How was your gig last night?

[tonybassplayer]

6 gigs in with new guitarist and we are starting to really rock the house.....

Last night it was the Drop Kick in Low Moor near Bradford with a decent sized room and stage with a very appreciative audience ( combination of locals and from our small but growing fan base )

Thursday was the Duck and Drake in Leeds, a little quiet but great gig anyway

Loving the new dimension in the band with new guitarist playing some keys, loads more starting to be added to repertoire from Lady Gaga to Paramore

[Paul_C]

I had a major trek from sunny Northampton down to rainy Brighton for a gig almost on the sea front, four bands playing lots of variations on the ska/reggae theme with the headliners (local band The Hotknives) playing a storming set to finish off an excellent night.

[elom]

Very strange one last night. We'd played there once before (estate pub) and it was really quiet. This time it was a wet and miserable night, they'd put up none of the posters I'd sent and hadn't even chalked our name on the board outside - nothing.

And the result? There was nobody there. Single digit punters in the other room, none in the room where we were playing. Landlord says he can't pay us the full amount but offered us half and said that we don't need to play and could keep the cash. As it happens we decided that for half the cash he could have half a gig. So we played one set to almost nobody, packed up and went home. On the plus side we used it as a chance to play through older songs that we've not played live for a while. We decided to treat it as a paid rehearsal and on that basis it wasn't too bad!

Certainly the strangest gig we've ever done. Never mind, one of our better venues next week.

[JTUK]

[quote name='OldGit' post='781075' date='Mar 20 2010, 07:22 PM']Yeah I get a tad nervous as the band's gig organiser. It can take me a while to settle down if there's something not quite right about it..

Do your band mates bring loads of audience or do they expect you to bring everyone? BTDT....[/quote]


I guess it is because this is the first proper band i have invested in for quite a time..plus this gig was in my home town so the onus was on me to get most people there, possibly. Although I think I did ok, I felt a bit let down with the no shows and it would be hard to do gigs like that every time.
Maybe it was this particular venue that made it somewhat fraught. When I dep, of course, I have nothing like this pressure.
1st set, we needed to relax, second set much better in that regard but it isn't helped that we don't get to rehearse the songs any more than one or two times so that can add to things when all is not perfect.
Maybe we are too hard on ourselves as when we hit it, we can pull it off and even a bad set isn't bad to anyone but ourselves.
Maybe we expect too much for 3 gigs...maybe we need the set to settle down ..we probably need to play it in more...the notes are fine...just sometimes that top end is missing unless everything is on our side.

I dunno...nothing but good things from the crowds we have played to... but we always know better..or expect more.

I think everyone tries to get someone along...for the most part..all except the drummer..??? maybe he doesn't like us and we are his money gig...??
His musical tastes are heavier than ours.... but from a playing POV, I don't understand it...

[xgsjx]

First gig of the year for BigRoom & it was interesting.

We're at core a three piece. Me on bass (& occasionally guitar), Dave on vocals & acoustic guitar/banjo & Andrea on mandolin/whistle/bodhran/spoons and sometimes we have other musicians join us for a couple of songs. Last night's was a blues gig so we got our drummer from Frigorifico to join in & had no rehearsal with him at all, so we thought we'd see if we can get in for 5pm, get everything set up (including the PA) and have a run over the set.

We got the gear set up but the guitar & amp that Dave was going to use was feeding back bigtime with no guitar coming thru. Turns out to be a problem with the p/u in the guitar, so he quickly ran home & got his electric & another amp, plugged it all in & fine.

In the meantime I'm trying to set up & was getting more reverb & wool than a sheep down a mineshaft due to the nice big wooden stage that we're on. I tried putting the combo upon the 1/2 flightcase from my pedal board, but no joy. I put it on a couple of chairs which worked slightly, but not by much so there it stayed.

we got set up for 6:45 leaving about 1/2 an hour to run over the set with the drummer.

The gig itself went well other than the fact that I was a bit too loud & Dave's vocals and the mandolin couldn't be heard too well. The audience enjoyed themselves tho.

