How was your gig last night?

[martthebass]

5 hours ago, Paul S said:

My blues rock trio Toredown's regular 4th Friday of the month gig at the Shamrock in Ipswich.  Traffic on A12 on the way there was light, which makes a change.  Unloaded then had to park a fair distance from the pub.  Only a couple of our regulars turned out and the pub was generally quiet.  Kicked off to a handful of largely distinterested punters with maybe only a dozen or so paying attention.  Things improved as the night progressed but we didn't get the usual kind of joy coming back at us which, in turn, meant the evening lacked the usual spark from our direction.  We played well but it seemed to me something was missing.  My back and knees are playing up and I felt rather uncomfortable all evening, especially in the heat, so I was generally out of sorts.  A12 shut homebound, followed 4 articulated lorries along the diversion of small roads for 10 miles, got home about 30 mins later than usual at 01:45.  Maybe I am spoilt as I usually leave gigs feeling fairly euphoric but last night not so much.  Looking forward to our next one is in 3 weeks - a beer, beetroot (?) and blues festival - slightly nearer and slightly earlier.

We all have em mate, sure the next one will be a blast!

[neepheid]

38 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

Thanks

 

It's a nice bass Dave. It's the active pre amp I'm hooked on.

 

Daryl

 

I had a Tribute L-2000 a while back, so have used the same setup. Do you use it in plain active or active with treble boost?

[msb]

Our second gig with the Mexican band is now in the books. Crowd was slightly smaller but we still managed a good house. We recorded the night and we should start to hear stuff in the next several days , after mixing. 
It’s party music , and it works. The two trumpets are just nailing the parts.

We’re pretty happy campers , the morning after. 

Edited June 24, 2023 by msb

[dmccombe7]

18 minutes ago, msb said:

Our second gig with the Mexican band is now in the books. Crowd was slightly smaller but we still managed a good house. We recorded the night and we should start to hear stuff in the next several days , after mixing. 
It’s party music , and it works. The two trumpets are just nailing the parts.

We’re pretty happy campers , the morning after. 

Look forward to hearing some of this. Its very different to the usual bands we hear.

Nice one.

Dave

[Simon C]

9 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

We played an all ticket sell out gig in a club outside Edinburgh once with our 70's Glam covers band. The venue had our posters up and it was well advertised as a 70's Glam covers band. We had a guy shout for some funk music at one point in between songs. He then approached our Agent with same request who then pointed to the poster on the wall and said the band were a 70's Glam Rock covers band. Why did you even buy a ticket and handed him his money back and told him to fosters off. He was a tad drunk even tho it was an afternoon gig. 

 

Are those G&L tribute basses really that good. ?

Dave

 

My L2K is.  The on-line bass tutor often comments on how good the tone is.  It’s really nice to play too. I’d say it’s the nicest instrument I’ve played - that includes some pianos that are worth tens of thousands.  The downside is that it’s heavy, but it balances well on a strap and I do use a wide strap so it may distribute the weight better than a narrow one.

[moley6knipe]

Excellent days gigs with Clutching at Straws. Morning was cabling up for the evening gig. Then a set up in baking full sun at a community event in Elsea Park, Bourne. Really, really hot. Gallons of water and sunblock. Then charged off to Langtoft Lakes for the private party that I cabled up earlier. Superb gig, dance floor rammed. Left the house at 10:00, home at 00:45 for a much needed shower. Followed by hoovering everything out.. crawling with ants from the evening’s marquee gig. Three 18” fans on stage. Cool as cucumber. And fed and watered at both gigs

 

Fresh strings on the Dimension. Awesome, awesome bass sound. Really cranked the GK today, which they really like. Boost knob for the win!!

