How was your gig last night?

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited March 4, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[stewblack]

Fantastic gig in the garden of a city centre pub. Lots of dancing and cheering, band on fire, relaxed and happy to be playing with one another, a truly awesome band with lots of love, wise old heads and no ego problems at all.

No stars for the venue; got made to sit and wait cluttering the garden with all our gear (we're a seven piece) while the support (a duo) played right up to ten minutes before we went on. By which time it was dark, no lights other than stage lights we had brought. By the time the guys had shifted their stuff out of the way we had no time to set up properly. I politely suggested that twice now they've done this and might it be better to let us set up then the duo can just play in front of our gear.

Seems my experience and advice wasn't welcome. Ho hum.

Oh and I got paid £15.

So basically we were there to entertain and keep the pub's customers, so it could make money off us. Should be a two way thing but there it is. Luckily that at least covered my expenses and I do love the band, so I put up with it. Again.

[taunton-hobbit]

I think I'd tell the pub (politely) to shove it if they try and take the wee wee again.............

😎

[dmccombe7]

Had a wee support gig for friends Status Quo tribute band who were back together after few yrs off.

Not a huge venue. Doors open at 7pm we started at 7:30 with a reasonable crowd who were extremely enthusiastic after every song. As the set progressed more and more people came downstairs from the bar area and it was about 60-70% full by time we finished. 

Couldn't believe the applause and cheering after every single song. Not bad for a support band in a wee downstairs club in Glasgow. Finished our set 8:30, packed up, changed (Glam Rock covers band) and on the road by 9pm. Home by 10pm. 

That was a nice wee easy gig. Used their bass rig (TE rig) and their drums. PA was in house with an engineer who knew his stuff and did a good job for both bands. 

Dave

[stewblack]

2 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Had a wee support gig for friends Status Quo tribute band who were back together after few yrs off.

Not a huge venue. Doors open at 7pm we started at 7:30 with a reasonable crowd who were extremely enthusiastic after every song. As the set progressed more and more people came downstairs from the bar area and it was about 60-70% full by time we finished. 

Couldn't believe the applause and cheering after every single song. Not bad for a support band in a wee downstairs club in Glasgow. Finished our set 8:30, packed up, changed (Glam Rock covers band) and on the road by 9pm. Home by 10pm. 

That was a nice wee easy gig. Used their bass rig (TE rig) and their drums. PA was in house with an engineer who knew his stuff and did a good job for both bands. 

Dave

I played an underground gig on Glasgow way back when. What was the venue? Wonder if it was the same one 

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, stewblack said:

I played an underground gig on Glasgow way back when. What was the venue? Wonder if it was the same one 

Note Firewater on Sauchiehall Street?

We went there before seeing Phil Campbell at the garage last November. It's got a basement venue.

[Rich]

Second on the bill last night at the Phoenix Festival in Cirencester. Fantastic event, superbly organised, massive stage, huuuge PA and a great engineer... He's the  partner of one of our singers, always gets us a great sound and he loves the sound of my Sire bass... I was so loud in the mix they could probably hear me in Swindon

And to cap it all, a big crowd up and dancing like mad eejits from the first note. And the beer tent was amazing. God I love outdoor gigs in the summer 😎

[12stringbassist]

Played last night near Wigan.

I literally pulled myself out of the house to play on the Saturday. I usually am like a coiled spring waiting to get out and get to it, but I hadn't been well all week. My throat had been a real mess, I was coughing up things that stood a fairly good chance in a fight with Doctor Who and sneezing all night and I was really uncomfortable. I had a semblance of a voice on the Saturday morning, so we didn't cancel. I didn't even tell the band all week how utterly sick and dreadful I was feeling all week, nor at the gig. I struggled through the gig and missed a lot of notes as my voice would crack and give up on the way to them. The punters didn't seem to notice or care.

There would some quite pointed complaints from our guitarist about my bass volume in the second half, which doesn't seem excessive on the bits of video I have seen - but he isn't saying it for effect. It looks like there is a problem. I was quite upset about this and it was the straw that broke the camel's back for my confidence.

I am obviously not hearing things properly if my bass is 'taking over'. My hearing is quite damaged.

Should I carry on doing this if I am not hearing what the overall sound balance is like? If I don't get 'my sound' (the appropriate tone for my playing that makes me happy) from my amplifier without it being too loud, then it's really time I stopped doing this. I'm going to see what happens over the next few gigs and make a decision. Once I make it, I will stick to it.