[BigRedX]

Friday saw the second gig with my covers band. It was a benefit for the school that one of the guitarists works at so we had a large captive but appreciative audience and plenty of them down the front dancing.

Lots of mistakes but only really ones we noticed and none that we couldn't recover from. Only niggles were how long it takes the two guitarists to set up their gear (longer than the drummer to set up his kit) when they have assembled pedal boards and it takes me about 5 minutes from getting my rig onto the stage area to be set up and ready to play (and most of that time was spent trying to find a mains socket that actually provided power). Secondly the amount of tuning up the guitarists had to do between numbers which with an audience that didn't know us would have killed the atmosphere dead. Something will definitely need to be done about this because it ruins the set pacing, I mentioned it after the last gig, but was pretty much ignored, but a couple of audience members told one of the guitarists this time so hopefully they'll at least think about addressing it.

[OldGit]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='781415' date='Mar 21 2010, 09:53 AM']Friday saw the second gig with my covers band. It was a benefit for the school that one of the guitarists works at so we had a large captive but appreciative audience and plenty of them down the front dancing.

Lots of mistakes but only really ones we noticed and none that we couldn't recover from. Only niggles were how long it takes the two guitarists to set up their gear (longer than the drummer to set up his kit) when they have assembled pedal boards and it takes me about 5 minutes from getting my rig onto the stage area to be set up and ready to play (and most of that time was spent trying to find a mains socket that actually provided power). Secondly the amount of tuning up the guitarists had to do between numbers which with an audience that didn't know us would have killed the atmosphere dead. Something will definitely need to be done about this because it ruins the set pacing, I mentioned it after the last gig, but was pretty much ignored, but a couple of audience members told one of the guitarists this time so hopefully they'll at least think about addressing it.[/quote]


Hopefully silent tuning ..

That's a bug bear of mine too. Really spoils the flow of the set. Same with keys patch changing .. Just do it silently when the song is ending or the next one is starting without you.
You can plan things so they can tune up during intros or outros when they are not playing. Have bass and drums or keys or something lay down a "holding pattern" for a minute or so at the start of a song whilst they tune. Much much better than silence-with-tumbleweed or frontman chatter whilst they do it.
In fact have the front person do their chatter over the holding pattern, like a local radio DJ, never talk over silence. Works really well...

I played a dep recently with a guitarist with 4 guitars in a rack (for a very average blues rock pub covers band). He changed guitars and tuned between each of the last 3 tunes in the set. Killed it stone dead when it should have had the house rocking for a grand finale ... I did suggest they look at that but it's not my band ....

Oh and there anew TEC Polytune which shows all strings simultaneously now so the guitarist strums all 6 and gets a display to show which need to go up, which are Ok and which need to go down. That should help

[dave_bass5]

Going a bit off topic here but im also fed up with my guitarist having to tune up between almost every song. He does it silently but i feel a right idiot just standing around waiting for the next song to start.
Its got so bad that ive started to play the intros to songs that i don't normally start, just to try and keep the flow going.

Oh, and another thing that bugs me is that while i can understand our singer taking a swig of water between songs the guitarist also has to do it, at the same time. That means no one other than me or the drummer can start playing. Ive tired to get them to drink at different times but its just got getting through to them (mainly the guitarist, who doesnt sing much anyway).

Sorry, rant over.

[OldGit]

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='781483' date='Mar 21 2010, 10:49 AM']Going a bit off topic here but im also fed up with my guitarist having to tune up between almost every song. He does it silently but i feel a right idiot just standing around waiting for the next song to start.
Its got so bad that ive started to play the intros to songs that i don't normally start, just to try and keep the flow going.

Oh, and another thing that bugs me is that while i can understand our singer taking a swig of water between songs the guitarist also has to do it, at the same time. That means no one other than me or the drummer can start playing. Ive tired to get them to drink at different times but its just got getting through to them (mainly the guitarist, who doesnt sing much anyway).

