How was your gig last night?

[Bluewine]

5 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Its not easy motivating yourself to play when the audience just isn't there. You can look at it as a paid rehearsal which is what we do.

Its a difficult one tho if it has a 2hr drive each way. 

Where was the venue ?

Dave

 

We've had 3 really good gigs in a row. However, we had a real stinker about a month ago. Upscale restaurant , however it was not a music crowd. They come to eat and then they leave.

 

Why do these folks book bands when they know they don't have a music crowd?

 

Blue

[dmccombe7]

2 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

We've had 3 really good gigs in a row. However, we had a real stinker about a month ago. Upscale restaurant , however it was not a music crowd. They come to eat and then they leave.

 

Why do these folks book bands when they know they don't have a music crowd?

 

Blue

Yes i agree it doesn't make much sense.

I have a gig end of this month with the punk band in a hotel starts around 8:30 till 11 ish and usually when we arrive they are still serving food from the afternoon. Once we start to set up some people start to leave and once the punk music starts we rely on dedicated fans of punk to maintain the audience. Oddly enough we have a few people travel approx 4hrs drive to see us and they stay overnight then head home in the morning.

Dave

[neepheid]

5 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Yes i agree it doesn't make much sense.

I have a gig end of this month with the punk band in a hotel starts around 8:30 till 11 ish and usually when we arrive they are still serving food from the afternoon. Once we start to set up some people start to leave and once the punk music starts we rely on dedicated fans of punk to maintain the audience. Oddly enough we have a few people travel approx 4hrs drive to see us and they stay overnight then head home in the morning.

Dave

 

Oh god, the dreaded "can you turn the music down?" early bird special supper club types are the worst.  Had an encounter with them a while back, gig got exponentially better after they bogged off in a huff

[BigRedX]

First a photo from Friday night's gig at the Fulford Arms in York:

 

 

There should be some better photos up soon. There's also some pretty good videos but unfortunately they are embedded into Facebook so I can't repost them here :-((

[Waddo Soqable]

4 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

First a photo from Friday night's gig at the Fulford Arms in York:

 

 

There should be some better photos up soon. There's also some pretty good videos but unfortunately they are embedded into Facebook so I can't repost them here :-((

Reminds me of one of those Ampeg Devil basses... 

[BigRedX]

Last night (Saturday) we were in the somewhat misleadingly named Acoustic Couch in Bracknell for the final gig of this mini tour. Anyone expecting a small intimate venue showcasing sensitive souls with acoustic guitars will probably be disappointed. It's a massive space underneath a multi-story carpark, with a good sized stage and big PA and lighting rig. Probably the largest venue we played on the tour. Didn't really know what the expect and were very pleasantly surprised. Good sound on stage (and FoH so we were told) although our tour support band Gothzilla struggled to hear their backing and it was somewhat swamped by the guitars FoH on many of the songs. Still they managed to put on a good show.

 

Like York there were people dancing from the first number even though it wasn't a predominantly goth audience, and apparently afterwards we sold all of Anthology CDs we had brought with us.

 

Only photo I've found of the evening so far:

 

 

In Isolation will be back in Nottingham on 29th April supporting Autobahn at The Chameleon, and my other band Hurtsfall are opening the Goth Friday event at the same venue this coming Friday.

[asingardenof]

On 02/04/2023 at 13:39, dmccombe7 said:

Cracking wee Tech 21 VT bass amp for sale on BC at £325 that looks nice. Think it just appeared this morning.

What's the bass you are using ? A Sire maybe ?

 

Dave

Fortunately the fates have allowed me to buy a replacement ABM from @walshy (with more than a little help from @merton who is proving himself to be a saint) so hopefully all is well.

Edited April 3, 2023 by asingardenof

[dmccombe7]

2 hours ago, asingardenof said:

Fortunately the fates have allowed me to buy a replacement ABM from @walshy (with more than a little help from @merton who is proving himself to be a saint) so hopefully all is well.

Excellent news. Wasn't sure you would stay with Ashdown. I guess all amp manufacturers get failed amps thru their lifetime.

Good news tho.

Dave

[asingardenof]

20 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Excellent news. Wasn't sure you would stay with Ashdown. I guess all amp manufacturers get failed amps thru their lifetime.

Good news tho.

Dave

It is a first gen ABM so it is a *wee* bit out of warranty 😁

[Merton]

2 hours ago, asingardenof said:

It is a first gen ABM so it is a *wee* bit out of warranty 😁

<pedant mode>
Second gen strictly speaking, it’s the first “EVO” 🤓
</pedant mode>
Almost 24 years old IIRC - the power amp board was dated same date as my 19th birthday! It had an amp tech look it over about 6/7 years ago but I suspect it’s an age thing that has taken out a power supply cap or something. We are pondering the next step with it!