[dmccombe7]

6 hours ago, moley6knipe said:

Excellent days gigs with Clutching at Straws. Morning was cabling up for the evening gig. Then a set up in baking full sun at a community event in Elsea Park, Bourne. Really, really hot. Gallons of water and sunblock. Then charged off to Langtoft Lakes for the private party that I cabled up earlier. Superb gig, dance floor rammed. Left the house at 10:00, home at 00:45 for a much needed shower. Followed by hoovering everything out.. crawling with ants from the evening’s marquee gig. Three 18” fans on stage. Cool as cucumber. And fed and watered at both gigs

 

Fresh strings on the Dimension. Awesome, awesome bass sound. Really cranked the GK today, which they really like. Boost knob for the win!!

WOW that's a busy busy day and all credit to you for it.

Dave

[mep]

Back to the coach house in Paignton, our favourite venue. The power cut when were setting up. It transpired that one of our powered PA speakers internal fuse blew. We tried a spare and that blew too. Luckily the pub has its own old Vox PA in the corner. We rigged it up as a stack to one side and connected it to one of our desk outputs. A bit of tweeking and we got a good sound. We had to cut a couple of songs from the first set and played well. Next problem us getting it fixed as it's a class D powered.

On the way out there was an incident just up the road from the pub with the police and ambulance in attendance. When I got home the air ambulances flew over and apparently flew the person to Plymouth.

[Merton]

Did a weird sort of 2-in-1 gig yesterday in Cambridge at a corporate “family fun day” event. First hour was the “rock band for kids”, with about 3 kids in attendance and the rest of the audience slightly amused adults.

 

Second set was the same musicians but cranking it up a notch for the “grown up party band”.

 

Was hot, humid and sticky and our drummer nearly fainted near the end of the second set but we made it through.

Left home 9.30am, had a shite journey up (took 4 hours, haven’t driven a manual vehicle for that length of time in over a decade!), but given it was a day event I was home almost exactly 12 hours later so can’t complain

 

Basses were my ACG Finns (a 4 and a 5), amp was the Trace TE-1200 and cab was a single BF Two10S, and all sounded fecking marvellous even with me at the controls.

 

Today I am recovering from the crappy drive by fixing a shower and dishwasher, coz I know how to live 🤓

[dmccombe7]

21 minutes ago, Merton said:

Today I am recovering from the crappy drive by fixing a shower and dishwasher, coz I know how to live 🤓

Rock & Roll lifestyle just never ends for you 

Dave

[Franticsmurf]

I played a small festival gig yesterday with two different bands. The main band I'm in (The Hulla) organises the festival and so Friday was spent setting up the stage and marquee, sorting out the sound etc. I put a three piece band together (The Rip) to fill one of the afternoon slots in the festival and that went really well. By the time we went on there were about 200 people milling about and we got a better than expected reaction from them as we went through 45 minutes of rock covers. I lost my voice two weeks ago (I forgot where I left it - that's age for you) and it's been slowly getting back to 'normal' but my rendition of '20th Century Boy' was a bit enthusiastic and by the time I came to sing 'Comfortably Numb' I was a bit gravelly and it was hard to hit the higher notes. Our guitarist was helping with harmonies but I just had that feeling of 'this isn't working'. Then our sound guy gave me a big grin and a thumbs up and it really lifted my spirits. I managed to get through the final chorus sounding a bit Joe Cocker-esque but fortunately it was the last song I was singing lead vocals on and I managed to grunt the 'harmonies' to 'Purple Rain' and 'Sunshine of Your Love'. We've already decided to keep going with The Rip as we all seem to be on the same wavelength and the reception we got at the end was very positive.  

 

The Rip

 

 

The Hulla went on at the end and, with one 10 minute break, we played for 4 hours. By the time we started there were more than double the number of people there (we'd sold 500 tickets and there were some walk-ins too) and the atmosphere was amazing. Our singer is very good at working with audiences and this crowd was up and dancing almost from the first song. The singer (on a radio mic) ended up leading a conga line through the field during '500 Miles' and completely disappeared into the darkness, still singing, during our rock 'n' roll medley. All good fun and we ended up running out of songs as the 'One More Song' chant started so we revisited a couple of earlier toons. The Hulla always go down well with this crowd (this is the third festival I've played with them) and the time flew by. 

