How was your gig last night?

[crez5150]

I had a corporate in the Middle of the Standard Charter Bank in The City.... Fantastic acoustics not.... Surrounded buy Tiled floors and played in a Glass box 20 meters by 5 stories high..... the Lexicon was redundant for the evening.... ;0)

[beerdragon]

played a small pub with less the twenty five punters. landlord said a combination of the weather, football and the boxing kept them away.ah well you cant win em all.

[tonybassplayer]

Another return to one of our regular venues last night, The Deer House in Rudding Park caravan site near Harrogate, and after a four week break there was always a chance we could have been a bit rusty but as it turned out we played superb ( with the exception of carwash which was pretty diabolical )

The place was packed out ( pouring it down so no one was sat outside round a bbq ) and the audience were really up for a fun night.

At the risk of getting banned from the basschat website the high point of the night was when our singer Lou split the audience in two during Mustang Sally with the chorus's getting louder and louder ( we even extended it by a few more minutes ) and if that isn't enough to blacklist me I use "Behringer" amplification !!!!

Tony

[stingrayfan]

A beer festival in Sussex. Chucking it down with rain and we were in the middle of the bill but we still enjoyed it. They provided all the PA and free beer which was good. Got a recording from the sound desk too which was a bonus. It actually sounded ok!

Typical Britain though - grey clouds yesterday, blue skies today....

[Sibob]

Really good fun actually!
Just Reading O'Neills, but there was a lot of vibe onstage, I had a great tone onstage, crowd were up for it!

Cracking!

Si

[Ou7shined]

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='224075' date='Jun 22 2008, 12:03 PM']A beer festival in Sussex. Chucking it down with rain and we were in the middle of the bill but we still enjoyed it. They provided all the PA and free beer which was good. Got a recording from the sound desk too which was a bonus. It actually sounded ok!

Typical Britain though - grey clouds yesterday, blue skies today....[/quote]
We've got it today. Nice and sunny yesterday and tipping it down today. Thankfully it's the lazy straight down stuff, we often get the horizontal variety here. None the less, planned trip to zoo with the bairn cancelled.

[stingrayfan]

[quote name='Sibob' post='224083' date='Jun 22 2008, 12:16 PM']Really good fun actually!
Just Reading O'Neills, but there was a lot of vibe onstage, I had a great tone onstage, crowd were up for it!

Cracking!

Si[/quote]
What's Reading O'Neills like? Recommend it? We're looking for some new loud and lively bars to play. Would you be kind enough to PM me the person to contact please? Cheers, Matt

[WalMan]

[quote name='tonybassplayer' post='223697' date='Jun 21 2008, 05:22 PM']Anyone have any gigs to report on from last night ??

We are playing our first in 4 weeks tonight, I am never waiting this long again, it just seems such a waste of valuable gigging nights !!

Tony[/quote]
First gig for a couple of weeks last Friday. A small pub, but it can fill up, sadly it took a while, but despite the fact that one corner seemed worryingly packed with yoof who would not be interested they all got into it as the evening progressed and were singing along at the end. Got some nice positive comments from them and the landlord at the end of the evening too.

And then the bad news. Saturday morning. I woke up crippled in my left shoulder/upper arm, right elbow/forearm and completely unable to move. Wifey was at work all day, but youngest son did assist by getting some painkillers (which should have worked but didn't) and a couple of drinks for me during the day. Otherwise, having got downstairs and onto the sofa I was stuck there all day unable to move. MrsW got home from work about 6, knackered & initially not very sympathetic to my pain, but took me over to A&E where we sat from about 7:30 - 10:00 yesterday evening when they gave me some sodoff painkillers (probably not stronger than what I had at home, but a much larger dose) that eased things off a bit.

You never realise quite how bad roads are until you are driven somewhere in agony with every slight bump and roundabout (even if taken at 20) jarring through you At least the journey home was achieved more easily & in a slight haze.

