How was your gig last night?

[wateroftyne]

Finally... first gig tonight, almost a year to the day since the last one, and 17 months since the one before that.

 

It was a wedding in a village hall in the hills south of Hexham. What a joy.

 

Bar a few scratchy pots, the gear was spot-on, and the 71 P-bass I bought (what seems....) a lifetime ago finally got a run out. To my relief, it's seems to be a great one.

 

I've got nine more gigs over the next month or so with various bands... it's wonderful to be back at it.

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by wateroftyne

[steantval]

First gig in 17 months for our band last night.

2 x 1 hour sets.

Great to be playing again, a few duff notes, but the punters really enjoyed it and a bonus with the landlord paying us more than we agreed.

Fingers are sore this morning, possible blisters forming.

Edited August 29, 2021 by steantval

[BCH]

Last Sat...

[Stub Mandrel]

29 minutes ago, BCH said:

Last Sat...

 

Play Mysty for me 🙂

[Rich]

Drove 2.5 hours to play 90 minutes in a pub garden in Salisbury for 30 quid. We played really well, crowd loved it, the Skabass sounded awesome. Who cares if my entire fee went in the fuel tank?

[gafbass02]

Mine was horrendous. A private birthday do that turned out to be something akin to a scene from ‘shameless’. Lots of drunken, testosterone fuelled angry men wanting to fight each other amongst a forest of greasy, wailing harpies loving the peacocking efforts intended to impress them. We cut short. 

[Woodinblack]

10 minutes ago, gafbass02 said:

Mine was horrendous. A private birthday do that turned out to be something akin to a scene from ‘shameless’. Lots of drunken, testosterone fuelled angry men wanting to fight each other amongst a forest of greasy, wailing harpies loving the peacocking efforts intended to impress them. We cut short. 

 

Is that not what is commonly refered to as 'a gig'?

 

[gafbass02]

26 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Is that not what is commonly refered to as 'a gig'?

 

This was a bit of an extreme case 🤪

[casapete]

Our 4th outing since lockdown, requiring a mammoth journey to Essex and back from East Yorkshire. Total journey around 550 miles, got in at 3.30am. 

Still, a worthwhile trip with around 700 punters in the theatre. Staff at the gig were excellent - we had to show proof of negative lateral flow tests and wear masks backstage etc, all with no problems and I felt quite safe onstage. We played well (apart from one mishap in the 2nd set which we recovered from quickly!) and it felt like things just may be starting to return to some sort of normality at last. (Icing on the cake was a great pizza joint having just opened 20 yds from the stage door!)

[neepheid]

First gigs back this weekend. Friday was pretty good, last night not so good. Less busy, a lot more mistakes and generally people with their backs to us down at the bar, no-one seemingly giving a monkeys if we were there or not yet somehow moaning when we announced it was the last song.

 

Grumpy all round, I made a few clangers which I wasn't happy about. Singer was paranoid that we were going to run out of songs despite me rejigging the set list to counteract this - told him so and we even ended up nixing a couple in the end. Drummer briefly looked at me like he wanted to kill me when I interrupted him packing away drums to ask him for the car key.

 

Perhaps two gigs back to back 2-3 hours away was a bit of a stretch for the first time back. One of those nights, got to brush up the bloopers, learn any lessons from it then move on I reckon.

[JapanAxe]

My third gig depping on lead guitar with a rock’n’roll band. The dep bass player is ill (don’t ask!) and BL decided to go ahead without bass. I played my Gretsch Duo Jet through my DIY 5E3 and used every opportunity to pick out thumpy bass lines - and it worked.

 

Same again tonight, this time in a pub garden so I’ll also be going DI into the PA.

[Staggering on]

2 hours ago, Rich said:

Drove 2.5 hours to play 90 minutes in a pub garden in Salisbury for 30 quid. We played really well, crowd loved it, the Skabass sounded awesome. Who cares if my entire fee went in the fuel tank?

Many of us have been there , done that, at least you were gigging and having a good time making music.👍

Over here most venues are still not open for live music but at least both of my bands are rehearsing and hoping we will be back to gigging soon.🙁

[MacDaddy]

3 hours ago, Rich said:

Drove 2.5 hours to play 90 minutes in a pub garden in Salisbury for 30 quid. We played really well, crowd loved it, the Skabass sounded awesome. Who cares if my entire fee went in the fuel tank?

 

Reminds me of this meme 🤣

 

[Cat Burrito]

We played HRH Sleaze in Sheffield at the O2 Academy. Biggest crowd since Covid broke so lots of rules about testing and vaccinating for the audience. We were slightly under rehearsed but both the electric set last night and acoustic set this morning had a certain charm and were well received. 

