How was your gig last night?

[Dr.Dave]

New venue in Wakefield(been open 10 days) A real ale but trendy place called 'The Hop' in the city centre. Bit like one of these continental bars that have sprung up.

Anyway - it's an absolute belter with a crowd well up for it. The corner stage is a bit small , medium room that will open into the courtyard for summer gigs. The house PA is adequate at best but being developed (we beefed it up with the arse end of our system. The lights are OK.

Upstairs is phase 2 early next year. A more dedicated club type venue.

Unlike a lot of thee 'fly by night' pub venues I think this will thrive. I know the people involved and they are strong supporters of live music and up on the ways of bands.

Here's an article about the venue - don;t think the webbo's up and running yet.
[url="http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/wakefield-news/Rock-band-drummer-opens-Wakefield.4742914.jp"]http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/wake...ield.4742914.jp[/url]

The contact is Ian Fisher 'Fish'.

I'm telling porkies again - just found the website
[url="http://www.ossett-brewery.co.uk/"]http://www.ossett-brewery.co.uk/[/url]

Tell Ian I sent you.

[Kiwi]

OK, so Friday night I went up to Leeds via Peterborough and Mr Shukers place in the Peak District. Picture me leaving Jon's place after arriving late. I probably accepted too many offers to try various new basses he's made out and because I was late, I was hurtling through rain soaked back roads cross country trying to make up time on the satnav. (BTW don't get me started on the one-way system and bus/taxi gates in Sheffield city centre, my satnav couldn't cope and I may have been on the receiving end of a ticket).

Finally made it to Leeds at 5:30pm and caught the van unloading as I arrived outside the Town Hall for a corporate gig. Incredible venue! Really elegant, such an impressive organ (fnar) and so much space on stage! Mewsie dropped by to say hello and to return my Pentabuzz and she stayed for the soundcheck. The acoustics were really appalling and the large stage presented us with monitoring issues (plus the guitar amp had apparently been left behind at Wednesdays gig that I didn't play) but it was an interesting experience. Not as many people stayed late, but the people who did seemed to enjoy themselves. The food was good (christmas dinner AND sandwiches AND drinks vouchers for the bar) and we even had help from the town hall staff with our load in and a security guard for our dressing room!



Then yesterday we did Fawsley Hall out in the wopwops near Daventry. Very very remote venue but sumptiously laid out inside. We had an easy load in through double giant doors straight into the stage area. We set up, sound checked, and were down for doing three sets. We were all knackered after staying the night in Leeds but we managed to put out even more energy than for the Leeds gig! (How does that work out?!) The crowd were very entertaining with all sorts of oddly arhythmic but enthusiastic dancing styles and we had the bride and groom up on stage for Valerie (we do that if they are really nice people and the crowd are particularly appreciative). I played my ass off too, I pushed the boundaries of the songs a little bit by taking a few musical risks and they mostly paid off, at one point I could even feel a cheer go up from the crowd as I dug in a bit on the intro Shake Your Body Down and I pulled out all the stops on Think and just went for it.

Bass was definitely boss last night . Tonight we're at a wedding in Westgate on Sea in Kent.

[bassninja]

Thanks for the above, Nik, really good to see you (& posse). Its always nice to get some specific feedback from someone who knows what they're listening for...

Anyways, I have a little catching up to do for the last few gigs as things have been manic and... well you know how it can be at this time of year.

I had a surprise gig organised for me by Mrs Bassninja on my 40th birthday. It was great. Many of the people I played with and depped for in the last 20 odd years came along and we jammed. No pressure, lots of Hoegaarden and a real loose happy vibe. Fender Precision birthday cake included (made in the Sussex Custom Shop, 2008, very fat flour-based composite neck). Don't remember getting home

Another folk club date with buddy Willy Austen (local hardcore pub music geezer) at which I found out that mutual buddy and geetar superstar Big Jim Sullivan is not too well at present, so thinking good thoughts for him.

