents struggling to double up these days??