How was your gig last night?

[Callumjord]

3 hours ago, mcnach said:

I had a gig last night at a venue out of town (Aberdeen) where they have decent equipment, so this time I did not bring my own in order to make transport easy (we're an 8-piece). I had played there once before, and I used my own gear that time, as it was a weekend of gigs for which I already had my stuff.

They had a Hiwatt 200 tube head and matching 810 cab onstage.

I like 810s. I like how with relatively low volumes you still 'feel' the air moving. But I struggled to get a sound I liked out of that thing. I had to turn down the bass a lot and boost treble and mids... so I suspect this is much like the Orange Terror heads where flat is mids&treble all the way up and bass all the way down. But even then... it felt far too woofy. I guess if we were a dub band I might have liked it better... 

I missed the sound of my Mesa D800+ and the two Barefaced Two10 stacked vertically. That's what I used last time, and I could still feel the air moving but it sounded great, powerful, defined... well, at least when the trombone player allowed me. He likes my setup a lot and often just stands in front of the mini stack, smiling, playing his trombone while humping an invisible bear   

Where abouts in Aberdeen was you playing? 

[Maude]

The Dastardlys had a storming night last night at The Thistle Park in Plymouth. They had moved the stage since last time to kind of 45° in a corner, so with drummer in the corner and us in front we all had a decent space for a pub. People up dancing from the off and by the end the whole place was pumping and the dancefloor packed. Ended up playing about 20 minutes of encores as the crowd were so up for it and cheering so much we felt obliged. Nights like that make this job a joy to do. 

First of the scooter rallies next week, looking for to it after last night 

[Bluewine]

10 hours ago, Graham said:

Had two this weekend, Friday was a wedding in Dorking, nice crowd apart from the obligatory drunk member of the wedding party who demanded we play "just one more song" whilst we're packing up. There's always one. The venue was very attractive, but wasn't brilliant for bass frequencies, had worse though.

Saturday was a yacht club in Chichester, it was an older, well-off crowd who danced all night, we adjusted the set-list to suit, kept the volume down and they loved it. I was really happy with my playing too, absolutely nailed the solos and fills.

Overall a succesful, if tiring, weekend.

Sounds like my kind of weekend.

Nice!

Blue

[BrunoBass]

9 hours ago, FinnDave said:

Certainly seemed that way last night, and they were enjoying themselves, not checking to see who was watching them. They were great fun to play for, hope they'll be there next time too!

We had the same at a pub gig in Northampton. A bunch of Poles (I assume, they were definitely Eastern European but could’ve been from any amount of countries) came in and livened up what had been a fairly reserved crowd up until then, they danced and sang and never sat down. A pity they can’t come to every gig.

[rushscored4]

2 hours ago, BrunoBass said:

We had the same at a pub gig in Northampton. A bunch of Poles (I assume, they were definitely Eastern European but could’ve been from any amount of countries) came in and livened up what had been a fairly reserved crowd up until then, they danced and sang and never sat down. A pity they can’t come to every gig.

Pole dancers?! 

[mcnach]

6 hours ago, Callumjord said:

Where abouts in Aberdeen was you playing? 

 

Krakatoa, formerly The Moorings.

I love the place. Cool and helpful sound guy, and my girlfriend was there and she remarked on the good sound he got on the front... if all the venues worked as nicely as this one!

[Mickeyboro]

Thank you lovetheblues for liking a post I made before in this thread.... back in 2007! I love Basschat.

No surprise that I have completely forgotten that gig.

[Graham]

14 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Sounds like my kind of weekend.

Nice!

Blue

I actual thought of you during Saturday's gig, as we did a Beatles song immediately followed by a Rolling Stones one 😁

[irvined]

Hi,

 

We played at the TAP Social in Botley Oxford on Saturday night.

A great venue and they had a fish and chip van too.

They brew their own beer and have a gluten free pint available too.

Lots of punters dancing so they enjoyed it.

 

Regards,

 

Doug

 

 

[FinnDave]

5 minutes ago, irvined said:

Hi,

 

We played at the TAP Social in Botley Oxford on Saturday night.