Then The Eagle, Arundel (mentioned by Sliverfoxnik above). Hot sweaty and packed with dancing 'heads' whom we eventually had to politely deflect from the micstands towards the end in order to preserve our dentures. Good natured and enthusiastic, though.

Friday the Royal Oak, Hooksway. Our monthly 'secret' gig in the middle of nowhere. Mandocat had a flare up of what we suspect to be carpal-tunnel syndrome after the previous nights Arundel gig, so a bit worried as it seems to be getting worse. Anyway, last minute call to violin/mandolin ace and 'fifth Beatle' Jon Wigg who knows every piece of music ever played who graciously depped for us. We dug up stuff we haven't played for 20 odd years, and generally had a terrific time. Not driving, Speckled Hen, slept in Saturday

Tuesday another folk club gig and then not around until after Xmas, so have a lowdown time everybody and I hope you all get your stockings filled generously

[niceguyhomer]

Friday night was Dickie Doodles at Kendal - not one of our faves but made bearable by the presence of my good mate GreeneKing. It was ok I guess but a long way to go for 'ok' so I think that'll be our last in the Lake District. Last night, we were due to play at a chav pub in Leyland - got there at 8.00 and were told we were double booked so we said..." fine, we're here and the other band ain't so make a phone call donger".

Had to wait outside for 40 minutes while the diners finished up but gpt in, set up and went straight on so no hanging about. Left my Euro 5LX at home and just took my Rebop. What a revelation, I hadn't used it in anger for about a dozen gigs (since I got the Euro) and I actually prefer the sound of it and so did the lads - half the weight too.

Not out until NYE now and then a long rest after that - can't bloody wait.

[Merton]

Last gig of 2008, a wedding at the Ashdown Park Hotel in Wych Cross.

Bit of a manic one, our singer was ill so we rush-rehearsed another singer during the afternoon, then went and played the gig. All in all the gig was a stonker, a minor blip in song choice near the beginning of the 2nd set ruined the dancefloor for a few minutes but other than that it was pretty full all night.

Guitarist had rig issues - amp AND pedal board were dicking him around, so that was fun.

But I was using my new LH500 and it ROCKED. Loved it, so loved the gig! We played great on the whole and had a laugh with the audience (lots of very attractive women, hooray!) and all in all it was a great success when it could so easily have gone the other way.

Shame I'm back at work today really

[northstreet]

Played at a tennis club Christmas party on Saturday. Only a small place but a good crowd - up and dancing from the second number. My wife and some of her friends were there and we dragged them up on stage to do backing 'vocals' on Mustang Sally. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I'm still not Mr Popular! The bad news was that my amp packed up mid-way through (good job I'd borrowed a back-up), the good news is that I now have an excuse to buy the Hartke LH500 that's been well reviewed in another thread. Tonight I'm playing for some (God have mercy on my soul) estate agents, in between two sets from a line dance band. Also seemed like a good idea at the time. I must be getting old.

Going off thread, I've only recently found this site, and it's been really helpful to me as I dip my toes back into playing. Have a great Christmas.

[crez5150]

Last Wedding gig of 2008 on Saturday in Liverpool.... Great gig though the Bride was proper stressed as she had organized most of the wedding herself.... poor cow!

Band went down a storm with the crowd and we also managed to give an improv version of Jingle bells with the Brides maids who were proper fit!!!

Also snagged two more gigs, one with the Venue as the manager was impressed and one with a guest for a wedding next year....

Also tried out the new PA system..... was totally blown away with it - [url="http://www.k-array.com/download/KR200S_data_07.pdf"]K-Array[/url]

[Steve_nottm]

always nice to finish the year on the worst gig in ages!

Charity all dayer at the Loft in Nottingham last night with the originals band (Kazooee). You know the sort of thing, lots of bands one after the other. Well.....it was running late so we were cut down to 25 mins. Finally played the set on the smallest stage known to man, with no monitoring at all, the drums on a tiled floor so continually moving, stood next to my amp rather than in front of it so heard nothing, and apparently the mike's giving electric shocks to the singer.

