How was your gig last night?

[rOB]

3rd gig if the week for me. Charity event for rainbows children hospice with the originals band. Our sings sounded great, the covers they'd asked is to learn did not. Drummer strained a muscle in his hand which swelled up.

Hmm, swings and roundabouts gig wide but a fantastic cause so very happy to have been part of it.

[risingson]

Last night's gig was the 3rd of the weekend. I sweated so much on stage that I woke up this morning actually feeling hung over but having drank nothing at all. 4th and final gig of this weekend coming up in 2 hours time, then I get to relax!

[Monckyman]

I worked sat night, not as a bassist though.
The gig was a private 40th b/day party,outside in a paddock, and the stage was an artic lorry trailer, the one with plastic roll back sides....
It rained a lot, the genny was too far away for our 32 amp cables so it had to be moved, there was no easy way up and down off the bloody thing so I had to make a sort of perilous staircase from flightcases, and there was no working lights of course, so I used my portable led I bring for desks with no lighting.
The rig was a little underpowered too for an outside gig and I struggled for the first set trying to get it to sound warm enough without clipping the digital desk.
Oh, and it was covered in potato dust so the rain and the dust made a very kakky evening for cables and trouser knees.
Food was great though, hog roast, couple of fee drinks, band were very professional about it and took it in their stride.
Another day another dollar.

[dc2009]

frontman drank too much after I'd previously told him to slow down
we had a great backline but i could only hear myself, something the sound guys didn't sort all set

dlb was there and I thought his band were great, damn tight too!

And the warwicks outnumbered the fenders 2 to 1, a result!

Edited September 3, 2011 by dc2009

[BottomE]

Dep guitarist - very good (but loud). sh*tty stage - bad sound - good audience though. All in all 5/10.

[barneyg42]

Just waiting to get paid, Lion Brewery, Ash. First gig with new Status, absolutely stonking! Punchy, sweetest sound and the ladies love the LEDs! Used a Boss LMB for the first time too give the speakers a bit of protection and it's a cracking little pedal, didn't colour the sound but sat it nicely in the mix. Great gig, crowd up for it, band well up for it and our new drummer is a cracker.

[WalMan]

Another week, another last minute stand in - text Friday "Call me ASAP", rang "can you do Saturday?" "No probs, all my bands are on holiday one way or another" .

Smallish pub, not a lot in & most of those that were there were regulars for the band. Same stand in drummer as last week who is good and we gelled pretty well.

Nice comments at the break including two for me specifically

Rig sounding great as ever, though I probably ought to invest in a BF Midget for gigs this size.

Something funny with the jack on the fretted L2500. Very intermittent (ie it won't do it when I say to the tech "the level seems to drop") but it did for a while, fixed by a push on the jack. Think I need to get a new socket put in.

Oh and having had a Dunlop straplock lose it's tit last week, and bought a new set, but not installed them as I was looking for a punch to make the hole in the strap a better fit, I managed to forget to take them tonight. Got by minus one lock on the fretless, out as a spare.

[E sharp]

Local gig - Bury St Edmunds .
Always a stonker , and tonight was no exception .
Nice comments after from punters about the rhythm section , suprised anyone noticed
Just a late one . Don't start till 10:15 , and finish at 1:15 - the only downer about this place .
Otherwise , another cracking night .

[Paddymick]

Friday was a bit mental. Just a local pub gig, but there were punters up a dancing from the first note right up until the last. It did get a bit hairy when one bloke started dancing with bits of furniture - he was spinning a stool around about 6 inches from our singers head. Then there was the group of 'ladies' that had more tattoos than teeth... classy.

This afternoon we are playing at York Peace Festival, [url="http://www.yorkpeacefestival.org.uk/"]http://www.yorkpeacefestival.org.uk/[/url] so I hope the weather holds up... we've als got a dep guitarist, so that should make it interesting!

[chaypup]

Played at Watusi festival in South Wales. Pretty tricky as there were no monitors working on our stage and we didn't have the sense to all just turn down to a more acoustic level, however funked on through with a couple of f*ck ups due to not hearing each other and we covered them up nicely. The audience loved us and a lot of the other bands who we really admire checked out our set and had good things to say.