[dmccombe7]

From what i understand and i'm sure there are some experts on BC that will confirm is that capacitors do have a lifespan and are one of the items on a circuit board that could eventually fail. Problem is there's no sign of wear on them.

Talking about any older amps here.

Dave

[DGBass]

1 hour ago, Merton said:

We are pondering the next step with it!

The mosfet version power boards in these early ABM's are prone to failure if the caps are past sell by date which is usually around 20-25 years with regular use. There's usually a bit of smoke and charring if they do and for some peculiar reason it's the mosfets on the left side( from front) that usually fail. As the good folks at Ashdown will tell you, it's best to replace all six mosfets if you have a failure as well as the four coupling caps. It might be easier asking if they would sell you a current pre-built APC033 (issue 4) modern Bi Polar power board as a drop in replacement. It may be cheaper than getting a tech to rebuild the original board for you. Of course thats if the power board is the issue 🤔 Had the caps fail on one I owned and elected to rebuild. It was messy but worked out in the end.

 

scorched board caused by two shorted caps

 

finished board

 

 

[asingardenof]

2 hours ago, Merton said:

<pedant mode>
Second gen strictly speaking, it’s the first “EVO” 🤓
</pedant mode>

I stand corrected!

[tvickey]

On 02/04/2023 at 20:17, BigRedX said:

First a photo from Friday night's gig at the Fulford Arms in York:

 

 

There should be some better photos up soon. There's also some pretty good videos but unfortunately they are embedded into Facebook so I can't repost them here :-((

Cool!  We're playing there at the end of May... thanks for posting the photo, as it gives me a great impression of the stage.

[BigRedX]

7 hours ago, tvickey said:

Cool!  We're playing there at the end of May... thanks for posting the photo, as it gives me a great impression of the stage.

 

The stage is a massive improvement from when I was playing there with the Terrortones about 10 years ago. However it is still quite shallow' and there's a lot of house equipment lining the back that can't always be relocated elsewhere, so if your drummer isn't keen on being close to the back wall you may be short on room in front of the kit. We always have to persuade ours to set up as close to the wall has he can. As you can see they do put the wedges in front rather than on the stage which definitely helps!

[NancyJohnson]

Well, last Friday actually.  Long day.

 

I'd been awake since 4.00am after four hours kip (the Indian I'd eaten the previous night rumbling through my guts).  Left home (near Reading) about 8.30am; satnav advises there's a prang on the M25 anti-clockwise, so I'm clockwise around to the M11 junction (about halfway round the M25).  Weather was horrific, heavy rain, people driving like Richards.  Arrive at Engine Room Studios in Bow around 10.30am for a video shoot at 11.00am.

 

After filming (1.00pm), we decamp to an adjacent room and rehearse that night's set once.  Pint of IPA.  Drive from Bow to Lewisham, where we loiter for a couple of hours at the drummers house.  6.00pm (and remember I've been up 14 hours at this point), we embark for The Bird's Nest in Deptford.  There's no load in, just a single bass in a case for me, to be told we're not on until 10.00pm.  We sit around, talk to punters (who despite all sounding like Ray Winstone are just lovely).  We go on late, but there's a curfew at 11.00pm.  Good crowd, appreciative.  We do the full set and we're done by curfew.

 

We're in the car by 11.15pm.  Drop singer off in Godalming at about 12.40am and drive home, in about 1.30am.  I eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich, drink a glass of milk and give the cat some attention (no, this isn't a metaphor), bed at 2.00am.  Been awake 22 hours at this point.  My body has forgotten how to do this level of musical activity.  My back aches.  My right knee (surgery last August) aches.  My hands hurt.  I'm dehydrated.  I feel alive.

 

Awake at 9.00am and jetwashed the drive.  

 

Rock and roll.

[BigRedX]

Just done something similar three days in a row for 2 weekends, see above ↑

 

Up at 7.00 am so I can get some work in and not be too far behind with everything after the weekend, I'm self-employed graphic designer and some of my clients can be quite demanding (but they pay me well for the fact that most of the time I can be straight on whatever they need). Have lunch at 12.00 and make a pack-up for the evening because I know from previous experience that I may not have time to go out for food once we're at the venue, and even if I do, I don't want to be eating fast-food crap three evenings in a row.