I haven't actually admitted it to MrsW, and she hasn't linked it yet, but I fear it was all down to digging in too hard at the gig on Friday with insufficient practice in preceding weeks. The shoulder is the one that was replaced 3 years ago & has been giving me a bit of gyp recently, which I have put down to being off my RA injections for a while now and unable to restart them immediately for other reasons. Had an x-ray last Monday after I saw the RA nurse to make sure that when I had the fall at work last November the crack on my left elbow had not shifted the replacement joint at all but I have not had the report on that yet. Just hoping it was a combination of lack of practice & drugs that caused this - and if it was that is a REALLY good advert for making sure you keep "fit" by practising with the bass on your shoulder & not just resting on your knee. I would not wish what I went through on Saturday on even my worst enemy!!

[dave_bass5]

Terrible gig on Sat Playing a Holiday camp.

First we get told to set up on a really small stage in the bar. Too small to get everything on but we go an question the entertainments manager after we see a poster advertising us in the main show bar. So that was about 45ins wasted. Then the drummer goes and gets a coffee, another 10mins wasted and then takes almost an hour to set the kit up so we are running an hour behind when we were supposed to finish. did a quick sound check, all seems ok so off we go to get some food. We also had to unplug a lot of stuff to allow the people dressed in the character costumes access to the stage.
I had a rasping noise coming from my 1212L as well. After taking it all apart on stage while we set up and finding nothing it turns out its the dome coming away form the cone on one of the drivers. It wasn't really a problem and only i could hear it but it kept me distracted all night.

Come back at 9 and plug everything in and get ready for the curtains to open. first number goes well but we notice we have no fold back. Then, just as the second song starts i notice the PA speaker on the left (my side) isn't plugged in. Doh. once that was back in it made a huge difference but still no fold back. After the first set it turns out someone (not us) had moved the amp driving the monitors and the send from the desk had come unplugged. thing is the drummer was using an electronic kit so i had no drums the whole set.
Around the forth number in our singers guitar pedal started playing up (again) and so he had to mess around unplugging leads etc.

I recorded the gig and on playback it seems either the mic on the singers guitar or the lead itself was broken as all we can hear of his guitar is a buzzing sound (and not in a good way). It wasnt coming from the amp so at least there was some guitar in the mix, coming from off stage but im surprised no one mentioned how awful it sounded out front.

Second set went almost without a hitch though. We went down well but after having a small argument with the Ents guy about leaving our gear in the hall i doubt we will go back. Plus its a 6 1/2 hour round trip just for one gig.

Its a shame the gig went like this. Normally we have everything under control and i must admit i was looking for a hole on stage to swallow me up that night.

The only good thing was how great i sounded ;-). This was the first big gig with ym 1212L and even though there is a slight problem (and it will all be sorted by the end of the week) it was loud, tight and no boomy, even though it was a high wooded stage. Last time we played there my UL212 sounded very muddy and not very defined. No such problems this time.

[niceguyhomer]

We had a fantastic time on Friday night - played a rough hole in Leyland and it was a riot. A girl who used to sing with the band years ago came along and got up for a few songs. Her name's Gemma D and she works as a presenter on RockFM now - she brought about a dozen of her mates along and every one a stunner.

Got pissed and left the gear - got to bed about 5am.

[crez5150]

.......n'other wedding gig..... back to Knebworth house.... usual problems with the sound limiter though we had already run 2nd power line from the back kitchen to the anger of the management. Good night in all and managed two more booking from it. ;o)

[stingrayfan]

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='224711' date='Jun 23 2008, 09:02 AM']Terrible gig on Sat Playing a Holiday camp.[/quote]
Sounds like you had a nightmare!

[quote name='niceguyhomer']Got pissed and left the gear - got to bed about 5am.[/quote]
I like gigs like those. It's great to jettison the gear and head for the beer!

[cheddatom]

[quote name='stingrayfan' post='224735' date='Jun 23 2008, 09:29 AM']I like gigs like those. It's great to jettison the gear and head for the beer![/quote]

Yeh, unless they guy isn't there to open the pub the next day!

We did friday and saturday night (me on drums) in stoke and they were some of the most fun gigs i've ever done! I was deffinitely too drunk to play properly on the friday night, but I didn't make any major mistakes and we went down a storm with a new crowd. Saturday was more reserved but much tighter. I was up till 4am both nights and now I am knackered!