It has to be said, we've been tighter!

[Andyalfa]

We played a Christmas pub gig last night, at The Greyhound, Burton on the Wolds (North Leicestershire).

None of us could remember a time when we’d make so many errors, yet we went down a storm, did 3 encores and got a repeat booking. Helps when they're pished, of course.

[deaver]

Played Salisbury British Legion one of four bands on. Spotty herbert on the sound desk wouldn't let us sound check, then waltzed on stage mid-set to tell me to turn the bass down - I was too spaced on a mixture of cold/flu remedies and cheap lager to protest too much.

All over the shop due to aforementioned household drug and drink mix. We ended up with five bookings, god knows how, the rest of the band must have been bang on the money.

I feel and look like a sack of wotknot, any sympathy will be shamelessly mopped up

[tauzero]

New Years Eve at the Shard End social club in Brum. While normally they don't have children upstairs, for NYE, as a special treat, children weren't allowed anywhere in the club. We've played here on Saturday nights quite a few times, and gone down pretty well to what is normally a full room. Last night the place was barely half full, almost all of the attendees being 60+. Our spies told us that the downstairs room (where a disco was going on) was as empty and with a similar demographic.

A bit earlier in the year, after the ents secretary found that we no longer had our former pisshead vocalist, he cut our money for the night from £800 to £650. I'm sure you will all forgive me for calling him a f***ing stingy c***. So that just added to the pleasure of the evening.

Anyroadup, the gig went sort of OK although we didn't really get into it as there was so little movement from the [s]graveyard[/s] audience. Did the chimes off the radio and played them Auld Lang Syne (in a medley with "Donald where's yer troosers" and "Loch Lomond"). Then another hour, and they resurrected themselves enough at the end to ask for more.

I wish I'd taken the Gallien Kruger or the Hartke kickback - taking a DR250 upstairs was a struggle. Still, it does sound good.

Our conclusion was that we really really want to do somewhere else next year, er, this year.

[Faithless]

Last night annual biker-club's fest near capital Vilnius, at recreation complex with my rock/pop covers' band.

Temperature was about -4C, and what we[i] did not[/i] expect was to play in open-air.. :brow:

Well, it wasn't that [i]open[/i]-air, it was in sorta wooden tent with two huge warmers turned directly to stage, but during soundcheck and the start of the set it was f_ckin' cold - it was the very first time I've faced with such nightmare as cold bass strings - it's, I think, even worse than cold hands..

But, those punters were lively and soon everyone by the stage got stirred up (can you imagine solid bikers dancing in front of each other by Garry Moore? )

Sound onstage wasn't very good - too much guitar in monitors and probably no bass at all (except the drummer's monitor), even though I've asked enginner's to pump some more bass, but, no luck..

Anyway, crowd was good, gig also wasn't bad, got some decent money and had a good night with folks from band.

Edited January 11, 2009 by Faithless

[Lenny B]

I had a really fun one last night - my third time of depping for a jazz/funk quartet (vox, guitar, drums) at Jazz After Dark in Soho - threw some long-overdue new strings on my Jazz before heading out, was more comfortable with the tunes and the players than I'd been before (some frenetic playing goes on) and it went down really well.

So should be doing once a month with them which is great.

Only downside is it's stupidly late (half 10 to half 2) and the money's pretty poor, but I'm not gigging much at the moment, so this isn't a complaint!

[Bilbo]

Jazz trio gig. Played like a dick.

[Stylon Pilson]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='384805' date='Jan 19 2009, 11:24 AM']Jazz trio gig. Played like a dick. [/quote]

Did anyone else tell you that you played like a dick, or was that just your assessment?

S.P.

[WalMan]

As mentioned elsewhere Saturday we were rock gods [url="http://planetsmilies.net"][/url] and today I am back at work

The gig at The Fountain in Chichester is always great with a crowd that is up for it from the start and Saturday was no exception. Crowd line kept edging forwards until at the end they were right on top of us with one of the bouncers running cover & catching one particularly pished lass. Why the hell can all gigs not have a crowd like that (up for it, dancing & singing, not pished that is)!?

