How was your gig last night?

[Raymondo]

I used to love The Rigger when I lived in N-U-L .great bands late night opening, pool tables and rubbish beer...what's not to like😜

I also liked the small Bass ( as in the ale not the instrument 😉) pub on the road towards Stoke ...is it called The Victoria? 

Saw some fabulous bands there ..Elvis Fontenot and the sugar Bees were always a good laugh!

[51m0n]

First time playing The Lewes Con Club, in fact first time I had been there. Really nice venue, great sound guy (totally got what we needed monitor-wise and dealt with the larger than standard line up with ease). Initial thoughts as we walked in were oooh this is maybe a tad big for us given that we haven't done more than a couple of little charidee festivals in Lewes before. Punters are kept nicely hidden away during soundcheck, though to the point where we really thought we might be playing to an empty room (oh dear). Needn't have worried though, punters allowed in to the main room 10 minutes before we went on, had 3 rows of people dancing for 2 hours solid, and the room full to the back and the bar area well occupied. Sold decent amounts of merch after the gig too. Had a complete blast and am frankly still buzzing about the whole thing

 

BTW E.P. is here if anyone wants to have a listen:-
https://mistersuperjuice.bandcamp.com/releases

Edited October 3, 2018 by 51m0n

[dontregartha]

On 25/09/2018 at 09:07, radiophonic said:

 In fact - just in case the various bass players wanted different stage positions - he had two of them. One each side of the drums. 

Choice of positions? its a question of where the f can you fit once the drummer, the percussion and the keys man have staked their claim!!
(Serves me right for doing the right thing and setting up the PA)

We do have a call sheet that goes...

6.30 Backdrop, lights and PA

7.30 Backline

8.00 Soundcheck

9.00 showtime

...one of our dep keys starts loading in the Rick Wakeman rig whilst I'm cabling out the PA and monitors... not my favourite guy.

[Les]

Short notice jam night, house band. Drummer I'd never played with who organised it to fill for the regular house band, guitarist out of my band and a singer I'd played with before but only when he was on drums. Cracking night.

Landlady.... I'll ring you tomorrow and book you for a Sunday night

Drummer..... errr  ok

Landlady..... how long have you been a band ?

Drummer..... about twenty five minutes.

😂

 

[casapete]

Just got back from my monthly gig at a local pub, playing country rock stuff. Good crowd in, some having eaten there earlier,  plenty of requests and a full dance floor. All in all a good night.

However, the landlord had a word with us earlier on, saying he was leaving before Christmas due to not being able to make anywhere a decent living from the pub. Apparently the breweries encourage incoming tenants with discounted rents for maybe a year, after which the charges soar and landlords get scared and quit. This results in a constant changing of people running the establishment, with lack of continuity and building of a long term identity and reputation. In these challenging times, it’s no wonder pubs are closing . We’re just hoping if a new person is found to take on the pub that they will continue to feature live music as part of their business plan. I’m not holding my breath....

[Muzz]

9 hours ago, Les said:

Short notice jam night, house band. Drummer I'd never played with who organised it to fill for the regular house band, guitarist out of my band and a singer I'd played with before but only when he was on drums. Cracking night.

Landlady.... I'll ring you tomorrow and book you for a Sunday night

Drummer..... errr  ok

Landlady..... how long have you been a band ?

Drummer..... about twenty five minutes.

😂

 

Wouldn't have been the Half Moon with Graham, would it? We were supposed to be doing that one, but singist/guitard had a late work commitment...it's good down there, tho we got bounced from a double-booking the other Sunday, so keep the landlord/lady, erm, focussed 😕🙂. We're back there on the 21st...

[Les]

55 minutes ago, Muzz said:

Wouldn't have been the Half Moon with Graham

It was 😃 what band are you in Muzz ?

[Muzz]

Noel Fraser's band(s). We were down there a couple of weeks ago for the jam hosted by The Lottery Winners* - Noel lives round the corner. I was in a band with Graham decades ago when he was mainly a drummer. 

 

* And man, what a talented bunch they are...

[Witters]

Great fun at the ABBA gig last night.  Rehearsals were the hard part, I thought my hands weren’t going to last the night (I’m not used to bass in a gig situation, haven’t gigged bass in years!)