[lowhand_mike]

well played the outdoor gig on saturday night, getting there was a bit of a nightmare due to family commitments during the day making arriving a little late.
arrived to find a half size curtain side trailer parked round the back of the pub.
setting up went way too slow and also involved some really school boy mistakes, leads being plugged in the wrong way etc. also a little bit dodgy as we had to power everything from 2 sockets in the garage next to the stage. :ph34r:
sound check took ages as we were using the big desk for the first time live so all the drums were mic'ed, i was DI'ed, extra pair of PA speakers too.
though once we got the balance of the PA right the sound seemed pretty good.
ran out of time for a proper full band sound check so our first song was our sound check, very risky.
so first song all our eyes were on a mate of the guitarist who has been to al our gigs to see if he made a bee line for the stage. good news was he didn't move all night except to bring more beer to the stage and commented at the interval that it was our best sound ever. nice!

only a couple of mistakes in the first set, biggest one being me messing up a song i never get wrong with it being one of my favourite ones to play, oh well. i had what seemed like a pretty good sound so i was fairly happy.

lots of complements from the 20 or so people who actually turned up, weird as it was a free gig and free BBQ. but it did piss it down for about an hour.
second set started off badly and really didn't get much better, we did absolutely nail about a third of the second set but the most part was god awful. well from my point of view at least. but everyone was really happy with the second set but for the life of us we couldn't understand why, they must have been really drunk!

we had to pack up straight after the gig (with being outside an all) and some twat who helped pack the car decided that it would be a good idea to put the smoke machine on its side on top of my amp, which wouldn't have been so bad if my amp hadn't being lying face down, so the fog fluid all ended up inside my combo head!!!!!!! which i didn't discover until we unloaded last night at the practice hall so it had had about 18 hours to work its way inside my amp. (any tips to deal with it would be welcome)

they want us to go back up there and do another gig but think we'll leave it a while.
it's a long way to go to play to 20 people.

[Kiwi]

We came, we played, we funked Marbella's ass.

We played the Flamingoes Spa and Golf Resort in Estepona, just west of Marbella on Sunday. The event was a jewish wedding and we were the finale to a 5 day event which began with the marriage ceremony on Wednesday. Getting there was a nightmare however.

The rest of the band arrived on Friday and I flew out by myself on Saturday from Gatwick. The plane was late leaving the terminal because of congestion on the runway. Our flight joined a queue of about 9 planes waiting to take off in between a similar number that were landing. Finally we got into the air an hour after boarding but 20 mins into the flight the Captain announced we had to turn back because of an instrumentation problem. Apparently there was a Gatwick engineer on board the plane and he could do anything to help the situation either. So over northern France we turned around and flew back towards Brighton when the Captain then announced that we couldn't land yet because the weight of fuel on board took us over our safe landing limit. So instead we were going to fly around for a bit until we'd lost enough fuel to lighten the plane enough. Cue groans from the passengers on board.

45 mins later landed under close supervision of two 4WD Emergency vehicles and a fully prepped and staffed fire engine came in and inspected the underside of the plane after we pulled up at the terminal. About 15mins later the Captain advised us that they were going to transfer us to a spare 737-400 they had and were waiting for buses to arrive. That was remarkably well organised but it was too good to be true as they also told us that they didn't have time to move the food over to the new plane. Basically they needed a catering truck to shift the trolleys over and things were being run on such a no frills way that there was no time to get another catering truck over. Some of us offered to carry the sandwiches over with us but the crew didn't take us seriously.

So, off we get and onto a couple of buses that take us to the replacement plane after the security cabin checks have been carried out.


We take off again and this time we manage to make it to Malaga - 3 hours late, damned hungry but at least I didn't have to get back to the terminal and try to book another flight. So anyway, my driver has been waiting at the airport for three hours and when I see him, he's not one bit grumpy despite the fact his only job this weekend is to collect me. What a star! So we get to the hotel, wherein they book me into the wrong room because there are a number of bookings under the clients name. I call the percussionist and he tells me the name of the villa we're in and I get shifted over to where the rest of boys are. The girls have their own separate villa a couple of doors down from us.



