How was your gig last night?

[tauzero]

Agatha Christie must have written the script for this.

For background, a couple of years ago I left the band I was with because it didn't seem to be progressing beyond rehearsals. They recruited the former bassist back again, and then one of the original guitarists had to leave through work commitments so he was also replaced.

On Monday I got a call from the drummer of aid band. Their bassist had disappeared and they had a gig this Saturday that they didn't want to cancel - I said I should be able to, and asked him to email me a set list. The guitarist emailed me the set list - and in the email, he told me that the reason for the bassist disappearing (which they didn't know at the time) was that he'd died. They weren't sure whether to go ahead, but eventually decided it would have been what Ian the departed bassist wanted.

So we arranged that I'd rehearse with them on Thursday. Cue snowfalls, which fortunately didn't cause any travel disruption on Thursday night, and all went well.

The gig was at the Holiday Inn in Bromsgrove. Went down the M42, turned off for Bromsgrove, and found the A38 closed. After following a diversion I eventually got there, and found out that the road had been [url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hereford/worcs/7877648.stm"]closed due to a murder[/url].

The gig itself went well and I managed not to make too many glaring errors, aided by numerous crib sheets littering the floor (because I'd forgotten my music stand but luckily put everything in large enough type to read it). I'll be doing at least one more stand-in, as they want to do a memorial gig for Ian and asked me to play for that, whenever it is.

The gig, incidentally, was for a club which the departed guitarist was involved in the running of and he was also got a guest slot at the end. So the entire band from a couple of years ago was briefly reunited, which was nice.

[tauzero]

[quote name='mewsie' post='396887' date='Feb 1 2009, 03:06 PM']finally i can contribute to this thread!

well... first gig last night... and the main reason i've been a bit quiet over the last few weeks. in a moment of sheer madness three weeks ago i agreed to stand in for a bass player who was on his stag do last night. which left me with 3 weeks and 33 songs to learn.[/quote]
Congratulations, and welcome to the start of your addiction.

[Ou7shined]

Not really a gig, just a couple of tunes at an open mic night that me and a guitarist from one of my bands went to tonight scouting for a singer.

We hadn't planned on doing anything but when we got there we kinda got swept along in the moment. I had to play a Billy Sheehan Yamaha Attitude identical to [url="http://www.harmony-central.com/Events/WNAMM00/Yamaha/bsheehen.jpg"]this[/url] one, only it looks worse in the flesh and sounds worse than it looks.

Before I picked it up, I was warned to be careful with it "Why" I asked, looking at this ugly, sparkly purple, starter looking bass "Is it broken?" "No, it's a genuine Billy Sheehan". I pretended to be interested and looked for the scalloped frets and again I fained interest when I found them. It felt like shlt to play not just because I'm used to my own basses but because the action was all over the place and there was nowhere to rest my thumb. I like a low action, but can play it high as long as they are all reasonably at the same height. This one had the E and D very high and for some reason the A and G strings were lower ??? Although I was playing finger style I tried a bit of slap n pop before plugging in (just to get a feel for the bass) but couldn't even get my pinky under the G. "Wow" I said "The action is pretty nuts" but rather than commenting or offering an explanation in a chatty bass player to bass player kind of way, the owner simply shot me a look like I just called his dad a pikey.

Anyway, we had a bit of fun just me on the Yammy and the guitarist on a semi-acoustic, him on vocals with me backing and for our our labours, at the end we got a number off a guy interested in singing for us.

There was a guy playing kickass harmonica which was cool to hear for a change too.

[ezbass]

Pretty awesome really. Played a new venue for us and a new set format, 3 x 45 mins with 15 min breaks in between. I really liked the format especially as it allowed me to play both my P bass and RBIV for the first 2 sets and then decide which I liked best for the 3rd set. No competiton, P bass all the way (RBIV may not be long before being sold, great bass though it is). Only band brain fart of the night was the drummer accidently playing Stevie Wonder's I Wish in 2:4 for the first verses, hmm very Strictly Come Dancing

[WalMan]

Not a bad night Saturday at a new (very old) gig for us. Guitarist drummer & I used to play the gig regularly with our old vocalist, but that was probably 18 or so years ago and then it stopped having gigs because of neighbour problems. Stll some fond memories & much reminiscing.

Drummers stalker turned up as threatened, which gave us all a laff Second guitarist had his new Boogie combo which was sounding good, and the new expanded bass rig with the second cab was sounding good.

Not a hugely full night, but I hope to book some more there as it went well with both the people that came with us and regulars at the venue joining in and wanting more at the end.

Major brain fart by the drummer in "Don't believe a Word" when he dropped a complete verse and went into the long break before the bridge towards the end, but we ploughed on and laughed it off.