Slung in some reworkings of songs that we used to do with the keyboard player that four of us ran through at r/h on Monday and Max taught Mike in a lenghty phone call r/h of the guitar parts later in the week and they sounded really good & fresh . Gun - Steal Your Fire & Aerosmith - Rag Doll in particular raaaaawked!

The band as a whole was nicely tight with that certain looseness from the first one after a month lay off. A few minor fluffs, but we played through them , laughed them off amongst ourselves and I don't suppose anyone in the crowd really noticed.

And so to next week and back to The Royal Oak at Whitehill, a gig we have not played for a few years (I thought it had been pulled down) but have in one form or another played at for over 20 years. I can only hope that goes as well.

[Bilbo]

I don't need anyone to tell me. I just played like a dick.

Last week; same venue, same drummer, different pianist - played great.

This week, I played like a dick! (except for one solo on 'Moanin' which was ok)

[Kiwi]

Oh blimey, I haven't updated mine for a while. Too busy!

Sheesh. Okay, here goes:

[b]Dec 15th[/b]
Corporate christmas gig at the Sloane Square Hotel on Sloane Square for a hair dressing chain. Really small stage space sort of crammed between two seating alcoves. Dreadful acoustics but the crowd looked like they'd all stepped out of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skins_(TV_series)"]Skins[/url]. The singers heads were being turned for a change! LOL. Arguably the worst company pep talk we've ever listened to, with the manager focussing on the economic downturn. It would have pretty much peed on the fire of most staff socials but from what we could tell most people just ignored him. No meal supplied, but we did get sandwiches.

[b]Dec 19th[/b]
Leeds Town Hall, corporate gig. What an amazing venue. The staff bent over backwards to help us, even with the load in and load out. We had our own dedicated security guard keeping an eye on our room and it was the biggest stage we've ever played. The gig went well although quite a few people left early during our break so only the hard core party crowd were left when we came back on. Meal - lasagne.

[b]Dec 20th[/b]
Fawsley Hall near Northants. Interesting gig in the midde of nowhere (almost), we were in the refurbished stables building separate from themain house. The staff were fairly helpful although the manager was pretty stressed out and curt with everyone. Load in/out was easy as we were playing in front of a large set of double doors, basically just had to take the stuff into the van directly through the back of the stage area. The crowd were pretty responsive but the acoustics were terrible with all the hard surfaces there. Meal - lasagne.

[b]Dec 21st[/b]
Gig at Westgate-on-Sea, at St Augustines Chapel for a wedding. The event was a surprise for a couple, thrown on by her parents. The crowd were a bit rough, one bloke had too many and kept walking up and down in front of the stage, oogling the singers while clutching a can of lager. A number of his attempts to engage the singers were ignored until the Best Man hauled him away and told him to sit down and behave. Meal - sirloin steak dinner, cooked to perfection!

[b]Dec 31st[/b]
New Years gig in Dubai. Flight from hell over there via Cairo on the 28th/29th. We left at 2pm and got to Cairo around 9pm local time only to be told our connecting flight to Dubai was delayed until midnight. What was actually the case was there would be an announcement at midnight. We found a starbucks with free internet access and those of us with laptops and iphones managed to stave off the boredom. At midnight we were invited to get some food so we followed an airport staff member to their 'Long Transit Lounge' (which reminded me of a prison for lost travellers) and then into a cafeteria which looked like a civic service staff restaurant from the 80's. We joined maybe 200 other passengers all in the same situation and we were treated to a meal of some diced chicken, chips, rice and an apple. Plus some water. We were then left to our own devices for the next hour until we were led back by which time they'd announced our departure in another hour. Overall our flight had been delayed by 8 or 9 hours and we eventually landed at 7am in Dubai. While Dubai was free of fog and a balmy 20 degrees, the same couldn't be said for our sleep deprived brains.