Finally I get to relax! I shower, rehydrate again and organise myself then call the percussionist again to organise where to meet up. We were all supposed to meet up at the flat but they've gone on ahead without me to Peurto Banus, which is a bit of a Port Solent on the Med type development. But there are Ferraris and Lamborghinis instead of Nissan Skyline GTS's and souped up Citroen Saxo's



We arrange to meet up at a restaurant but they don't know where the place, so I jump in a taxi and go down there in the hope its somewhere near the main drag. However I can't find them and, given its 9pm and I haven't eaten since 5am I decide to get something to eat. So I grab a table in a restaurant with a decent view and enjoy a fresh sea bass and a glass of chilled white.



Eventually the percussionist calls me to find out where I am and tell me where to meet them. Turns out the restaurant is set well back from the main street and I'd never be able to find it unless I was looking specifically for it. But anyway, I manage to find it and meet the rest of the guys.



Much sangria, champagne and assorted meats are had and the stresses of the day finally melt away! We get to bed around 1am.

After a mountainous breakfast the following morning, we have a quick rehearsal in the boys villa and then make our way to the venue after lugging the gear over to hotel reception. The venue is 10mins drive up the hill from us but we have to take a coach there because of the heat and we have a load of heavy gear to take.



We unpack the gear and take it into the ballroom where we're playing.


[i]Here we come,
a-walkin down the street...[/i]

[Kiwi]

Eventually we get everything set up. I have been given an Ampeg B4 and I don't discover until later on in the gig that the cabs are impedance mismatched. The 2x10 is 8ohm and the 1x15 is 4 ohm with the effect that I keep turning up the 1x15 so I can hear myself through the 2x10!


I look happy enough here during sound check, only because what I'm thinking is the sound coming out of the 2x10 is actually being projected past my ankles by the 1x15 and bounced back at me from the other end of the room!! Result being that I'm providing a low end onslaught into the audience but barely able to hear myself above the drums on stage. Unfortunately I don't actually discover this until the end of the first set but unplug the 1x15 completely and everything is fine after that.

The first number we do is a Hora medley prior to dinner where I can't hear myself or the keyboards and so end up playing as quiet and as staccato as I can so the bass ends up sounding like root fifth thumps rather than notes so the impact of me playing out of key is minimised.



Our percussionist is by the sound desk and he doesn't notice me playing any wrong notes so the strategy worked!!!


Pris and I doing Paul McCartney's 'Calico Skies', she sung this beautifully. The first set was better than the Hora medley not because I could hear myself any better (even after angling the 2x10 at me a little more) but because the songs are more familiar and I can play them just on fingering. We seemed to be going down well but the organisers kept distracting the punters with more food and coffee and stuff so we never got a core of dancers on the floor settled in for the first set.



Because the speeches went on too long (as they ALWAYS do) we took a reduced break out the front. The girls still ended up singing 'More Than Words' over Tim's guitar during their break! The machine never stops .

Second set gets cut back by three songs and we still run 15 mins over. The crowd by this time are finally free of distractions and are nicely warmed up three songs from the end. When we play the final number 'We Are Family' they cheer and yell for an encore but the venue manager tells us no more. So we set the crowd against the manager and while the manager is discussing things with the client we decide we might as well play an encore anyway while we wait for them to make up their minds. The encore is Aretha's "Think" which goes down a storm (Asya REALLY nails this one every time) and that provides the perfect finish to a night that started off poorly for me because of monitoring issues but got better as we found our feet.

The clients are overwhelmed and can't thank us enough, bish bosh, job done. With the contacts we've made over there, and how well we went down, I anticipate we'll be doing a load more gigs in Marbella. The organiser had even arranged her own video crew to film us for a promotional DVD for the rest of her clients.


The stage looks good dressed


Me in full combat fatigues.

[dave_bass5]

Fantastic gig, even with the problems earlier on in the day. Beats playing a WMC in east London.

Thanks for posting the pics as well. How the other half live eh?

[lowdown]

Well Steve....
If you ever need a dep over there...[Next time the flight f...ks up]
I should be living there by this time next year.
Things in early planning stages at the moment
But looking good.