Week off now then back to the Swan in Woolston

[OldGit]

Saturday night. Back to our 9th annual Save the Children fundraiser in a little village in the middle of Arctic Gloucestershire.
The gig was virtually sold out by Thursday (the organiser is outstanding and hand sells 120 tickets each year) but the weather was looking terrible.
The gig village was looking OK (and we had no snow at all in Cardiff) but Dave1 was coming from Heathrow and Steve the Squeezer had been snowed in for days in his village in Wilts.
Some very deep discussions ensued over Friday and Saturday especially when we learned the Stroud Ceilidh had been cancelled - that's in a gritted town centre a few miles from our venue ....

Anyway all managed to get there despite some fairly interesting snow covered roads, the crowd all turned up and it was fantastic to see 100 people all get up for the first called dance.

We had fun, they had fun, Save the Children made a big wedge and we got booked back for the same gig next year - the tenth year running - and asked about 3 other gigs.

The last 4 door tickets went to some refugees from the snowed off Stroud Ceilidh who will hopefully report back so maybe we can do one of those some time as well ...

The Auralex Gramma isolator pad seems to be making a significant difference to my sound and a few people in and out of the band commented on it. Certainly a good value for money addition and something to try before changing more expensive items.

Shock horror though, for the first time in ages at a charity gig, no one in the band won anything in the raffle ....

[bassace]

Cancelled due to snow and ice, at Oxford. So's today at Rotherham although I'm not too sorry as it's a long schlep. All the main routes seem to be OK but we are still snowed in up in the hills at 190 metres AOD. Hope Wednesday goes ahead or I'll forget how to play.

[Mr Fudge]

We did a private at Bloxwich Memorial Hall. This is one of those clubs stuck in a time warp since about 1973. All those old PA rigs, the obligatory hammond organ gathering dust, the tombola barrell. I really love these places, they are microcosms of social history and I always spent half an hour just exploring backstage. A real gem of a place and a room and stage to die for. I wondered who had been on the bill years ago. And .... nice people. We were well fed, well paid and had a very pleasant evening all round.

Edited February 9, 2009 by Mr Fudge

[Kiwi]

We played a coporate gig at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford...almost.

We were all dressed up, tuned, line checked and ready to start and then the event organiser came over to say they were going to cancel the gig because it was snowing so hard outside they didn't want to risk people getting stranded! So we thought WTF and played 4 songs for the hell of it and then started packing up. We had Steve Turner depping on keys again and he's apparently just finished recording [url="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/livelounge/artist/081121_aleshadixon.shtml"]a live lounge session with Alicia Dixon for R1[/url].

[Ou7shined]

Mmmmmh Aliciaaaaaa! :wub:

[yorks5stringer]

Did our monthly gig at the Old Tramshed in Saltaire: asked a few Basschatters and workmates along as it was my last day as a wage slave: have taken early retirement!
Good to see Toasted, Mr Bassman, Heavyj amongst some other wellwishers too.
We sound-checked "Your Love is King" having not rehearsed it together, and put it straight into the set: we have a Valentines Ball tomorrow night too so it will come iin handy along with "My Funny Valentine" and "Days of Wine and Roses".

[johnnylager]

Last night was our annual Havant Arts Centre bash but this year it's moved from Thursday to Friday. We had 3 good support bands and hit the stage at about 10 pm and I got a fantastic on-stage [& FOH}sound courtesy of the Spector - LH / Barefaced rig. Good crowd, band on form and only a couple of cock-ups made for a great night.

Highlights of the night were

1. - When the first support band [by Christ, they look so young] came up and told us that they had never heard the word 'c***' so many times ever before.

2. - Engaging the crowd in a 'Prk - wanger' sing along. It's a Pompey thing.

[Kiwi]

We played Boreham House in Chelmsford last night, ironically its very near an independent day school where I've been doing some planning work recently so I'm familiar with the area. We arrived anticipating a Gherkin-esque nightmare load in as we'd been informed (and charged for) that there was a 3-4 min walk from where we were parked to where the venue was. There was also no band changing area supplied but we had a table amongst the guests. Turns out the walk was more like 1 min and was down 8 steps. The percussionist and guitarist were away as well and we had a dep on guitar.

We got there on time only to be told we couldn't load in for another 45 mins so we went to the pub across the road to wait. Then when we came back we had to wait another 30 mins so we decided to unload the PA and gubbins anyway and at least get it outside the marquee so we could shift it inside with relatively little hassle. We did that, we set up OK and sort of hung around on stage for the next hour and a half because there was no green room for us.

We'd had contact with the venue organiser and it seemed like she had a bit of a bee in her bonnet about the extra money we'd charged the client for the difficult load in. One of the singers who also does the admin and logistics told her it was between us and the client and it was none of her business. Turns out this woman is paying us for the night and isn't going to let the matter drop.