After that, it was 2 days of band carnage!

[JTUK]

Played the Hop festival and the weather stayed pretty kind bar a downpour for a short while.
When we went on the rain had stopped, the sound was good for us..and apparently bonkers outfront so I think you can say we were pleased.
All comments were very positive, but we kind of expect to do well at these things as we know the score and can cope.
You need to be comfortable with 15min changeovers, tho.

Good promo to a few thou..and decent money to boot...

Have to say..ALL good...!!

We will start prospecting these types of gigs for next season, pretty soon..strike whilst the iron is hot

[BottomE]

Help. I had to bring in the "Keeper" bass last night as i fear i may have screwed my other 2 gigging basses up a bit

I confess to having a bit of a fiddle with the action and PuP heights on my gigging basses. I do this at home and test through headphones via a USB soundcard. Sounds great at home. Sounds sh*t on stage!

The Hamer got me outta trouble though and the gig was ace with our dep guitarist. I bought another set of speakers for this one and with the amp at 4 ohms i had no issues keeping up

Strange as this guy plays so differently to our main guitarist that it was like playing some of the songs for the first time again.

[seashell]

Gig with my mate the ribald comedy singer (Dik) last night. My second gig ever.

We were on last, after a succession of po face women and earnest young men singing songs about 'relationships'. Then Dik comes on with his unique brand of robust Brummie humour. Audience (small but perfectly formed!) loved it, and were all laughing and singing along.

I was a bit rubbish though. Really hit by nerves again and bottled out of all the impressive bass lines I had been practising for weeks! Just stuck to the really simple stuff, and even messed that up a coule of times. The thing is no-one notices anyway as they are all listening to Dik's lyrics and having a lauch. I managed to relax when we did the very last song, cos that's when they all started singing along, so I was able to let it flow a bit more.

Got a few compliments afterwards, which was really nice. (Including from the sound guy!) But I suspect that was because they know I'm really new to this, and also being female might have helped a bit.

Anyway, hoping to get the chance to do it again. Dik said he though I did well, but it remains to be seen if he will invite me to gig with him a third time!

[bassace]

I don't usually post on this one because I do a lot of gigs (3-4 a week) and who's really interested in what I do? But this may interest some of you. We did a five-piece jazzer in a church just outside Burford in the Cotswolds yesterday afternoon. The church was very old but well cared for without being all ponced up. The acoustics were to die for and my amplified DB sounded as good as I've heard it. About 100 people attended and we got some very positive comments. The food was brought in by the ladies of the village and was just fantastic.

After the gig I chatted to a guy who was friends with George Shearing when he was alive, until recently. George had a holiday home nearby and often used to visit this man's home for dinner. He had his chair at the table and he could swivel it round to the piano and play some stuff between courses. What a guest to have! It goes on, one evening an additional guest was the well known composer, John Rutter. Of course he had never met George before but he was surprised when during the course of the evening George turned to the piano and played one of John's compositions complete with jazz embellishments.

Not too boring I hope.

[Bottle]

Played two services yesterday - morning and evening at the church in Cambridge. Bit poignant as I'm now leaving and spending more time with the missus at her church in Bury St. Edmunds

Went well, decided against the big rig (it's a bit of a car-full) and instead took my 1x15 and GK head. Morning service I used my Ibanez down-tuned to DGCF with the DR Hibeams - worked extremely well, and the congregation were up for a bit of a dance. In the evening I used my Vintage 'Ray copy strung with LaBella flats in standard tuning, and my God, it was serious 'umph' and 'mwah' time (plus I'm a sucker for maple boards too - this one is a keeper!).

Overall, I think that the evening went slightly better than the morning - didn't feel as rushed and felt more relaxed with my playing. Bit sad and emotional once we'd finished the set and I started packing the car have been there four years with three of them on the worship band. We'll see if I can start over with the church in Bury.......

Still, has been a good three years, and I've learnt an awful lot. Have been blessed with working with an exceptional group of talented musicians, and will be sad to move on to pastures new. Looking forward to new challenges and working with some new people.