So it will be shorts and T-shirts all year round for me ,

Garry

[Kiwi]

[quote name='lowdown' post='225649' date='Jun 24 2008, 09:32 AM']Well Steve....
If you ever need a dep over there...[Next time the flight f...ks up]
I should be living there by this time next year.
Things in early planning stages at the moment
But looking good.[/quote]
Good luck with that. Construction cranes were rarely out of sight regardless of where we were so there's a lot of development going on by the looks of it. However, I was having a chat to the videographer and she was telling me that she has to compete with spanish crews who do things on the cheap.

So for her at least, it doesn't seem to be the cash cow she was hoping for, despite all the development there. The strength of the euro means that the pound sterling doesn't stretch as far as it used to.

[lowdown]

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='225726' date='Jun 24 2008, 10:47 AM']So for her at least, it doesn't seem to be the cash cow she was hoping for, despite all the development there. The strength of the euro means that the pound sterling doesn't stretch as far as it used to.[/quote]

Thats True.

But we purchased about 5 years ago.So i do not have to worry about that side of things.
And we will be earning Euros , it will be the other way around for me.
Another factor for me, is that i have 3 & 1/2 year old lad...
And i fancy bringing him up in elsewhere.

Its amazing how many Brits i have met , who have made a bulls up of the Spanish Thing .
Bad Business planning, Buying propeties to rent out with big mortgages [when there are so may of them around]
And now can not sell because of the currency thing, and the Housing market problem over here.

Garry

[WalMan]

Good one tonight. Two guitars - well actually 3 as the landlady's son who is ?10? brought his guitars down while we were setting up and had a little play through Mike Boogie combo and then spent the whole of the evening on "stage" with us playing along (not plugged in I hasten to add. He got the biggest cheer of the night when Steve introduced the band

Chucked in a couple of new ones including one that Max & Mike had worked out harmonies for in the week and firmed up on quietly before the gig.

Nice noisy crowd, whose collective jaws dropped when the guitarists went into a harmony tapping thing in the newest number.

Funniest moment of the night. Max & Mike working through a new G'n'R song beforehand with small boy watching & he pipes up "you're playing that in the wrong key"

Now then lets just hope I don't wake up crippled tomorrow!!

[steantval]

I was not gigging myself last night but went to see the Journey gig at Nottingham.

Man, I was completely blown away, the gig was awesome.

This was the first chance I have had to see them having been a fan since their inception.

The new singer/frontman has a voice exactly like the original vocalist Steve Perry who was with the band in their earlier days.

One hour and forty minutes of real class musicianship with CD quality live sound from the superb PA.

HAS ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE MANAGED TO SEE THEM ON THIS 2008 UK TOUR?

[Alun]

Bit of an odd one last night - a regular jazz night in a local pub/Thai restaurant but with a couple of big private functions in there too for good measure who didn't necessarily plan on listening to jazz and Lain but seemed to quite enjoy it.

A woman came up at the start and asked if we did requests to which our sax player/bandleader said we could if he knew it and asked what song she wanted. She then looked about baffled and said "oh, I'm not sure"

Cheers
Alun

[tonybassplayer]

Friday night and after the mad dash from work we played high above Holmfirth at the Huntsman Hotel at the Shepley School Summer Ball.

As the evening moved forward it looked like a late starter as the audience were having a full three courser followed by raffles etc so we re- arranged the set over free drinks and food ( a nice touch ) and hit the stage at 10.30

Two bars in to Valerie and the dancers hit the floor and stayed there for over an hour and forty minutes. Valerie has recently become our opening song and is going down brilliant. We play a version similar to the Amy Winehouse one and let the drums go round a few times then bass next and so on. It makes for an easy and stress free start to the gig as the intro can just keep playing until the singer starts.

A cracking gig with a brilliant audience. By the last song ( Do You Love Me from Dirty Dancing ) there wasn't a single person in the room not on the dance floor.

Love gigs like these.

[attachment=10108:shepley.jpg]

[jakenewmanbass]

I had 2, one was for Robert Wilson who owns JBL, Taylor and Harman amongst others, now [i]there's[/i] a guy who lost money to Sound Control.
The second was depping (again) for fellow BCr Carlosfandango. Function in a tent, nice place, great crowd, fantastic drummer, good night all told.