Sorry, rant over.[/quote]


Video the gig. Show them how it looks
or...
realise that nothing will stop them and build in workarounds liek holding patterns to avoid blank spots, holes where the appluase should be etc etc...
Lifts teh whole show.

Let's take this out to general?

[bartelby]

[quote name='OldGit' post='781475' date='Mar 21 2010, 10:42 AM']Oh and there anew TEC Polytune which shows all strings simultaneously now so the guitarist strums all 6 and gets a display to show which need to go up, which are Ok and which need to go down. That should help
[/quote]


The guitarist in my band mentioned these on Friday. I'm surprised how cheap they are. I wonder how well they work...



EDIT: I guess [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=81528&st=0&#entry781100"]this[/url] answers that question

Edited March 21, 2010 by bartelby

[the_skezz]

Wasn't bad, though there were a LOT of issues.

First of all, the lead guitarist (who booked it at the loca community centre) told us to get there for six, and for the support band to get there for half six (though our singer had a soundcheck for a gig he was doing for another band, so he had to be late, as did our drummer, who was doing something with his family). I was there for six. The support band was there for half six. The rhythm guitarist got there at quarter to seven, the lead guitarist got there after seven. Having had no dinner because of trying to get there on time, I was quite annoyed about being told to get there so early.

After the support band, we did our set, which went pretty darn well. At least for the first forty minutes, then the singer had to leave for a gig elsewhere, and so we had to rely on the crowd to sing along to songs for us (at least on the well-known songs like 'Don't Stop Believing' and 'Sweet Child o Mine'; we had our friends filling in for stuff like 'Ace of Spades'). Eventually, it all kind of got to the stage where we were partially improvising stuff like 'Domination' by Pantera and 'Hallowed be thy Name' by Iron Maiden...which didn't go too badly tbf. After a while, it got to the stage where the support band and some of our friends were coming up and messing around with our instruments, which was a quite nice, informal way to start the evening.

My main grievance with the evening was towards the end, when we were trying to think of any songs we knew that we hadn't played yet. The rhythm guitarist suggested a song of our own that we've played quite a few times and know quite well, which me and the drummer were up for (the only reason we hadn't played it earlier was because the singer didn't have or know the lyrics, now that he had left this was no longer a problem). Naturally, our lead guitarist decided that it would be much better to play a song of our own that we weren't that sure of and that we've only ever played once all the way through, leading to a pretty big mess of a song. This pretty much reflects the guitarist's general attitude; if he wants to do it, it has to be done; it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

Ahem, sorry about that rant. Despite several aggravations, it was a pretty fun gig; the informality of merging with the crowd provided a nice change from our last couple of gigs where we've been on a stage (here we were on the floor). It was also the first time I've been able to turn my Marshall up particularly far (the master volume knob was about a third of the way round, and it could be heard from down the road). Oh, I also got drunk afterwards and went to sleep in a field for half an hour before stumbling home; which was a nice end to the evening.

[JTUK]

I understand the gaps between songs.....

Our guitar and keys use a lot of sounds and I can't blame them for putting in that work but they do have to hunt around and this all adds up over the course of the set. Agin, hopefully these are teething problems and could easily be overcome with banter or engaging the audience but then
the lead vocals turns his acoustic..so he is busy.. leaving me and the drummer just twiddling our thumbs. We will have to look at this soon but what really miffed me and put a bit of a dampner on the 1st set,vibe-wise, was the singer asking me why I needed to bring two basses?

Well, first, they are both relatively new basses to me so I am feeling the way through the set soundwise.
I need to play them in a live context to know how they sit in the mix. My impression is that I prefer the rosewood jazz soundwise which has a bit of an issue draining batteries but I have never had a chance to do so. So f*** 'em if they can ponce around with pre-sets and tunings, then I can
swap round my bass..which wasn't cheap and was bought for this purpose, in my mind, anyway. For a decent front-man, it shouldn't be too hard to talk and tune his acoustic guitar...