A great venue and they had a fish and chip van too.

They brew their own beer and have a gluten free pint available too.

Lots of punters dancing so they enjoyed it.

 

Regards,

 

Doug

 

 

I played there a couple of times last year, very friendly bunch, good place to play. 

[Callumjord]

11 hours ago, mcnach said:

 

Krakatoa, formerly The Moorings.

I love the place. Cool and helpful sound guy, and my girlfriend was there and she remarked on the good sound he got on the front... if all the venues worked as nicely as this one!

Yeah, that's a great place, had many nights out there. Great atmosphere, I've been trying to get some gigs for my covers band through in Aberdeen but it's proven to be pretty difficult. Either the pubs/bars want acoustic song writers or original acts and competing against the local bigger Aberdeen cover bands is a bit of a nightmare 

[irvined]

Yeah it was great night and the proprietors said some nice things.

 

Regards,

 

Doug

[cheddatom]

On Thursday we played at The Sugarmill which is a fairly big club in Stoke. It was rammed, about 300 in there. Our set was shorter than expected (supporting a bigger band) and I had to set up my drum kit to the side so it was all a bit cramped. We played some new songs and there were some mistakes. Honestly I thought we were crap, in particular me. The next day I watched some footage back and I couldn't spot any mistakes at all, and it looked great! Weird

On Friday we played at The Maze in Nottingham. I got very annoyed with the soundman who wouldn't listen to me resulting in quiet and distorted lead vocals. Despite that it was loads of fun and we played really well. The other bands were great too! I met @PaulWarning who's got a brilliant sound for Verbal Warning! 

[PaulWarning]

1 minute ago, cheddatom said:

On Thursday we played at The Sugarmill which is a fairly big club in Stoke. It was rammed, about 300 in there. Our set was shorter than expected (supporting a bigger band) and I had to set up my drum kit to the side so it was all a bit cramped. We played some new songs and there were some mistakes. Honestly I thought we were crap, in particular me. The next day I watched some footage back and I couldn't spot any mistakes at all, and it looked great! Weird

On Friday we played at The Maze in Nottingham. I got very annoyed with the soundman who wouldn't listen to me resulting in quiet and distorted lead vocals. Despite that it was loads of fun and we played really well. The other bands were great too! I met @PaulWarning who's got a brilliant sound for Verbal Warning! 

yes, it's always surprising how mistakes seem to really stand out when they happen, but nobody else seems to notice them them

[steantval]

12 hours ago, mcnach said:

 

Krakatoa, formerly The Moorings.

I love the place. Cool and helpful sound guy, and my girlfriend was there and she remarked on the good sound he got on the front... if all the venues worked as nicely as this one!

Is that East of Java ?

[rushscored4]

3 hours ago, Graham said:

I actual thought of you during Saturday's gig, as we did a Beatles song immediately followed by a Rolling Stones one 😁

Same at our gig on Saturday... 'I Saw Her Standing There' followed by an impromptu rendition of 'Brown Sugar'...! 

[radiophonic]

50 minutes ago, cheddatom said:

On Friday we played at The Maze in Nottingham. I got very annoyed with the soundman who wouldn't listen to me resulting in quiet and distorted lead vocals. Despite that it was loads of fun and we played really well. The other bands were great too! I met @PaulWarning who's got a brilliant sound for Verbal Warning! 

Getting annoyed at the sound-man at The Maze is definitely 'a thing'. If its the guy I think it is, he's an asshat of the first order. It's a shame because the venue itself is an asset.

[cheddatom]

Just now, radiophonic said:

Getting annoyed at the sound-man at The Maze is definitely 'a thing'. If its the guy I think it is, he's an asshat of the first order. It's a shame because the venue itself is an asset.

Yeh, I was telling Paul, once the headline band had an inaudible bass. Our guitarist asked the soundman to turn it up and he shouted F OFF at him

[radiophonic]

Just now, cheddatom said:

Yeh, I was telling Paul, once the headline band had an inaudible bass. Our guitarist asked the soundman to turn it up and he shouted F OFF at him

I've has to deal with him running the drum monitor at full blast, despite us not having a drum kit. Life's too short and I'd never book anything there. I'd rather play the Chameleon - the sound in there can be excellent.