 

 

[yorks5stringer]

9 hours ago, BCH said:

Last Sat...

Taking it to church...!

[JapanAxe]

Yep,  this went very well. No bass player, yours truly seen here singing Folsom Prison Blues. Please note I'm the one without a music stand...

 

[mcnach]

Two gig weekend... little by little we're getting busy again.

 

 

[Muzz]

Two on the trot here, first one was the regular at Mulligans in Manchester city centre...busy as always, singing the roof off (to Oasis...sue me), then last night's was a new venue above a Bangin Bar in Monton...just awful. A 40th where nobody really cared, the music downstairs was so loud we didn't even bother with any acoustic numbers, it was full of yapping Hooker Barbie types and fully sniffed-up tattoed lads in polo shirts. Three songs into the second set some hero insists, with the misplaced confidence and persistence that only over-imbibing on the sniff can provide, that he's gonna sing. Backed up by his similarly-wired mates, an altercation just short of fisticuffs ensued,. The BL pulled it, we packed up and were in the cars by 9:45. Got paid in full, tho, so there's that...ahhhh, gigging, I've missed it... 😕🙂

[Bassman68]

Had a busy week, last week, with 3 festivals & an outdoor theatre gig. 

The highlight once again was playing to 30,000 people at Carfest South on the Friday..

 

[Lozz196]

Wow!

[Mottlefeeder]

Out with Loose Change Buskers on Sunday, playing at a Makers Market - a 5 hour shift with a front line that changed every hour or so.

 

Also the first serious outing with my combo lockdown project, the "Joe Bloggs Briefer Case". About 150W, but smaller and lighter than a PJ Briefcase - build thread here.

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/445027-combo-lockdown-project/

 

Our audience was anyone passing, or queuing for food stalls within about 30m of us, and our PA volume was loud enough to be clear, but not so loud that the audience had to raise their voices as they talked.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the "Briefer Case" was plenty loud enough to be heard throughout our catchment area, and the built in battery was still working after nearly 5 hours of playing time, so I now have a viable small rig, and an emergency backup to the larger rig.

 

David

[super al]

On 29/08/2021 at 12:13, Rich said:

Drove 2.5 hours to play 90 minutes in a pub garden in Salisbury for 30 quid. We played really well, crowd loved it, the Skabass sounded awesome. Who cares if my entire fee went in the fuel tank?

Not the Winnie Gate was it? They love Ska there.

[Rich]

6 hours ago, super al said:

Not the Winnie Gate was it? They love Ska there.

No, it was the Bull in Downton. They certainly seemed to like it, but we were the 'headline' act in an afternoon/evening mini-fest so they were fairly well oiled  

 

[super al]

24 minutes ago, Rich said:

No, it was the Bull in Downton. They certainly seemed to like it, but we were the 'headline' act in an afternoon/evening mini-fest so they were fairly well oiled  

 

Ah yeah... I saw that advertised on Instagram...loads of gigs in and around Salisbury on the bank holiday, we played two gigs and the crowds seem bang up for it...live music is back 👍

[super al]

This weekend I played my last two public gigs with the soul band (work and family life pressures mean that the gigging has to stop for a bit ☹️)

Sunday the five piece played the New Inn, Amesbury and that was a fun gig. Bit strange being put into a cubby hole corner of the pub but it was probably the best place to set up in the bar.

The band played great as usual 😎, seems a shame to leave when we're so slick right now. Early on some young drunk wanted to play drums (is there always a drunk drummer or singer at pub gigs?)

Monday night we played the Bridge Inn, Upper Woodford (not far from Sting's lil' country mansion). This was their inaugural weekend of live music in the beautiful setting of the green opposite the pub. This is a rural location next to the river and just tractors, pick up trucks and 4x4s driving past the pub!

For this gig we had the horns so there was 8 of us and the band sounds effing awesome once you add brass (plus they are so funny, horn humour!). The night was great, the sound on stage was superb, the crowd were fantastic (we always get people up dancing). I could hear my little Barefaced cab stack so clearly so when my fingers were feeling sore I could reign it in a bit. I'm a player who ' digs in' but with 36 soul and funk tunes to play, that's gonna hurt!

One more gig to go but this one was quite emotional for me, last with the horns and Chris on guitar (he's the new bass player but can't play the next gig)... I kept it together well, got a big hug from Dave the drummer, we've been locked together tight on stage since he joined, the perfect drummer for me.

Sorry for the long, rambling post but I'm gonna miss playing the best basslines ever with the bestest bunch of musicians I've ever played with 😭