How was your gig last night?

[knirirr]

For some time I've fancied playing at a beer festival and got a chance yesterday at the Charlbury Oktoberfest. It went quite well despite having a dep guitarist (ours has Covid) who was only able to do a quick rehearsal the day before, which I couldn't attend due to work. No real mistakes, but the intros seemed a lot less tight.

Sound was strange, though; the horn players kept complaining they couldn't hear me, yet I am told that my Orange Terror was distinctly audible in the bogs 200 yards away, and certainly clear where the audience were sitting. The guitar was barely audible to me most of the time but just about OK for the audience.

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by knirirr
Added photo.

[dmccombe7]

58 minutes ago, Thor said:

I think this is a first for me, I somehow seemed to have missed this thread? We were out celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Waltham Chase Trials Motorcycle Club - a gig I landed by chance whilst talking to someone at a corporate do in Bournemouth.  A great night had by all, bonus was they fed and watered us as well😊

 

What bass rig are you using @Thor

[martthebass]

New venue for us last night, great pub just outside Leeds, the Old Masons Arms in Rothwell. Landlord couldn’t do enough for us, tea provided and iced water and even stopped a few giddy punters getting too close to gear when necessary. The pub was packed and up for a party, so much that I think we went over by 30 minutes in the end. First time for us, the bar had a tip jar for the band and there was a princely sum in it at the end of the night. Great to see live music still thriving with the help of good management.

Sadly I managed to close one of the gear case lids on my right hand on the pack down - fingers not broken but won’t be playing for a few days, luckily we’re on a little break till early November. Also why is it that when I play in Leeds that they always manage to close the A1/M1 for the drive home🤬🤬🤬🤬

Edited October 16, 2022 by martthebass

[Thor]

I’m using a Barefaced Big Twin 2 and Aguilar DB750 - the PA perched on top also if that’s what you’ve spotted😊

[Cat Burrito]

A non-bass gig became one of the most surreal shows I have ever done last night. It was a small village open mic night that my goth duo has previously done. We were told we could do two small sets so spent the day rehearsing up an electric and an acoustic set. If you've never seen a post of mine, my duo is with the guitarist from my Sixth Form band and although the lowest key of my bands, probably the one I have the most fun with. Just a great excuse to hang out with an old school friend and make music.

 

We arrive at the quiet country pub to discover it is absolutely heaving, to the point we are not going to be able to bring our gear in fully. A hasty decision is made to ditch the rehearsed up electric stuff and just go acoustic (bolstered by some under rehearsed stuff). Next thing the landlady is coming up to me and telling me that it's great to have Boy George in her pub!?! It quickly dawns on me that she must be at least 3 bottles of wine in and as the evening progresses she is dancing right down the front, coining up the phrase from Friday Night Dinner "Be spatially aware!" I make a mental note to keep her very much at arms length. We go on and go down a storm. We get a second set and at one point the young bar maid is coming up to me, mid set, to ask me to come outside and help break up a fight!?! Luckily it was all over as these things are, almost straight away. The irony was that I thought the gig would go down in my history for being my first performance in a cardigan! It's a funny old world!?!

 

 

[dmccombe7]

3 hours ago, Thor said:

I’m using a Barefaced Big Twin 2 and Aguilar DB750 - the PA perched on top also if that’s what you’ve spotted😊

I thought i saw the big Aggie atop your cab but wasn't sure what else you had going on. 

Bet that sounds nice.

Dave

[gafbass02]

I did a solo acoustic spot in my local on Friday, usual stuff to the usual crowd. The big difference to me was the first use of my EHX Mel9 pedal and my laser kick drum. 

The drum was amazing and still hurt, although much less than a traditional stomp box! But the mel9 was a bit of a let down. Its epic at home, giving me subtle string accompaniment on some songs, but in the pub it just didn't cut through, even with the 'wet' level cranked. A rethink may be in order!

[Thor]

20 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

I thought i saw the big Aggie atop your cab but wasn't sure what else you had going on. 

Bet that sounds nice.

Dave

I love it, as I get older though it is becoming a struggle to manhandle it, I also use a Tech 21 Leeds pedal on some Who tracks we cover - that really sounds epic to my ears, and you know it’s sounding good when the rhythm guitarist turns and looks with an approving nod👍🏻

[Len_derby]

A disaster.