 

The Hulla Band

 

 

 

Kit wise, for The Rip I played my newly acquired Ibanez EHB1000s through a Plethora X3 (giving me compression and a choice of chorus or phaser, with the vintage 4x10" cab sim selected). I was using a Behringer BDI21 but it developed a buzz and so I swapped it for a passive DI box. The signal was split into FOH and a TCE BAM200 into a Trace 1x10" and a Warwick 1x10"+tweeter. I played a Crafter electro-acoustic guitar directly into FOH for Comfortably Numb, and for the end solo and the solo in Purple Rain I used a McMillen 12 Step keyboard controller with a string patch to fill the sound out.

 

With The Hulla, I used my Sterling HH through the Plethora and directly into FOH with no back line. Our sound man had got such a good sound and a nice mix in my IEM that I didn't need anything behind me and I think this will be the turning point where I finally have the confidence to go ampless in The Hulla. 

 

I am tired this morning, though. 😃     

[neepheid]

Second night of a double header, in a new (to us) venue too.  Grays Inn in Aberdeen was the place.  Things got off to a positive start, relatively easy load in from a lane round the back of the pub then only up a few shallow steps, pretty decent - and there was no waiting around as they had already the tables from an area facing the bar where we could set up.  But man, it was hot.  There's no point in air conditioning a bar in Scotland 360 days of the year.  Unfortunately, this was one of the 5 where it would have been nice!  Towel in use during load in and setup, hadn't even got started playing yet!

 

First half was a bit quiet, we started at 9 but the beer garden was open until 10 so that limited things.  But we had a few folk in, and the singer's getting better at his banter so we were having a laugh with the people who were there.  More folk came in when the beer garden closed so that helped.  Second half went well, got some folk up on the dance floor - if in doubt, play Summer of '69.  Yes, pure camembert, but it works!

 

Oh man, it was a hot one though.  I was towelling my face after every song and I was thoroughly damp by the end, ewww.  But it was a successful debut at a new place and we've got a repeat booking from them so all in all I'm pretty happy with my night's work.  Also, probably because of playing last night too, I personally thought I played really well, very few mistakes, band was tight, honestly it felt like being part of a tightly working machine.  Love that, when everything clicks.

 

The aforementioned back lane had become a LOVELY wind tunnel when we were loading out - so good that we hung around a bit after packing the cars because it was so refreshing.  Cue adopting the pose from The Shawshank Redemption after Andy escapes from the poop tunnel.

 

Epiphone Jack Casady for bassage last night, and it was sounding fscking amazing.  I love that bass so much.

 

Get a room!

 

[Franticsmurf]

3 minutes ago, neepheid said:

But man, it was hot.

Yes, although we were on the coast yesterday, we were sheltered from any breeze. Hot and humid = sweat and many towels. 😄

 

5 minutes ago, neepheid said:

But it was a successful debut at a new place and we've got a repeat booking from them

This is the true test - no matter how many people tell you how good/bad/loud/quiet etc you were, if the venue re-books you, you must have done something right!

[moley6knipe]

Still drying!! 🤢

[SICbass]

3 minutes ago, moley6knipe said:

Still drying!! 🤢

Wot, your chastity belt?

[dmccombe7]

Seriously guys invest in one or two of these.

Drummer has one and i have one blowing across the stage front. Planning to get another for other end of the stage (floor 😂) area

I got mine from Amazon but B&M and other stores do cheaper versions.

Dave

 

[Riverbassman65]

Had a fantastic gig at Full Circle in Watertown last night. It’s a club I’ve wanted to play for ages, and the classic rock band I’m in got booked there.  We had a fantastic crowd who danced from the 1 st song to the 2nd encore!  The stage and acoustics were 1st class!  To make it even better I received many compliments on my tone from other players!  I’ll post pictures once our guitar player sends them out!  Have a fantastic rest of your weekend! 