Ian

[seashell]

[quote name='bassace' post='1362690' date='Sep 5 2011, 11:07 AM']I don't usually post on this one because I do a lot of gigs (3-4 a week) and who's really interested in what I do? But this may interest some of you. We did a five-piece jazzer in a church just outside Burford in the Cotswolds yesterday afternoon. The church was very old but well cared for without being all ponced up. The acoustics were to die for and my amplified DB sounded as good as I've heard it. About 100 people attended and we got some very positive comments. The food was brought in by the ladies of the village and was just fantastic.

After the gig I chatted to a guy who was friends with George Shearing when he was alive, until recently. George had a holiday home nearby and often used to visit this man's home for dinner. He had his chair at the table and he could swivel it round to the piano and play some stuff between courses. What a guest to have! It goes on, one evening an additional guest was the well known composer, John Rutter. Of course he had never met George before but he was surprised when during the course of the evening George turned to the piano and played one of John's compositions complete with jazz embellishments.

Not too boring I hope.[/quote]

Not at all boring, thanks for sharing!

[BottomE]

[quote name='seashell' post='1363020' date='Sep 5 2011, 04:09 PM']Not at all boring, thanks for sharing! [/quote]
Man, i absolutely love Shearing. A complete gentleman with the amazing feel. Great story.

[Len_derby]

[quote name='seashell' post='1362575' date='Sep 5 2011, 08:42 AM']Gig with my mate the ribald comedy singer (Dik) last night. My second gig ever.

We were on last, after a succession of po face women and earnest young men singing songs about 'relationships'. Then Dik comes on with his unique brand of robust Brummie humour. Audience (small but perfectly formed!) loved it, and were all laughing and singing along.

I was a bit rubbish though. Really hit by nerves again and bottled out of all the impressive bass lines I had been practising for weeks! Just stuck to the really simple stuff, and even messed that up a coule of times. The thing is no-one notices anyway as they are all listening to Dik's lyrics and having a lauch. I managed to relax when we did the very last song, cos that's when they all started singing along, so I was able to let it flow a bit more.

Got a few compliments afterwards, which was really nice. (Including from the sound guy!) But I suspect that was because they know I'm really new to this, and also being female might have helped a bit.

Anyway, hoping to get the chance to do it again. Dik said he though I did well, but it remains to be seen if he will invite me to gig with him a third time![/quote]

Hey, well done for doing it again. I think it's almost certain you will have been better than last time. You know now that you can do it and will have higher expectations of yourself - not a bad thing at all.
Accept the compliments at face-value. My experience is that soundmen in particular are almost totally B.S.-free when it comes to things like that.
You've also found out the same thing as most of us. Unless you draw attention to it most mistakes are not spotted by the audience.
Onwards and upwards!

[seashell]

[quote name='Len_derby' post='1363077' date='Sep 5 2011, 04:53 PM']Hey, well done for doing it again. I think it's almost certain you will have been better than last time. You know now that you can do it and will have higher expectations of yourself - not a bad thing at all.
Accept the compliments at face-value. My experience is that soundmen in particular are almost totally B.S.-free when it comes to things like that.
You've also found out the same thing as most of us. Unless you draw attention to it most mistakes are not spotted by the audience.
Onwards and upwards![/quote]

Thanks for those words of encouragement, Len
I am quite used to performing of a different kind, because I have been an amateur actor for a very long time. But I was thinking today I wish I could have the chance to do that gig again tonight because I know I would be more relaxed. It just occurred to me that with the acting you usually have a run of at least a week, so if even you are dead nervous on the first night you will be calmer on subsequent nights. But with this music lark, I could be back to square one with the nerves every time I do a gig!

Another unexpected difference was this: When I'm acting I hardly ever wear my glasses because usually the characters I play don't call for it. I've got quite used to negotiating my way around a stage half blind. And the great thing is you can't see the audience. Of course I had to keep the specs on last night otherwise I wouldn't have been able to see the fretboard properly. But then I noticed I could actually see the audience and the expressions on their faces! Quite scary! But thank goodness they were smiling

[Jambo10]

Played a wedding at a rather sw***y hotel up in Dundee on saturday.

Only our 3rd gig with the new singer and the first function with her....and to be honest, you would think she did it on a weekly basis.

We went down really well, dance floor full. We learnt a few numbers especially for the happy couple that went down really well.