My originals band, Diamond Bridges , secured a slot at yesterday’s Oxjam Festival in Beeston Nottinghamshire. 
The headliners kindly agreed to me using their bass rig, Beeston is on the main rail line between Derby and Nottingham. So, I thought it’d be great idea to travel light and use the train.

Train cancelled due to points failure with no prediction as to when it’d be fixed. No time for me to get home and use the car, I’m thirty minutes from the station. No suitable busses. 
So, I never made it in time for our slot. Top marks to the other two guys in the band who played the gig as a drum n’ guitar duo.

As icing on the cake, yesterday was the first use of my senior railcard I’d shelled out for. 🙄

 

[Stylon Pilson]

1 hour ago, Len_derby said:

A disaster.

My originals band, Diamond Bridges , secured a slot at yesterday’s Oxjam Festival in Beeston Nottinghamshire. 
The headliners kindly agreed to me using their bass rig, Beeston is on the main rail line between Derby and Nottingham. So, I thought it’d be great idea to travel light and use the train.

Train cancelled due to points failure with no prediction as to when it’d be fixed. No time for me to get home and use the car, I’m thirty minutes from the station. No suitable busses. 
So, I never made it in time for our slot. Top marks to the other two guys in the band who played the gig as a drum n’ guitar duo.

As icing on the cake, yesterday was the first use of my senior railcard I’d shelled out for. 🙄

 

 

One of my biggest gig disasters was when I too figured that I could travel light and take the train. Turned out that there was no monitoring for the bass whatsoever. All I could hear of myself was the low frequencies coming from the back of the PA speakers. Oh, and did I mention I was playing a fretless? Yeah, I was playing a fretless.

 

S.P.

[Jack]

Quite a nice outing for us last night. New venue for my indie rock band, The White Line. We played Dirty Habit in Whitley Bay which is quite a fun, high-energy bar. It was quiet during set up but soon filled out nicely with dancers. The photos are from before and the video is a quick one from the set break. We rocked a pretty good crowd all night, aside from one major disaster. Resident drug and alcohol dancing guy (you know the one, he goes to LOTS of gigs) decided to put his pint down on the subwoofer. I shouted and shouted but he didn't have a clue what I was asking for, so the singer went to grab the drink instead. About 2 seconds too late. Off it went, onto the power reel that was powering that side of the PA and the singer's pedal board. How nothing went kafautz I don't know but we politely stopped the show to request a bartender to come and sweep up the glass after the song finished. Dancing man wasn't going to, he was too busy dancing on the broken glass...

 

I also had a nice young lady intently staring at me all night long. Unfortunately too young, but the attention was nice nonetheless. However, after the gig she approached me with her mate and her mate's dad who'd arrived to pick them up. She was a new bass player and looking for some advice on stage amps. I'm clearly getting old. Nevertheless I dutifully pointed her to Basschat. Hi Claire!

 

Can I please draw your attention to the difference in cable management between my spot and the singer's? Amateur. The rig was my G&L L2000 into a Shure wireless, TC Mojomojo, Paradriver. Using a QSC wedge in front of me partly because the weird shape of the stage would render a traditional backline useless and partly because I'm still not quite 100% after covid round 2, so my already-ropey backing vocals needed a little extra monitoring just to be sure I was on key. I wasn't. You'll notice there isn't a stage amp. Sorry Claire!

Edited October 16, 2022 by Jack

[paul_5]

Depping for a wedding do - upstairs in a converted barn with really appalling acoustics. 

Good giggle with a good bunch of lads but we were fighting the room from start to finish.

[Rich]

An equipment failure at last night's gig (surprise 40th bday party for our recently departed alto sax man). If you look carefully you can see that this straplock has worn so thin over the years that the metal has finally failed completely and it pulled straight off the button. Thankfully not until i took it off at the end of the gig. I'm not complaining... this straplock is one half of the first pair I ever bought when I got my Wal back in mid 1986. 

[Franticsmurf]

43 minutes ago, Rich said:

Thankfully not until i took it off at the end of the gig.

 

Glad the bass is ok.

 

I had a cheap one from Amazon go on me as I was putting the bass on not so long ago. Luckily, the bass was balanced in one hand so no slow motion juggling. I've replaced them all with proper ones now.