Anyways, so we rested. Then the following day we each did our own thing apart from checking the hire equipment that had arrived. There were some glaring ommissions, including the bass cab (an Ashdown 8x10), keyboard and percussion. That evening we went out in the evening to a bar with one of the singers friends (late nights are easy if we stayed on UK time). On the 31st, we got word that the Ruler of Dubai was considering a ban on all New Years celebrations in order to show solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. There was a strong likelihood we would have come over for nothing, however he relented at the last minute and allowed indoor celebrations to continue. Another band who were booked to play to 2000 people outside at the same hotel weren't so lucky but they were a lot smaller than we were too (two singers and keyboardist)

The rest of the gear arrived and we soundchecked while the hotel staff were stage dressing around us. Everything seemed to go well. The meal for that evening was basically help ourselves from the banquet and the banguet was stunning. Lobster, fillet of lamb and beef, salmon in every variety of cooking, foie gras brulee, raw oysters, and the chefs had even prepared a seafood selection in the shape of a 5 string bass! The night went well although the crowd arrived a bit late and we had to go on for our first set before they'd finished eating. So there wasn't a lot of dancing until the last couple of songs. Then we counted in New Years and used that as an excuse to get people on their feet for Aud Lang Syne. The second set went a lot better and once we'd packed up we all piled off to the girls apartment to see in the UK new year. The following day, the drummer had organised a desert safari with dune bashing and a BBQ. It was fun at first but some of us were on the verge of succumbing to motion sickness at the end!

Flight back was nearly as hellish. The girls were late back from the apartment of a friend of one of the singer's and delayed us getting to the airport by nearly an hour. We made it just about in time though. We left at 2am on a red eye flight and got to Cairo about 5am Dubai time and landed back at Heathrow at midday. Then I faced a 2 hour drive back to Peterborough! The food and features on Egypt Air were about what most airlines had back in the 80's. The food was awful and everyone had to share preprogrammed entertainment.

[b]Jan 10th[/b]
18th birthday party for a private client at the Dali Cafe in County Hall, the former GLC building. I arrived an hour late and in a mild state of panic only to find that everyone else was still unloading too. The crowd were very young and didn't recognise most of the 70's stuff in our set list until we got to the choruses! lol We were apparently also told we were too loud by the venue manager and we repeatedly turned ourselves down. Apparently they'd never had a band there before and guests at the Travelodge next door were complaining (as well as another band elsewhere in the building!) We finally ended up playing at a volume that was more of a side show to the conversation than anything so we lost a fair amount of atmosphere. Still, not much we could do about that. Meal - nothing

[teej]

Busking in Windsor, Saturday 17th January, with [url="http://www.redjackson.com"]Red Jackson[/url]

Woke up to pouring rain, but the forecast was better for later on, so I took a leap of faith and got ready to head off. Sure enough, by the time I got out of the door it had pretty much stopped. Arriving at Windsor around 8am, it was still chucking it down, but I was able to shelter inside the entrance to the newly closed down Woolworths and wait for the other two band-members to show up, entertaining myself with the BBC radio dramatisation of Hound of the Baskervilles on my iPod. Meanwhile the few early shoppers and shop-workers passing by looked on in disbelief at me and my upright. Soon my optimism was rewarded and sure enough the rain passed over and the sky had taken on a most encouraging blueness by the time my comrades arrived in convoy. We unloaded the gear, and they drove off to park.

We hung out, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze, watching the gradual increase of punters on the street and waiting to see if anyone was coming to open up Woolworths and start using noisy powertools. Since that clearly wasn't going to happen, we eventually set up right in front and played across the street.

The first set went very well, and the second too, but by the third the street seemed to be thinning out, and the numbers stopping to watch had dropped considerably. Now I've been noticing lately that people often seem to respond best to our slide blues: it doesn't have to be up-tempo chicago stuff either, real low-down delta blues will do it as well, and so I suggested we switch to that and it worked like a charm - very informative. It's all too easy to assume that 'feel-good' music, the swing/jive/rockabilly side of our set, will be our highest earning material; but it's not always the case. That's something I love about busking - you can see very easily what's working and what isn't. I foresee a lot more slide material making it into our set in the coming months.