When the band was announced we had to walk down the aisle, effectively, through 300 screaming teenage girls to get to our “stage” - six feet of space at the front of hall.  Now I know how the Beatles felt....well, just a little.

Ive played in cramped spaces before but this was crazy!  Two music stands just in front of me and two inches in front of those.....dancing, singing, screaming girls.  So glad I’d memorised most of the parts as the stands went flying at one point.

What a blast!  Great fun!  I was very impressed with the girls behaviour and support of each other, nothing like state school.  The house that was nominated to tidy up cheered when they were chosen!  No complaints, very polite, very respectful, very loud!

The TC Electronic BH250 and Eden cab were great, and both basses sound fab and quite different from each other. The Peavey Grind Six string was quite warm and the J&D jazz bass (purchased from BC) with the NYXL light gauge strings and low action seemed to growl, but I did hit quite hard.

That particular scratch band has been asked back to play another school “do” sometime next year.  Works for me!

[Bluewine]

How's this, no gig last night, no gig tonight. Not good, not good at all. Very depressing for me.

No gigs until the end of the month. We're fortunate to have a 2 gig Holloween weekend.

Blue

 

[lurksalot]

Bit of a downer tonight 

at the soundcheck I ask the guitar to turn his rhythm crunch down a bit , lead as loud as he likes, But to leave some room for the vocal. 

It used to be a constant bone of contention when we had a rhythm guitarist  but since he left there seems to have been less loudness wars ....until tonight. 

Sulking and stropping and a lack of concentration, he really let the side down, yet made out it was my fault for picking on his volume . 

Its gigs like this that make me consider jacking it in , I have got plenty of visiting , partying and days away I can do instead of putting up with this stinky poo. 

Its what caused the hiatus when the other guitar left , we all assumed it was over but clawed it back and while the last 2 years have been great , I won't be trying too hard to pull it back again this time around ☹️

[Les]

2 hours ago, Bluewine said:

No gigs until the end of the month

How come Blue ? Band holidays or just slack work wise ?

Les

[Witters]

6 hours ago, lurksalot said:

Bit of a downer tonight 

at the soundcheck I ask the guitar to turn his rhythm crunch down a bit , lead as loud as he likes, But to leave some room for the vocal. 

It used to be a constant bone of contention when we had a rhythm guitarist  but since he left there seems to have been less loudness wars ....until tonight. 

Sulking and stropping and a lack of concentration, he really let the side down, yet made out it was my fault for picking on his volume . 

Its gigs like this that make me consider jacking it in , I have got plenty of visiting , partying and days away I can do instead of putting up with this stinky poo. 

Its what caused the hiatus when the other guitar left , we all assumed it was over but clawed it back and while the last 2 years have been great , I won't be trying too hard to pull it back again this time around ☹️

Sorry to hear that but it does sound familiar.  Our singer is the same.  He complains he can’t hear himself (he plays harmonica too) but  according to the punters he’s the loudest.  Maybe it’s time to take some time away or find a new guitarist?

[Graham]

Last night was excellent, we had a dep singer, so went out under another name. 

The singer is a pro musician so just dropped in and played almost perfectly, hopefully there'll be some photos uploaded soon.

Plus, my temperemental amp behaved all night which was great. After just using wedges for so long, it was a bit odd to have the bass come from behind, rather than infront of me. It's nice to use an amp to monitor sometimes, as it does sound better than the PA, even if the footprint and weight usually don't justify it.

[lurksalot]

1 hour ago, Witters said:

Sorry to hear that but it does sound familiar.  Our singer is the same.  He complains he can’t hear himself (he plays harmonica too) but  according to the punters he’s the loudest.  Maybe it’s time to take some time away or find a new guitarist?

I'm probably just a bit wound up, but I was at a funeral the day before and returned the 200 miles on the morning of the gig when I could have had the weekend with family I don't see very often. 

It kind of brings into focus how many invites I turn down through band commitments and I am close to a tipping point. 

I'll see how this Fridays gig works out and make the call next weekend I reckon.

[12stringbassist]

Guitarists can be replaced.

[Bluewine]

16 hours ago, Les said:

How come Blue ? Band holidays or just slack work wise ?

Les

Less and less places to play and some of the places we use to play couldn't afford our new fee.

Only good thing, we're playing less but making more money. The summer was fantastic.

 

Blue

[peteb]

3 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

Guitarists can be replaced.

