How was your gig last night?

[BigRedX]

Saturday with In Isolation supporting Toyah at The Rescue Rooms in Nottingham.

Nice big stage and great sound both on stage and FoH, and other than having to go on at 7.15 in order for Toyah's set to be over for the 10.00pm live music curfew it couldn't be faulted.

Interesting to see that Toyah's band were all in-ears and no backline. The guitarist was using a Axe-FX, and the bassist a Kemper rack unit, although I have to say that I wan't massively impressed with the bass guitar sound FoH - there was a lot of synth bass on the backing and the keyboards that he had to compete with.

Proper dressing room back-stage complete with snacks and a fridge full of drinks.

Also interesting to see that Toyah's backing band all turned up individually in their own cars with their gear and apart from having their own sound engineer didn't have any road crew.

[stewblack]

15 hours ago, yorks5stringer said:

Did an hour set at an Apple day in Castle Carey this afternoon in bright sunshine. Lost count of the number of people who said 'It's a good job you didn't play yesterday' as it poured down.

No sign of Yoko and we were missing our electric guitarist, but banjo and acoustic guitar  filled the sonic space adequately. Lots of Cider stalls plus a Sheeps cheese stall just by the steps we played on. No sign of H either....

Took me until this morning to get the jokes. Damn this virus has destroyed any remaining shreds of intelligence I may have possessed. 

[FinnDave]

I didn't have a gig yesterday, but I did go to watch an old band mate act as host band for a local open blues session. Soon after I arrived, there was a mild panic as their bass player was, shall we say, unwell, after eating something he later regretted  . 

So with under three minutes notice I was press ganged into the job, with a bass I've only had a few days. Ended up playing the 4 (might have been more) song opening for the jam, then playing 3 songs with another old band mate, and finishing the session with a few more songs with the host band. 

Their regular bass player recovered just in time to come and pack away his gear - I really did feel sorry for him - turned up, set up, passed out, came round, packed up and went home! 

The new bass acquitted itself well, despite me not yet having got to grips with the active tone controls and it having a gash set of old strings I put on just to be able to try it out. 

[Stylon Pilson]

On Friday night we were back at a venue that we've played a couple of times before. It's a fairly nice-looking Greene King pub in a town with reputation for wealth, but the clientele can actually be a bit on the rough side. There was apparently a bit of a ruckus during our first set (around the corner, I couldn't see it), some people had to be evicted, and the room was a bit on the empty side thereafter.

We dropped the ball a bit on timings. Our drummer (who booked the gig) misread the email and we were working around a 9:00-11:30, whereas the venue wanted us to do 8:30-11:00. So we were effectively half an hour late starting, and ran over by half an hour at the end. He's sent them an email to apologise.

We were trying out a few new songs. Most worked very well, though one of them is relatively obscure and got no reaction whatsoever. We're going to give it a couple more chances, but if it's still falling flat after the third outing, then we'll probably have to kick it to the kerb.

Oh, and also, I got a cheer for the bass solo in You Can Call Me Al for the first time ever! (whispers confidentially) I'm not even very good at it.

S.P.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Stylon Pilson

[Stub Mandrel]

We did my Sister-in-law's birthday event on saturday. Big hall, packed out with a highly sympathetic audience as we did a mix of my brother and her's songs with some other stuff. Mostly went well, thanks in part to borrowing my other brother's drummer but a couple could have done with more rehearsal (one I'sd only done twice vbefore and another one I played bass on I'd only done on mandolin before.... Wes the drummer was ace, we did Black Man Ray and I was convinced he knew the song inside out, turns out he'd never heard it before. My first time playing guitar and mandolin or singing properly (Motorhead's 1916!) in front of people but I felt best when I played the bass.

Here's Jer on his very nice Westone Spectrum 2  (and kilt!) and Lu being a butterfly... and me losing my guitar cherry!

A few other guys did a few songs as well, and the main band was Stonehouse Collective, our other brother's band. First song packed the dancefloor and it stayed that way through both of their sets, storming night.

Just got sent this ace soundcheck shot 🙂

Edited October 28, 2019 by Stub Mandrel

[Bluewine]

13 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Saturday with In Isolation supporting Toyah at The Rescue Rooms in Nottingham.

Nice big stage and great sound both on stage and FoH, and other than having to go on at 7.15 in order for Toyah's set to be over for the 10.00pm live music curfew it couldn't be faulted.

Interesting to see that Toyah's band were all in-ears and no backline. The guitarist was using a Axe-FX, and the bassist a Kemper rack unit, although I have to say that I wan't massively impressed with the bass guitar sound FoH - there was a lot of synth bass on the backing and the keyboards that he had to compete with.

Proper dressing room back-stage complete with snacks and a fridge full of drinks.