So, in return for our 3 sets, the people of Windsor treated us to a high average take (think 3 reasonably well paid pub gigs) on our second busking trip of January, usually the slowest month of the year. But I'm not going to tempt fate by making any hasty predictions for 2009!

Next week, maybe Guildford.

[rOB]

Not great Saturday night. Played the third gig with my originals band at the Cardigan Arms in Leeds. Sound was apparently ok out front but the sound guy seemed to have forgotten our monitoring settings so I couldn't hear any bass at all, couldn't hear any of my vocals (backing) either so they were probably a bit dire, asked for both to be boosted but to no result.

anyway, rest of the band sounded pretty good, drums sounded like a volcano erupting behind me (in a good way) and guitars weren't too distorted (which can be a problem with 2 guitarists who love their effects), lead vocals sounded good.

Unfortunately we didn't go over all that well, we trusted the promoter to put us in a suitable lineup because he'd done it before but he decided to put our pretty intense heavy punk/rock/grunge band in this line up- a blue's duo of vox and acoustic guitar, a solo acoustic troubadour type and a light, melodic, indie pop group. Needless to say the audience that the other acts had brought were not that into us, we got polite applause but not much else, shame.

The other acts were great, especially the solo guy, and the band plus girlfriends and hangers on (including a guy who has volunteered to do some artwork, which is cool) had a great night with plenty of beer and pool after the bands finished.

Oh well, have been booked on a more suitable lineup at the cockpit in a few weeks, can't wait.

[yorks5stringer]

We played our regular gig at the Old Tramshed in Saltaire last night.

I was a bit nervous about contacting them on the day to confirm our attendance in case they had stopped bands but not only were they pleased to hear from us, they gave us another gig in April too!

The Idle Hands Trio however is no more as we have been rehearsing with one of those guys who has loads of equipment, takes ages to set up and hits everything all at once..yes, a drummer. However he bought a cross trainer at Christmas,( should have got a friendly one!) and did his shoulder in, so we invited along a sax playing friend of Dan the guitarist, who then brought along a flugelhorn player friend of his: The Hull Horns as I named them.

No charts, some songs with programmed beats but it was real blast as the guys took solos and played harmonies too. Having been used to voice, guitar and bass this was quite different. On "Dreams" by FMac I sing some BV's, got quite a shock when I heard myself harmonising with myself, looked across to see the flugelhorn player singing the other harmony! I knew I was not that good!

There were some nice solos in Fly me to the Moon and Moondance (themed songs) but we dropped Blue Moon as too maudling. We even got a couple up dancing and sold a CD, which for a Thursday night in Saltaire is almost unheard of!

The second gig with the Hartke LH500 ( my LMII has now reached France for repair, took a week): I can get a nice warm sound but not the clarity of the Markbass.

Next gig is a friends 60th, hope to have the drummer back, better learn Happy Birthday again!

[waynepunkdude]

It was sh*t.

[Ou7shined]

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='390166' date='Jan 24 2009, 03:10 AM']It was sh*t.[/quote]
It was shut?
You should set your alarm earlier then.

[tonybassplayer]

Looking forward to being able to contribute towards this again as we are playing this weekend after a ridiculous 8 week break !! Things have got to change !!

[wateroftyne]

Last night was The Frazer Theatre in Knaresbrough. A lovely town.. I don't know why I haven't been there before.

Not many people there (terrible time of year) but they made a hell of a din. The Indian restaurant was fab, and our dep drummer did marvellously. We went home with full tummies and smiles on our faces.

Tonight will be fun. I'm in a scratch band playing a set of Geordie songs to Bobby Robson & co. It's a fundraiser for his charity. I'm looking forward to this one...