So we finished our line checks, get dressed and the singer goes off with one of the staff to collect our fee and comes back looking decidedly hacked off. She has the money but had to endure an ongoing debate over this extra load in fee. Seems like the venue organiser has taken things unnecessarily personally (the venue is difficult to get to) and is now pissed off that we're charging the client extra for what we were told in advance of the gig was a difficult load in. She ends up threatening our singer, telling her that she runs 6 other venues in Cheltenham and she thinks we shouldn't get the money. Our singer does a great job of not getting drawn into an argument and just repeatedly asks for the money. Finally the woman loses her rag and tries to tear a strip off our singer, and ends up phoning the percussionist (who is the manager) who then phones the singer while we're having our first dinner (we got a cold dinner and a help-yourself buffet later on in the evening). Why this venue organiser is taking such an active interest in how much we're getting paid, none of us can work out. But she's harped, threatened, cajoled and indimidated us for most of the evening.

Anyone else gigged in Chelmsford at wedding venues and know who we encountered? I know we'll probably refund some of the load in fee but we DID book two roadies to help us based on the information we were supplied with.

BTW, the client knew none of this argy bargy with the venue organiser was going on and they were lovely people. We didn't play our best because the dep kept making mistakes but they appreciated us none the less which I'm quite grateful for. (Keyboardist yells out 'Crazy!' and proceeds to play Crazy by Gnarls Berkley instead of Crazy In Love by Beyonce which was the next song on the set list...)

One more gig to go and then I'm out of the band. The drummer, who is also leaving, and I had a decent chat about it last night. He and I are pretty much leaving for the same reasons - too many demands being placed on us. The ironic thing is that I'm the most experienced musician in the band! For most of the band, its the first musical gigging outfit they've ever been in.

I'm leaving because of a clear difference of perspective between myself and the democratic consensus which I feel was totally avoidable if the band had actually valued more fully what we have musically. Still, I've found a funky outfit in Cambridge who sound really promising. The guitarist is into Chic in a big way (how much more perfect could that get?) and I'll hook up with them next month for a chat and see how interested they are in doing some disco house and club type stuff. They want to do a combination of originals and covers which is totally cool with me. I'd just like to play with musicians who can push and spark off each other. I'd also like for us to be able to do live funky jams in a Prince-style on stage with spontaneous segues, breakdowns, etc. I think some of the guys in my current band aren't experienced enough to do that yet.

[tonybassplayer]

This is more of a "How was your gig (s) last weekend" as life has been hectic since going back to work on Monday.

Saturday night was one of our regular pubs, the Barge in Brighouse and it was a cracker with a very lively audience dancing the night away from the first bars of the first set through to midnight.

Sunday night was a wedding at Berties Banqueting suite in Elland which is a very nice venue for weddings and functions with a large stage area. On arrival we were met by a professional videographer who had been commissioned by the management to make a video to feature on the website and would it be ok to film us. Sensing a nice opportunity for potential clients to see us when visiting their website we quickly agreed so he spent the first four songs taking video footage on stage with us !! Looking forward to seeing the results.

Another absolutely cracking gig finishing with seven encores !!

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Edited February 20, 2009 by tonybassplayer

[WalMan]

Swan in Woolston. Not bad, but not as busy as it has been (end of month was blamed by landlady) but it livened up and the dancefloor was full at the end.

Hiatus in the break as sound guy had a call from his alarm monitoring service. Finished the gig, but crack down was in record time.

Did both Foo Fighters songs, with Steve reading the words, and guitarists having had a quiet run through beforehand. "[i]Learn to Fly[/i]" went well but "[i]Long Road to Ruin[/i]" went a bit pear shaped in the middle, still we got through it

Bass was sounding huge, and we have now established that it is my Aviom rack mixer that has gone wrong as the mix was fine using one of the small mic stand mixers.

So that's this week over. Admiral Drake in Portsmouth next Saturday, a late one and we shall have to wait for the rugby to finish first (mind you as its the England/Ireland match I may just head down early and watch it there rather than drive down after)

[simon1964]

[quote name='WalMan' post='415936' date='Feb 21 2009, 02:27 AM']Did both Foo Fighters songs, with Steve reading the words, and guitarists having had a quiet run through beforehand. "[i]Learn to Fly[/i]" went well but "[i]Long Road to Ruin[/i]" went a bit pear shaped in the middle, still we got through it[/quote]

Good songs - we did The Last Song by the Foo Fighters for the first time tonight, and it went down really.

A new gig for us tonight at the The White Horse in Quorn - which the landlord claims is the "best venue in Leicestershire"

Was actually a pretty good night, and I even had a punter complementing my Stingray afterwards (but not my playing!)

Edited February 21, 2009 by simon1964

[Dr.Dave]

Bojangles - a wine bar in Pudsey , Yorks.