Also interesting to see that Toyah's backing band all turned up individually in their own cars with their gear and apart from having their own sound engineer didn't have any road crew.

I love those kind of gigs.

Blue

[Bluewine]

13 hours ago, FinnDave said:

I didn't have a gig yesterday, but I did go to watch an old band mate act as host band for a local open blues session. Soon after I arrived, there was a mild panic as their bass player was, shall we say, unwell, after eating something he later regretted  . 

So with under three minutes notice I was press ganged into the job, with a bass I've only had a few days. Ended up playing the 4 (might have been more) song opening for the jam, then playing 3 songs with another old band mate, and finishing the session with a few more songs with the host band. 

Their regular bass player recovered just in time to come and pack away his gear - I really did feel sorry for him - turned up, set up, passed out, came round, packed up and went home! 

The new bass acquitted itself well, despite me not yet having got to grips with the active tone controls and it having a gash set of old strings I put on just to be able to try it out. 

Sounds like you played a full gig Dave.😀

I have a G&L ASAT bass that I want to start gigging with again, with that active pre-amp.

I haven't figured out how to get the most out of that feature. and I've had the bass for years. I don't think the active pre-amp likes my pedal board very much.

The connection plug for the 9 volt battery is awful.

Blue

[FinnDave]

4 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Sounds like you played a full gig Dave.😀

 

Maybe one short set, doubt that I played for more than an hour.

I've been getting accustomed to active basses with the pair of Ibanez sixes I've used as my main gigging basses for the past year - but the Fender pre-amp is a little different - not worse, just different, take a bit of time to discover how to use it. I'll probably change it for an East pre-amp, as i find their sweepable mids very useful, and he's local to me!

No problem with pedal boards for me, I don't have one.

[Bluewine]

12 hours ago, FinnDave said:

Maybe one short set, doubt that I played for more than an hour.

I've been getting accustomed to active basses with the pair of Ibanez sixes I've used as my main gigging basses for the past year - but the Fender pre-amp is a little different - not worse, just different, take a bit of time to discover how to use it. I'll probably change it for an East pre-amp, as i find their sweepable mids very useful, and he's local to me!

No problem with pedal boards for me, I don't have one.

I wish I could slowly ween myself away from my pedals. I really like my bass octave pedal.

 

[T-Bay]

Played a mates wedding last night, the venue organisation was appalling (see my other tread) but we have a great evening despite that. We all played well and had the dance floor full most of time. We tried some new songs and adjusted our set to remove some of our heavier songs and it went down very well. Bride and groom were very happy which is all that counts.

[MacDaddy]

Halloween gig last night.

Epic.

At times it seemed the entire pub was dancing or singing along.

I was f/x free for a change. No-one noticed 😒

We don't have any monitors, so it was the typical case of the sound on stage being different to FOH. I thought I sounded a bit trebly, but apparently out front it sat really well in the mix.

Edited November 2, 2019 by MacDaddy
Typo

[Lozz196]

Not last night but Thursday night we played at Don’t Panic in Essen, Germany, a venue owned by our record company Sunny Bastards.

We set off at 5am, hoping to get to our hotel at 3pm which is the usual state of affairs when we play there however this time it wasn’t to be. Due to really rotten traffic we had to go straight to the venue, arriving at 7pm so had spent 13hrs travelling.

Just before the gig the owner was looking a bit concerned as we were a little tired to say the least, however once we were on - at 10:30 so a very long day - his concern dropped and we played a blinder. The audience don’t care how long your day has been or how tired you are, you’re there for them and have a duty to play your best show and we delivered. Was an hours set and the crowd were up for it, to the point where I mentioned tongue in cheek “try not to kill each other” though there was more than a slight element of truth in it as it was more than a bit rough down the front.

So back to the hotel at 1:30am, on the road at 7:45am, back home at 6:45pm shattered but knowing we did a great gig, and more than covered our costs of van/ferry/hotels/fuel. Result!

Edited November 2, 2019 by Lozz196

[LeftyP]

I'm not sure today's event qualifies as a "gig" but, hey, it was great!

I play in our church band and today we had a church "away day".  We didn't go far - from Carlisle to Keswick in the English Lake District.  Door to door it is less than 30 miles.  My drive took me up over the northern fells where sheep graze and wander across the road.  I had to stop at one point to let a brood of peacocks wander across!  The autumn colours were in full bloom and there was not a breath of wind as I drove along the shores of Bassenthwaite Lake into the small town of Keswick and our venue.

Around 50 church members attended the event with just four of us providing the music.  Our band leader played semi-acoustic guitar, the drummer just used a cajon, I played bass and we had one female singer.  The day started with tea/coffee and pastries.  We then played six songs interspersed with Bible teaching and more tea/coffee and cakes!  We had all taken packed lunches and after eating some of us went for a walk along the shores of Derwent Water under a canopy of golden leaves.  On return there was tea/coffee and more cake!