[Mudpup]

Friday night was a pub gig in a good local music venue. There were two other great bands playing in the other two main venues in town so I had a feeling it might be a quiet night with the local crowd being split 3 ways. I was right - we probably only had about 40/50 people in but we played a blinder, had loads of positive feedback after from the punters, staff and owners and went away really happy. On reflection I think it could have been one of our best gigs from a player's perspective. We chucked in a load of linked songs that all went perfectly, mixed the set up a bit, the sound was great and everyone said how relaxed they felt about it. 

 

A good night.....

 

 

Edited October 16, 2022 by Mudpup

[Stub Mandrel]

On 12/10/2022 at 08:26, Cat Burrito said:

Just a cheap one from Amazon - Lekato. The last one lasted two years and I figure they are about as cost effective as cables now. The latency is much better than it used to be. 

 

I use one of those, silly cheap and never had an issue with it.

[Stub Mandrel]

A pub we've played a couple of times before, really small and challenging to set up in. Before we started it was prety much at capacity (that's not a huge number of people!)

 

Went really well. At the end we finished with Purple Rain and everyone was singing along to the wo-oh-oh-ohs. Never had so many people doing the rounds to say how much they enjoyed it and even buying us drinks. Even the landlord came and congratulated us all. Nice 😁

[Downunderwonder]

19 hours ago, Thor said:

I’m using a Barefaced Big Twin 2 and Aguilar DB750 - the PA perched on top also if that’s what you’ve spotted😊

Never stand right in front of your room filling rig!

 

I was doing a pub gig and all over a sudden my sound goes to hell in a hand basket. Turn around and the sax player has parked himself where you are standing.

 

Possibly not applicable to your gig if the PA is putting forth bass, but that's a mighty big monitor.

[Downunderwonder]

11 hours ago, Rich said:

An equipment failure at last night's gig (surprise 40th bday party for our recently departed alto sax man). If you look carefully you can see that this straplock has worn so thin over the years that the metal has finally failed completely and it pulled straight off the button. Thankfully not until i took it off at the end of the gig. I'm not complaining... this straplock is one half of the first pair I ever bought when I got my Wal back in mid 1986. 

Yay for stuff that lasts 36 years swinging around. My first strap lock fell off.

[dmccombe7]

11 hours ago, Rich said:

An equipment failure at last night's gig (surprise 40th bday party for our recently departed alto sax man). If you look carefully you can see that this straplock has worn so thin over the years that the metal has finally failed completely and it pulled straight off the button. Thankfully not until i took it off at the end of the gig. I'm not complaining... this straplock is one half of the first pair I ever bought when I got my Wal back in mid 1986. 

I always remove my strap after a gig and regularly have to tighten the lock nut on them and hoping i'd notice something like that.

All in all they lasted well tho. You were lucky no damage to the bass.

Dave

[Rich]

14 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

I always remove my strap after a gig and regularly have to tighten the lock nut on them and hoping i'd notice something like that.

All in all they lasted well tho. You were lucky no damage to the bass.

Dave

I use threadlock when I put them onto the strap, those nuts won't loosen without a lot of spanner effort  

Yeah, I don't think I have much room for complaint if they've lasted 36 years..!

[dmccombe7]

1 minute ago, Rich said:

I use threadlock when I put them onto the strap, those nuts won't loosen without a lot of spanner effort  

Yeah, I don't think I have much room for complaint if they've lasted 36 years..!

Hadn't thought of a spot of the old threadlock.

Cheers for that.

Dave

[cheddatom]

Ancienne Belique in Brussels last night was amazing, the biggest stage I've ever seen! Lunch in the canteen before load in was great. They had guys to help with the load in, and everything was put onto a section at the front of the dance floor that rises up to stage level. Sound check was faultless and then we got to chill for a few hours and enjoy some of the local beers. Dinner was awesome too!

 

The set flew by. We seemed to win over the crowd, all except for the very front row who were all clearly camped out waiting for Steve Ignorant to come on. Their grumpy faces amused me anyway

 

Ace set, loads of compliments, and loads of beers afterwards!

 

We're on the way to Amsterdam to play Melkweg tonight

 

 

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

I use threadlock when I put them onto the strap, those nuts won't loosen without a lot of spanner effort  

Yeah, I don't think I have much room for complaint if they've lasted 36 years..!

 

Oh I don't know, send them a rant with an angry 'why did this only last 36 years??' message and maybe they will send you a new one

 

[MacDaddy]

20 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Oh I don't know, send them a rant with an angry 'why did this only last 36 years??' message and maybe they will send you a new one

 

 

At the very least, a strongly worded letter to The Times.