So can bass players

[FinnDave]

Fairly average gig last night, had some friends in the audience who think we are great, but I know we've played better nights. My tolerance for self-important guitarists is getting less and less all the time. Last night, we had a lead guitarist who a few minutes before start time found he hadn't got a strap (cue frantic search for a spare strap among our gear) then his amp & cab weren't plugged in, then his lead was too short... OK, we're all looking at you, you got the attention you're after - can we play now, please?

Funny thing was that the self same guitarist played really well after that.

I just don't think that that level of faffing about is worth suffering for a 40 quid gig.

Edited October 7, 2018 by FinnDave

[lurksalot]

4 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

Guitarists can be replaced.

 

46 minutes ago, peteb said:

So can bass players

I'm not looking at personell changes particularly, I have just come to think that I have a lot I can do on a weekend that the band now has to compete with , whereas before I just had a pretty open diary for the band . 

Replacing the bass player would also mean them getting a PA, learning how to use it, getting bigger cars to carry it, investing in a lighting set up and learning how to use it 😇

[Les]

14 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Less and less places to play and some of the places we use to play couldn't afford our new fee.

We put our fees up this year for new venues and are bringing our regular venues in line with it for  next year. So far only had one refusal. Interestingly we have one left to do at this place in about 2 weeks so I suppose it's up to us to change their mind. 

[cheddatom]

Friday night in Derby. We were on first out off 3 bands. The 2nd band on let me use his drum kit and it was very nice. It's a great venue with great gear! Unfortunately we didn't get much of a sound-check as about 10 minutes was spent swapping our guitarists jack leads before the soundman finally replaced his dodgy XLR into the DI, and then about 20 minutes sweeping the parametric EQ on every channel. I'd asked for no vocals, just a bit of guitar in my monitor. I got the opposite, but once you're playing there's not a lot you can do about it, especially for a short 30 minute set. Anyway, we went down OK

Saturday night we played in Wroot. This is a bit of an unusual setup, a village hall type venue, lots of people have travelled for an all day "festival" and we were on last. I think we played an hour and 40 minutes. We went down a storm, but then a lot of the crowd already knew us so it's kind of easy.

Sunday night in Accrington. We've done this gig a few times now. It's a room at the back of a pub, loads of tables and chairs, and not many people. Those that were there were wasted. It's always the same, and usually the combination of stinky poo gig and moaning band members grinds me right down, but for some reason everyone was in a good mood! So we enjoyed it and played well and had a great night despite the slightly underwhelming audience. 

[martthebass]

10 minutes ago, cheddatom said:

 

Saturday night we played in Wroot. This is a bit of an unusual setup, a village hall type venue, lots of people have travelled for an all day "festival" and we were on last. I think we played an hour and 40 minutes. We went down a storm, but then a lot of the crowd already knew us so it's kind of easy.

 

Is that Wroot near Finningly?  Let me know when you're next local, if it's not a gig night I'll try and catch you guys.

[cheddatom]

10 minutes ago, martthebass said:

Is that Wroot near Finningly?  Let me know when you're next local, if it's not a gig night I'll try and catch you guys.

Yeh, it's this thing Wroot Rocks (if you're on FB) https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Live-Music-Venue/WROOT-ROCKS-1933096200242142/

I think it's all part of this Folk-Punk-Festival scene that seems to roam around Nottingham but sometimes further afield. I'll try and remember, cheers!

[Unknown_User]

Had two this weekend, which is a rarity.  Played a pub ten minutes walk from my house on Friday, so took the new preamp pedal I made in order to go through the PA and not have to use my amp.  It worked a treat, meaning I was able to walk instead of drive and have a few jars during/afterwards.  So I enjoyed that one, although my fingers were killing me the next day from having carried my heavy bass case all the way home.  Swings and roundabouts I guess!

Last night's was good, but I spent five minutes in a mad panic when we were setting up.  I wasn't getting any signal when I put my guitar through my tuner.  I borrowed some leads from the guitarist to make sure it wasn't that.  Nothing.  Damn it!  Why was it not working?  It switched on ok...  Then I noticed I'd put the guitar jack in the output socket and wired the amp up to the input. 

"Is everything ok?"

"Yeah, don't know what was up but it's working now.  Must have been a dodgy connection or something..."