While we were out some people stayed in the hall and watched a re-run of the England v South Africa rugby final.  We then retired to another room and watched Toy Story 4 - brilliant.  Then it was back to the main hall for a bulk order of fish and chips from a local "chippy", more cake, then home.

That is what I call a gig!!

 

Edited November 2, 2019 by LeftyP

[casapete]

Thursday saw us do a 400 mile round trip from Yorkshire to Essex for a gig in Chelmsford. Not a capacity crowd in the theatre but enthusiastic and jolly, so worth our while. Left home at 10.30am and got back at 2.30am so a long day. 

Today we played at a Butlins 70s weekend in Skegness. Completely different set up, as we followed Absolute Bowie ( who were very good) playing mid afternoon in a massive room. Just after I’d set up my GK rig, I noticed an SVT rig at the back of the large stage area, which pis*ed me off as apparently I could have used it which would have been a nice change. Anyway, by the time we went on the room was pretty full, probably around 3000 people (many in themed 70s outfits) all keen on having a good time. House PA was not great but we managed okay, everyone singing along to most of our set. Big video screens just behind me felt a bit weird, with some graphics alternating with live video of our band just in my peripheral vision. We went down well, and are in with chance of doing a couple more gigs for the company again next year. Fairly quick pack down meant I was home around 6.30pm which felt very strange after doing such a gig, but most welcome as I was still knackered after Thursday! Really enjoyed it, made such a nice change doing somewhere a bit crazy compared to our usual theatre gigs. 

[stewblack]

Private party up in Twickenham. Went down a storm. Mandolin player and BL turned up sans mandolin and had to turn around and drive back to Oxford to get it. 

Our singer does the best photo bombing of anyone I know. Here she is ruining a picture of my rig. 

 

[dmccombe7]

2 minutes ago, stewblack said:

Private party up in Twickenham. Went down a storm. Mandolin player and BL turned up sans mandolin and had to turn around and drive back to Oxford to get it. 

Our singer does the best photo bombing of anyone I know. Here she is ruining a picture of my rig. 

 

There's a bass rig there. can't say i noticed. 

 

[Muzz]

Played a 29-year anniversary/reunion gig with an originals band which split, erm, 29 years ago. We'd all got chatting at a wedding a year or so ago and decided to do it, so we had half a dozen rehearsals and went for it. Great venue - well, soundwise, anyway (great house PA and engineer), but the stairs were a bit of a trial - Gullivers in Manchester. We'd shifted tickets and it was busy.

Had a ball, the crowd loved it, it was great to play the songs live again, and good fun to take the full rig (Walkabout, Super Twin and Compact) for once. I played my white BB414 (I had a white BB3000 back in the day), which is the best sub-£200 bass I've ever owned.

All in all a terrific night 

Edited November 3, 2019 by Muzz

[Bluewine]

We played an acoustic gig last night, 5:30 - 8:30 at The Harley Davidson Motor Restaurant.

To me this is a great gig, professional staff, great hours, great pay and tips, very high caliber clientele. And the place is beautiful sitting on the Milwaukee River.

We go back on January 25th.

Blue

[Stub Mandrel]

40 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

We played an acoustic gig last night, 5:30 - 8:30 at The Harley Davidson Motor Restaurant.

To me this is a great gig, professional staff, great hours, great pay and tips, very high caliber clientele. And the place is beautiful sitting on the Milwaukee River.

We go back on January 25th.

Blue

There's a similar place near me in the UK.

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

There's a similar place near me in the UK.

Yes, that's definitely similar to ours.☝

[stuckinthepod]

We opened for Michael Monroe (Ex Hanoi Rocks) at Club Academy in Manchester. I even bought a new flowery shirt!

 

[Lozz196]

Nice one, saw MM on Sat and he/his band were awesome.

[DaytonaRik]

Last Friday we played a belated Halloween gig at The Vat and Fiddle in Nottingham which also coincided with our vocalist's and a mutual friends birthday weekend - a fun night was had by all!

 

[EBS_freak]

Good effort!

[BrunoBass]

Just in from tonight’s gig, a wedding do in a pub. Literally five minutes drive from my house, easy load in, great crowd and reaction, we played well, we sounded good, we were looked after and paid well. So why do I feel jaded and unsatisfied? 
 

I’ve been feeling like this for a while, and tonight as I lifted my cab into the boot I had a moment of wondering how long I want to keep doing this for, or even if I want to keep doing it.
 

Maybe I need a break, maybe I need a different band? Although the grass isn’t always greener...