[cheddatom]

1 hour ago, radiophonic said:

I've has to deal with him running the drum monitor at full blast, despite us not having a drum kit. Life's too short and I'd never book anything there. I'd rather play the Chameleon - the sound in there can be excellent.

There are two sound guys and the other one is fine. This one is just really hard work. Our singer has a vocal effects pedal. He's a loud singer so I keep the input gain right down on it. The soundman cranked up the input gain on the pedal to the point of distortion, so I shouted "that's distorting, I'll turn it down" and did. He came back to the stage and rather angrily told us to stop messing with his settings, and put the gain back up. I was on drums and it was time to get the set going so I couldn't do anything else. Our frontman kept begging him to put more vocals in the monitor but either he realised that he'd got so much distortion that it would just feed back, or more likely just decided that we were an annoying band, either way he just sat there on his phone ignoring us

[rushscored4]

2 minutes ago, cheddatom said:

There are two sound guys and the other one is fine. This one is just really hard work. Our singer has a vocal effects pedal. He's a loud singer so I keep the input gain right down on it. The soundman cranked up the input gain on the pedal to the point of distortion, so I shouted "that's distorting, I'll turn it down" and did. He came back to the stage and rather angrily told us to stop messing with his settings, and put the gain back up. I was on drums and it was time to get the set going so I couldn't do anything else. Our frontman kept begging him to put more vocals in the monitor but either he realised that he'd got so much distortion that it would just feed back, or more likely just decided that we were an annoying band, either way he just sat there on his phone ignoring us

There's a guy like that at McCooley's which is a massive Irish bar in Concert Square, Liverpool. You have to use the house PA which isn't great but even worse most of their cables are knackered and they won't let you use your own. Rather than throw them away he just puts them back in a storage cupboard rammed full of other knackered cables so you've no idea which ones you've already tried and have to go through the same laborious process of elimination every time you play there.

When you tell him the sound is terrible he just shrugs his shoulders as if to say, "what's it got to do with me?"...!! 

[KevB]

On 08/04/2018 at 11:39, peteb said:

 

Last night was a tiny pub in Cleckheaton, squashed into a little alcove (see second pic below). We played a lot better than the night before, but the pub was pretty quiet and not the most appreciative audience I’ve ever played to. We did a couple of slow blues in the first set (rather nicely I thought) to the sound of tumbleweed drifting through the bar! First set mainly notable for some blonde coming onto the “stage” in the middle of a song to ask me if I was married!

The second set picked up a bit and we had a group of 40 something women up dancing to the last three or four tunes, including a girl called ‘Kaff’ (I had to ask if her name was spelt with one or two ‘f’s).

All in all, the weekend was not the highlight of my musical career. But we got paid and had a laugh and we’ll do it all again next weekend (but with a different band for me and hopefully different audiences).

 

I grew up in Cleckheaton (though I've not lived there for over 30 yrs) and get up there from time to time to see family. That looks very much like the Old House At Home. We're a tough audience in Cleck yknow ;-)

[rushscored4]

1 hour ago, KevB said:

I grew up in Cleckheaton (though I've not lived there for over 30 yrs) and get up there from time to time to see family. That looks very much like the Old House At Home. We're a tough audience in Cleck yknow ;-)

Shouldn't that be "we're a tough audience in Cleck tha knows..."?! 

[peteb]

2 hours ago, KevB said:

I grew up in Cleckheaton (though I've not lived there for over 30 yrs) and get up there from time to time to see family. That looks very much like the Old House At Home. We're a tough audience in Cleck yknow ;-)

It is indeed the Old House At Home. I'm guessing that it hasn't changed much in 30 years?? 

[KevB]

Very little Pete, though it wasn't one of my regular haunts back then and my cousin worked behind the bar there for a while. I sometimes call in when I'm up visiting family as its one of the very few pubs in town still doing live music, the other main one is the Station tavern near tescos. If you are ever in Cleck with the rock band I'd def try to call in.