 

Down at the rehearsal room for some time between 1.30 and 2.30 (descending on how far we need to drive and when the venue load-in is) to load up and then set off. We're based in Nottingham and this week were playing London, York and Bracknell (Thursday , Friday and Saturday respectively) so it's 2-4 hours plus any stops along the way. Arrive at the venue just as it opens. The tour is basically In Isolation (us) plus Gothzilla with Feather Trade (from Athens Georgia) and X-Superstar (Andy Cousin - previously of All About Eve and The Mission - new band) on selected dates and local supports on the others. All four bands have different PA and monitoring requirements so it's a bit of a nightmare for the sound engineer (especially when they don't appear to have received the technical rider for any of the bands). Feather Trade are using my bass rig and Gothzilla one of our guitar amps and it generally falls upon me to be around just in case there are technical problems during the soundcheck. Getting all the bands sound-checked before the doors open isn't always possible and at the London gig things were running so late that Feather Trade had to sacrifice  song from their set in order to have 5-minute break between sound checking and playing.

 

Now comes the bit that makes everything worthwhile - 3 hours of great music including 40-50 minutes when I'm on stage, followed by 15 minutes of audience members telling us how much they enjoyed our set. Sell some merch and pack the gear away before loading up and setting off. Get home sometime around 3 in the morning grab some sleep and back up at 7 the following day to do it all again. My legs ache from all the standing up and bouncing around on stage, and my Fitbit tells me that I did nearly 20,000 steps each day. 

 

Luckily this weekend's gig is local (but it is up two flights of steep stairs with nowhere close-by to park for the load in). Do I love it? Of course I do!

[dmccombe7]

Wait till you've worked 39hrs in a trot at a chemical / gas plant then you'll know true tiredness. 

You get to a point where you are too tired to sleep and it takes you days to recover.

I definitely couldn't do that these days. TOO OLD NOW. 

Dave

 

[Leonard Smalls]

49 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

true tiredness

You was lucky!

When I was a lad we'd work 23 hours59 minutes every day, then we'd have to go and fell a tree and make our instruments, mine some iron to make wire for strings and and fashion a large His Master's Voice type cone to make it louder, then we'd have to pay double our daily wage to go and play in a dark cellar stood up to our necks in raw sewage with no-one watching, and we were only allowed to play one song, Mustang Sally!

[dmccombe7]

23 minutes ago, Leonard Smalls said:

You was lucky!

When I was a lad we'd work 23 hours59 minutes every day, then we'd have to go and fell a tree and make our instruments, mine some iron to make wire for strings and and fashion a large His Master's Voice type cone to make it louder, then we'd have to pay double our daily wage to go and play in a dark cellar stood up to our necks in raw sewage with no-one watching, and we were only allowed to play one song, Mustang Sally!

Mustang Sally..................you win ! you had it worse 

[Cat Burrito]

My duo drove from Wiltshire to Lancaster for a 4 band  Goth bill. It was an amazing experience, a road trip with my friend of 34yrs. We played great. The Thunderbird into my Blackstar combination worked brilliantly and the audience / other bands were great. We were disciplined so actually made some money to go towards the studio next month. A great experience.

 

[neepheid]

Great gig last night in the Balaclava in Fraserburgh - just the tonic I was needing after last weekend's non-event.  I gave the Les Paul its first proper outing and it did not disappoint.  What beastly pickups these DiMarzio X2N-B are!  Neck in parallel - it's honestly a bit too much in series, bridge in series (when I remembered to use it).

 

Started off ok, about 20 folk in the bar when we were setting up, but that's 20 more than what we started with last weekend and 18 more than we finished with.  Filled up ok as the first set progressed.  Plenty dancers, on chairs and tables sometimes too - the staff didn't seem to mind either.  Usually a bouncer comes across pretty swiftly to tell them to knock it off.  Zero drunk folk inadvertently physically interacting with the PA or lights too, that's a bonus!

 

Cracking night, had folk coming up and asking when we're coming back which is always a good sign (unless they were asking in order to make sure they avoided us, in which case, it's bad).

 

We ended up doing a couple of extra songs (always nice to get ONE MORE TUNE shouted at you) but what is it with folk coming in late (like last 5 songs) then moaning at you because it's the end of the show?  Get off your butts earlier and get down here then if you like music that much!

[vmaxblues]

Great gig at Gordon Bennetts in Hereford, capacity crowd, dancing all night, everything s gig should be!

[Leonard Smalls]

2 hours ago, vmaxblues said:

Hereford

We're in Hereford next Thursday! Battle of the bands at the Jam Factory...

[martthebass]

Sadly our gig in Withensea had to be cancelled due to lead vocalist succumbing to a nasty chest thingy. A couple of weeks now before the next one in that there West Yorkshire