Superb bank of sockets and a dream load in, about the best we have ever had.

No cock ups to speak of and the mix of music seemed to do the trick for everyone.

A few more business cards handed out at the end of the night and the hotel are going to punt our name out too, so all good.

[tauzero]

Gigs on Friday and Saturday night in Munich. Two of the best gigs I've ever played.

Report on the whole thing (which is still undergoing changes) [url="http://www.thelightning.co.uk/munich.html"]here.[/url]

[Len_derby]

[quote name='tauzero' post='1364201' date='Sep 6 2011, 03:55 PM']Gigs on Friday and Saturday night in Munich. Two of the best gigs I've ever played.

Report on the whole thing (which is still undergoing changes) [url="http://www.thelightning.co.uk/munich.html"]here.[/url][/quote]

Well done, that sounds like a great time. I play most of my charity fund-raisers at the local church hall. It's all of 300 metres from where I live. At least it ensures that there's one neighbour who doesn't complain about the noise.

[ben604]

Just played the World Famous Cavern (pub). Orange have sponsored the stage there, so I played through an AD200 and an Orange 4x10. Sounded amazing. I need to get me a toob amplifier again...

Apparently, the bassist from The Smiths was in the audience...?! Shame I'm "basic" to say the least and play particularly well! Good fun though.

[BigRedX]

Bit of a weird and rather too stressful one.

On paper it looked as though it was going to be a cracking gig. More of an event really rather than just some music in a pub. We even had a get-together with the promoter and the other performers the week before to go over all the details and timings and to sort out the band running order and who was going to bring what. We flipped a coin to decide who was going to play first (us) and we agreed to supply the bass rig if the other band brought the drum kit. Load-in was scheduled for 5.30-6.00...

So on the night we turn up just before 6.00 to find the venue empty except for the promoter. No sign of the other band or the sound engineer. Still it's early. Mr Venom gets a call from the other band's manager to say that they are running a bit late but will be with us shortly. We set up our kit and wait... and wait... and wait...

No-one for the other band are answering their phones or responding to text messages. It's now 8.00 and the evening is supposed to be starting. Also the main band's manager was going to organise the sound engineer who's also not turned up yet. Discuss with our drummer the feasibility of going to get his kit. but decide what's most likely to happen is that the moment we leave to do this the other band and their kit will turn up, so we stay put.

Finally just before 9.00 the other band turn up with their gear and the promoter has managed to find someone else to work the PA. So with the venue filling up we get the kit set up and line check all the mics and DIs. Of course with the engineer not being familiar with the venue's PA this takes much longer to do than usual.

It's just after 10.30 when the compare for the evening announces us and we kick into the opening number. This coincides with the proper venue sound engineer arriving and taking over the desk. Unfortunately he doesn't realise that we're using the Theremin so it's silent for the whole of the first song. Luckily everything picks up from there. The delayed start actually works in our favour since there's now a sizeable audience hungry to be entertained and we have more than enough aggressive energy worked up that needs an outlet. Mr Venom demolishes yet another microphone stand, the sound engineer finally locates the channel that the Theremin's on and I get to use my Yamaha BJ5B bass for the first time at a gig (the stage is big enough for me to wield it without risking life and limb of the rest of the band or the audience). We even get an encore!

In the end it all worked out OK, but I could have done without all the stress of sitting around for 3 hours wondering if the gig was actually going to go ahead - especially since we'd turned down 2 other gigs because we'd said yes to this one first. However I would have to consider very carefully before agreeing to do another gig with the other band that was playing, as I don't believe that their attitude was sufficiently professional. I won't mention them by name here, but anyone interested can easily find out who they are by looking at the gigs forum. Here's a clue: their name is two adjectives and a noun none of which can be applied to any of the member of the band.

Next week we're up in Gateshead. It's a long way to go but it will be a far less stressful gig because the organisers know what they are doing and know how to put on a good gig and take care of the bands.

[paul h]

Just got in from playing two 45 minute standard cover sets in a bar. Punters danced and sang along and we got paid so all good!

Played my bitsa P and as pleased with I am it, I think it is destined to remain the back up. Even with the J neck it felt sufficiently different to make me fluff every now and again.