[Mickeyboro]

5 minutes ago, Riverbassman65 said:

Had a fantastic gig at Full Circle in Watertown last night. It’s a club I’ve wanted to play for ages, and the classic rock band I’m in got booked there.  We had a fantastic crowd who danced from the 1 st song to the 2nd encore!  The stage and acoustics were 1st class!  To make it even better I received many compliments on my tone from other players!  I’ll post pictures once our guitar player sends them out!  Have a fantastic rest of your weekend! 

Tell us who your band is when you do! 

[gafbass02]

Wedding. Played. Waited. Played. Melted. Great food. Home. Bed. Win. 

[Woodinblack]

Also wedding - local, arrived early to setup the PA so they could do their first dance to it, so setup was easy (apart from all the children helping), rest of the band turned up later, we started earlier than we though, but then they gave us a lot more money than we thought!

Long gig, but apparently we sounded fine, it was the first gig with the old guitarist as the new one decided it wasn't for him and the old guitarist decided it was for him.

Played my new bongo, it sounded great and was good to play. Finished at 11, packed up, home and put away by 12.

 

[markbunney]

The 77’s played in Maidstone again last night, this time at the Druids Arms in the town centre.

 

First time for us at this venue and it went pretty well. We were on a small stage in an outside courtyard, which was nice given the heat.

 

We played pretty well, and I got to use my new amp which sounded awesome (Darkglass Alpha Omega 500).

 

we managed to get the new digital mixer and powered speaker to working as well. The other three all used IEMs which they said worked well, I stuck with the wedge monitor which I couldn’t hear that well.

 

I would like to get IEMs as well, but will likely need to get some custom ones made, as I already have some hearing loss and tinnitus so need ones that have a good seal.

 

Next Saturday we are playing in Maidstone again, at the pub next door!!

[BillyBass]

It was very hot and humid.  We played at the 'Fox & Hounds' in Croxley Heath, which is near Rickmansworth in Herts.  The pub is in a street with few other commercial establishments, just houses so regulations dictated that we had to play inside (and have all the doors and windows shut by 9pm) when almost everyone was in the beer garden.  The landlady said the pub had been quiet for a couple of days; she thought Glastonbury might have had something to do with it.

 

Anyway, a fan was provided, which blew my long hair into my face for much of the gig and I also had to stand like the Ramones as the drums were slowing shifting forward during the set and I volunteered to keep one foot on the mat they were on, while avoiding the cymbals.

 

We've been asked back though so at least the landlady liked us.

 

Our set up

[Leonard Smalls]

Just got back from the first Weeds gig in 8 years (but we have been in existence since 1984 with various members, some famous and some not (like me!))...

It was actually at a big house party in Sheffield where the band was also staying. I took my full 2k PA to add to the drummer's monitors and we spent all of yesterday rehearsing - as our singer and rythm guitarist couldn't make it we'd prepared a backing and vocal track and we were going to use a click track for sync. Singer was replaced by a blow up Johnny Rotten. And a DJ was going to spin samples and run tracks for us.

So the house was packed, maybe 80-100 people so more than I'm used to 😁. And most of 'em danced!

Some even came up and said "Now then. That weren't too bad!"

So now we're ready to take on the world, we may even finish our long unfinished recordings and do another gig!

Here's a tiny snatch...

 

 

 

[martthebass]

After last weeks hot and sticky festival gig this week it was a hot and sticky gig in a small pub for a birthday celebration. A small but appreciative crowd and an altogether enjoyable evening. I wasn’t on my best game for some reason - a bit of hand cramp in the second set due to dehydration I suspect (and the drummer being enthusiastically fast…). That’s it for a few weeks while I have some ongoing medical treatment, missing it already 😞

[Bluewine]

22 hours ago, neepheid said:

 

I had a Tribute L-2000 a while back, so have used the same setup. Do you use it in plain active or active with treble boost?

I keep the treble and bass boost switches in the middle position. Very clean and transparent. 

 

Blue