[stewblack]

5 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

Played last night near Wigan.

I literally pulled myself out of the house to play on the Saturday. I usually am like a coiled spring waiting to get out and get to it, but I hadn't been well all week. My throat had been a real mess, I was coughing up things that stood a fairly good chance in a fight with Doctor Who and sneezing all night and I was really uncomfortable. I had a semblance of a voice on the Saturday morning, so we didn't cancel. I didn't even tell the band all week how utterly sick and dreadful I was feeling all week, nor at the gig. I struggled through the gig and missed a lot of notes as my voice would crack and give up on the way to them. The punters didn't seem to notice or care.

There would some quite pointed complaints from our guitarist about my bass volume in the second half, which doesn't seem excessive on the bits of video I have seen - but he isn't saying it for effect. It looks like there is a problem. I was quite upset about this and it was the straw that broke the camel's back for my confidence.

I am obviously not hearing things properly if my bass is 'taking over'. My hearing is quite damaged.

Should I carry on doing this if I am not hearing what the overall sound balance is like? If I don't get 'my sound' (the appropriate tone for my playing that makes me happy) from my amplifier without it being too loud, then it's really time I stopped doing this. I'm going to see what happens over the next few gigs and make a decision. Once I make it, I will stick to it.

Woah, press pause, wait until you're well again. Don't make any decisions while you're clearly having the carp kicked out of you by a very nasty virus. 

I've had something similar recently and it drags you down both physically and spiritually, affecting hearing, speaking, thinking, mood and reactions. 

Get well, be kind to yourself. 

[gary mac]

Mr stewblack is spot on with this. 

Get yourself well and then give it proper consideration.

[dmccombe7]

12 hours ago, stewblack said:

I played an underground gig on Glasgow way back when. What was the venue? Wonder if it was the same one 

It was Nice & Sleazy on Sauchiehall Street.

[dmccombe7]

2 hours ago, stewblack said:

Woah, press pause, wait until you're well again. Don't make any decisions while you're clearly having the carp kicked out of you by a very nasty virus. 

I've had something similar recently and it drags you down both physically and spiritually, affecting hearing, speaking, thinking, mood and reactions. 

Get well, be kind to yourself. 

110% agree.

Few guys in our band have had that virus. I've been lucky that it had little effect on me other than being a bit hoarse but not a sore throat. Drummer was left in bed for 3 days just completely shattered and it took him 1-2 weeks after that to feel well enough to gig.

Get better and have a few gigs under your belt before giving up on something you clearly enjoy a helluva lot. As you say you are normally like a coiled spring. That tells me you just love playing in bands.

Dave

[Maude]

A weekend of two halves for me. Friday night my Mod band played a pub in Plymouth's Barbican. While putting the lights up, our guitarist left the stands at half mast until all connections had been made. Two girls were sat at a table just in front of the lights and one of them complained to him as they were blocking her view and she had only come to see the bass player. So people do notice us! We had a good gig, packed the place out and plenty of dancing. 

Saturday my other band had a wedding booked. We got to the venue to find we were in one room with the bar, seating and buffet next door. There were double bi-fold doors opened between the two which let enough noise through that very few left the bar area, it was also very hot so a lot were sat outside. Nevermind, the few that did come through for a dance enjoyed it and we were paid handsomely. 

[stewblack]

37 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

It was Nice & Sleazy on Sauchiehall Street.

Staggered to find when I looked back it was 2011 - seems like only yesterday. the club we played was called Heavenly - i think - that may have been the folk who organised the event. It was Glasgow popfest can't recall the street.

[lurksalot]

10 hours ago, 12stringbassist said:

....

I am obviously not hearing things properly if my bass is 'taking over'. My hearing is quite damaged.

 

I agree with the others , take a breath before you do anything.

one thing to bear in mind , a guitarists hearing could easily be shot in the higher and mid frequency ranges , they will therefore hear more lower end i.e you. 

I had this in my last band , the guitar kept getting louder and louder , because he couldn’t hear it ! 

If that is a factor and if you can all get past it, it will be cool 

[Woodinblack]

I have two bands. One we play pretty well every weekend, a gig or two, 20-30 gigs a year, goes fine, normal gigging issues. We played yesterday at a new venue, all went well except the bass was (whisper it) too loud!