Beware - it has a killer staircase surrounded by glass panels. There's a small vocal PA upstairs and a stage/gantry but no lights. PA might be getting expanded.

Forget your big gear - take friends - or plain give it a miss.

[BigRedX]

Finally got to do the gig that's been on and off since December of last year. Mixed feelings really...

The good: We played really well especially considering that it the first gig for both our latest lead guitarist and our second vocalist. Loads of people there and plenty of dancing down the front from early on in the set. Plenty of energy and enthusiasm from the stage which the audience picked up on. Rhythmically I really locked in with the drummer and we were bloody tight even on the one song that always seems too loose in rehearsals. Several people commented on this afterwards and I was well pleased!

The not so good: We were way too loud for the size of the venue. The new guitarist wacked up the volume on his amp from what he uses in rehearsal ("it's a gig!") and couldn't be persuaded to turn down. Our small vocal PA which has always been plenty adequate in the past couldn't really cope. Being stood next to him I had to decide whether to to turn up to match or play by sight for the evening. I started on the latter but as you do headed towards the former as the evening progressed. I'd brought my small(er) rig as I was having to taxi it to and from the venue and I can't easily lift the EBS410 on my own and couldn't find a sound that was audible at a sensible level without it being stupidly bright. Still too much pointless dicking about on stage between numbers. IMO at this level we should tell the audience what the band's called at the beginning of the set, point out one of the songs that's on the CD we have for sale, and at the end thank them for coming, remind them who we are and that we have a CD for sale and that's it. Anything else ruins the pace especially when your audience is up for a dance!

Overall fun, but disappointing for me as we have the potential to be so much better with just a bit a discipline rather than lots hard work. However I have a feeling that most of the rest of the band won't understand my reservations. I'll be voicing my concerns but I think unless the rest of them get it I'll be moving on soon.

[spike]

Mixed feelings about my gig on Saturday. We played at a small bar in Dunstable, first time we've played there and the first time we've done a pub gig for over a year. Normally we play functions but we like to play pubs so that family, friends and potential clients can come and see us.

The very bad bit - We used the house PA and had feedback problems all night, so the vocals were never as loud as they needed to be. I never really settled into the gig because I was constantly adjusting the PA between songs. We didn't sound anywhere near as good as we could have done and that frustrated all of us.

The good bits - The place was packed, both with friends and regulars and they all enjoyed us and we did two encores. The owner reckoned it was the best night he has had band wise and wants us to come back and we had a couple enquiries about functions too.

The very good bit - Three different people that I'd never met before came up to me afterwards and told me how good my bass playing was. I'm used to being ignored most of the time so that was a great ego boost.

[Bilbo]

Did a lovely jazz trio gig last night with a REAL piano. It is sadly very rare to play with a real piano as most venues don't have them anymore. Digital pianos are getting better all of the time but, when you get to play with a great pianist (Ben Pringle - he did some of the music for C4's 'Time Team' - please, nomention of jazz and archaeology ) and a real piano, you realise how poor the electric pianos are. My Wal/SWR/GK set up was perfect as the piano had no amplification so the sound was that much more organic and dynamic. I could get so much more out of the bass as a result.

[waynepunkdude]

f***ing amazing is the answer, played the Camden Ska-fest at the Purple Turtle, huge stage, loads of people dancing, skanking and moshing.

My Jazz has never sounded better so clear but yet punch in the stomach loud.

Some great bands played with us, I feel like hell today but that's what gigging is all about.

[dave_bass5]

[quote name='Crazykiwi' post='408208' date='Feb 13 2009, 07:22 AM']We played a coporate gig at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford...almost.[/quote]

Sorry to hear about the gig getting cancelled.
We played there just before Christmas. third year running (could be 4, ive lost track) and its a great venue although the acoustic can be pretty wild. last year we were under the B52 wing so we sounded great but the year before we were by the glass doors and it was horrible. sounded like three bands all playing the same songs but slightly out of time with each other.

Edited February 23, 2009 by dave_bass5

[waynepunkdude]

I found a pic from last night, it's not great but I'll get the ones of my missus' camera tonight.

[beerdragon]

A pic from the other nights gig. you don't want to see my mug.

[url="http://imageshack.us"][/url]

[tonybassplayer]

Saturday night we played at one of our regular venues for my 50th birthday to a packed out pub full of friends, relatives, work colleagues and pub regulars.

First set was played much earlier than normal at about 8.45 allowing time for my trio to play live for the first time. I was very unsure about our ability to pull it off and with the song choices but I had nothing to fear as we really rocked and had the whole pub buzzing with songs from the Foo Fighters through to Joe Jackson. Loads of great feedback so looking forward to the first full gig.

Second set with the function band was very chilled with loads of dancers and guests musicians playing through till midnight.

Great gig and really wish I had bothered to video it.

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