Of more interest, to me, when the band was in a bit of a quiet zone around january / feb time, I thought it would be nice to have another band to fill up the gigging schedule and so when i was asked to join another band, motown and stuff (I never did motown), it seemed a good idea. Saturday was our second gig! And it was only half a set. I am now the 3rd oldest member of the gig as everyone else left, 2 singers, 2 drummers, obv the bass player before I left, the horn section. I originally thought they were just unlucky with people but now I know why.

Anyway, the thing that keeps me there is that when the female singer left a months or so back my wife joined as a stand in so I got to gig with her. and for all the hassle of the band, that is worth it for me.

Whether we will get to a third gig, who knows. One thing is for sure, we will have at least learned 30 different endings for the 15 songs we gigged the other day.

[stewblack]

8 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

I have two bands. One we play pretty well every weekend, a gig or two, 20-30 gigs a year, goes fine, normal gigging issues. We played yesterday at a new venue, all went well except 

Whether we will get to a third gig, who knows. One thing is for sure, we will have at least learned 30 different endings for the 15 songs we gigged the other day.

🤦🏼‍♂️

[Muzz]

Two pub gigs, both good payers: one Satdy in an Irish pub in the centre of Manchester - it was just loopy hot in there, but the place was jumping, and then last night a pub in t'suburbs, again warm (but nowhere near the over of Satdy) and again jumping - one of the punters paid us a ton for another half hour, so we asked him what he wanted to hear and busked a lot of it... 🙂

[Stub Mandrel]

4 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Whether we will get to a third gig, who knows. One thing is for sure, we will have at least learned 30 different endings for the 15 songs we gigged the other day.

Have all of you learned all 30, or is that shared amongst the band 🙂

[dmccombe7]

8 hours ago, stewblack said:

Staggered to find when I looked back it was 2011 - seems like only yesterday. the club we played was called Heavenly - i think - that may have been the folk who organised the event. It was Glasgow popfest can't recall the street.

From what i know it was a vegan cafe restaurant during day and live music venue in evening. Looks like its closed down now.

 

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Have all of you learned all 30, or is that shared amongst the band 🙂

We just go for a new ending each time. Luckily when we played live we just all did some new ones!

[Lozz196]

Did a great couple of gigs over the weekend:

Fri, Punks Against Cancer at The Mulberry Tavern, Sheffield. Was a sweat bath in there, the bass speaker cab didn’t work (I had trusty Para Driver to help out), couldn’t hear much through the monitors but it was a good gig, and a worthy cause which we’re always happy to play.

Sat, The Boulevard in Wigan. An all dayer so some (most?) of the audience had indulged in liquid shall we say. We were headlining and the gig was amazing, bodies flying everywhere (one guys head got split open quite badly during the band before, but he was back for our set) people up on stage, the general chaos of the gigs we do in the North West. Afterwards pretty much the whole audience came up to us and shook hands/hugged us and said how great it was. Pretty humbling really, we’re three blokes in our 50s making a racket, but it’s really nice to see the hard work we put in paying off. 

Also made some good merch sales, all of which go back into the band, furthering our opportunities.

[BrunoBass]

38 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Did a great couple of gigs over the weekend:

Sat, The Boulevard in Wigan. An all dayer so some (most?) of the audience had indulged in liquid shall we say. We were headlining and the gig was amazing, bodies flying everywhere (one guys head got split open quite badly during the band before, but he was back for our set) people up on stage, the general chaos of the gigs we do in the North West. Afterwards pretty much the whole audience came up to us and shook hands/hugged us and said how great it was. 

Congratulations - that sounds like my kind of gig! 

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

Sat, The Boulevard in Wigan. An all dayer so some (most?) of the audience had indulged in liquid shall we say.

Played there. Not a fan! To be fair, that might be because Wigan.

[lurksalot]

3 hours ago, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

I was going to post this somewhere earlier, but didn’t get round to it.

I accepted a dep gig on the 17th with a rock covers band I have not played with before. At that time, I didn’t know exactly what the set was going to be, but I do know the singer very well and was happy to be a part of it just to be playing with him. I had a rough idea, but I didn’t get the formal set until 8 days prior to the gig. One of the reasons for the delay was that, not only were the band down one bass player, their second guitarist had suffered an injury that rendered him not gig fit. 

At the time I accepted, the band were resigned to playing as a four rather than their normal five piece. However, I managed to find a more than capable guitarist through a friend of a friend and things seemed to fall together nicely. 

So, I get the set. It’s a 2 x 1 hour gig at an established music venue; The Golden Fleece in Chelmsford. Out of the 31 songs, I have only ever played 4 of them. I am familiar with all of them to listen to bar one. Because I have the time, I knuckle down and do my homework. Obviously the major concern with this type of gig is, I have the song titles and artists, but are we talking same key/same structure for every song? This question gets raised by me immediately after I’ve ripped the whole set and immediately prior to me putting pen to paper for charts. 

The guitarist goes through the set and highlights a few key changes. Nothing drastic; a semitone as is often the case for music of this genre. Things are looking good. We manage to squeeze in a rehearsal on the Thursday before the gig, now yesterday. 

The band’s regular guitarist is a busy guy and doesn’t get to the rehearsal space until and hour and a half into our three hour slot. By this time we’ve run about 7 songs as a four and things are going well. I should add that the guitarist and the dep guitarist have done their homework together through phone calls etc that I wasn’t privy to - more on that later. So when the main guy turns up, everything clicks and it sounds great, however, due to time limitations, we end up with about 8 songs we haven’t even played together. With the last 15 minutes of rehearsal time, we do our best to identify what we should address and what can wait until tomorrow. During this 15 mins, it becomes apparent that one of the busier songs I’ve written a whole A4 chart for is in the wrong key. My brain is properly wired into playing it in the key as recorded, but hey ho, I’ll re-write it tomorrow. We end up sorting out another two and talking through the rest. With shakes of hands we look forward to seeing each other the following night. Load in at 8.30. First set starts at 10-ish.

I like to get to gigs early, so end up there 30 minutes before everyone else. I buy a pint of, and I quote, “IPA - Sex, Drugs & Rock’n’Roll”. Start the evening as we mean to carry on. Very nice it was too. Everyone arrives in due course. We are providing PA of which the singer supplies and is well conversant with not only his gear, but the venue as well, having played there many times. I’ve also been to The Fleece many times and it’s an odd venue. Tonight was about 70% of max, but the punters that are there make up for it in enthusiasm. 

We launch into Set 1 and the crowd is quite evidently up for it, however, by mid set, things start to get a bit quiet. I later learn that it’s unusual to have anyone up on the floor at all during the first set, so we’ve done pretty well really so far. The only low light was that Highway to Hell was one of the songs we didn’t even walk through verbally the previous night. No one mentioned to me that they played it in A instead of Ab. Do’h. Easily correct for the rest of the song though. 

Out of the two sets, the second worried me the most, but I needn’t have done. The only song that ran badly was one that I knew very well indeed, but the others apparently didn’t. Again, one of those we skipped over - Town Called Malice. The real ocean floor lowlight of Set 2 came at the very end unfortunately, not that anyone would have been aware. There were two songs slated for the encore, and the second one was hands down the song out of all 31 that I really wanted to play and they cut it - I Predict A Riot. Absolutely gutted. 

This gig epitomises what I love about music. It really was flying by the seat of your pants stuff. None of it was particularly complicated and there were a few endings that were made up on the spot, but it worked. The crowd loved it, we were well paid, we had a blast. Win/win/win. I would quite happily do that every week.

Bedroom warriors, gig virgins - get out there and do it. You’ll never look back. In the words of Mr. Neil Fallon:

If you're gonna do it, do it live on stage
Or don't do it at all.
If you're gonna do it, you better take it to the stage,
Or don't do it at all.

Sounds awesome, great post 

my last 2 gigs were a bit like that as I depped for the  band I left 9 months ago.

a town called malice was one I had always wanted to play live , we tried it as a band in rehearsals years ago but the drummer could never come in on it.

anyway the couple at the wedding had requested it and typical of the guitarist reckoned we were happy to busk it out. A couple of acoustic type run throughs the day before didn’t fill me with confidence but as I always wanted to do it I didn’t object too much.

well muggins here got hung out on the intro , I launch into it and the drummers blank stare says it all . After some pulled expressions of disbelief from me , he starts hitting things.

it took a bar to find out what he was doing and then ‘lock in’ and really hoped he just kept doing the same thing all song, I managed to communicate to the lads to ignore the bass solo as I didn’t want the same happening all over again.

the song has now been played live by me and the audience didn’t throw anything at us , but a fantastic song to get right ...........I would imagine