No problems with the music bar these little niggles but if things aren't going well, these little niggles take on more significance..

Still, we ended it with quite a storming second set

[Dr.Dave]

My favourite of the year so far - local place called The Hop.

Enthusiastic , diverse bunch of (pint offering) williams plus a few of my mates from work as a rent a crowd to get the rest worked up.

Our mate - bass player Eddie Wah - died suddenly 2 years ago and out of the blue we decided to wing 'road to hell' for him. It was his sort of signature song in his band as he sang it. Not really Doc Blue material but so what. Just as we got it going - totally unexpected - his widow walked in. Fantastic moment.

Quite a party gig , the Hop. Good for winging stuff. We turfed out a Roadhouse Blues/Blockbuster/Jean Genie sandwich late on off the cuff , maybe we'll keep it in - went down a storm.

And it stays open forever so after we packed up I hit the bar, at the expense of the aforementioned grateful williams , as I live close enough to stagger home !

There's a Hop opening in Leeds about now. Good pair of gigs for any Yorkshire bands who care to give them a call. Try googling The Hop Wakefield Myspace and the contact is Ian Fisher.

[the_skezz]

Had a ten minute slot in a Battle of the Bands at our rhythm guitarist's school. We played alright, got a good reaction, but didn't win (or even get 2nd or 3rd place) unfortunately...that said, of the bands that did get in the top three places, two of them played quite popular stuff (the winners playing Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance', for example) and the others were quite young children, making me wonder if the judges were influenced by the genre of songs played or by the age of the participants.

Sorry if that came across as sour grapes; I'm not denying that those three bands were very good (the young uns in particular were very good for their age; the fact that they played mostly AC/DC covers particularly enamoured me to them) but in my opinion there were several other bands there (not necessarily us) who should have been in the top 3.

[ThomBassmonkey]

JWP played a great gig last night. It was a charity event for Help for Heroes and we played 4 songs in the middle of various other acts (only one other musical act doing the mime version of Torn). Was a great night and everyone had a laugh, not to mention we earned a fair bit of money for a worthy cause.

[waynepunkdude]

Played with The Skints and Tyrannosaurus Alan last night at the Ivy in Sheerness.

The Skints are one of the most hotley tipped Ska bands in the UK at the moment and last time we played with them they blew Sonic Boom 6 off of the stage.


So it all kicked off around 8PM while the first band were on the merch guys from Tyrannosaurus Alan were being threatened by a bunch of racists for selling 'Bollocks to the BNP' shirts, fair dues to the lads they stood up to them and security had to come over and escort the racist m*****f***ers away.


Anyway on to the gig we went on second I think we played a blinder I was playing blue Jazz through my SVT into a Ampeg 8X10 sounded fantastic, got a good response from the crowd, good times.

T Alan were on before The Skints, I've been playing with these guys for years, when they first started they were a bunch of timid kids with an OK sound but they have developed so much over the last few years into (no exaggeration) a band that could quite happily end up bigger than Capdown, they f***ing rocked it.

The Skints came on shortly after, they are great guys and played a great set but they couldn't really live upto the band that proceeded them.

[pete.young]

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='787748' date='Mar 27 2010, 11:48 AM']So it all kicked off around 8PM while the first band were on the merch guys from Tyrannosaurus Alan were being threatened by a bunch of racists for selling 'Bollocks to the BNP' shirts, fair dues to the lads they stood up to them and security had to come over and escort the racist m*****f***ers away.[/quote]

Where can I get one of those shirts from, Wayne?

We had a great gig in The Bull in Colchester last night - top local venue packed with happy dancing punters, got to use my SB460 for the first time and it felt so right.

[waynepunkdude]

[quote name='pete.young' post='787773' date='Mar 27 2010, 12:28 PM']Where can I get one of those shirts from, Wayne?

We had a great gig in The Bull in Colchester last night - top local venue packed with happy dancing punters, got to use my SB460 for the first time and it felt so right.[/quote]


Give Crikey on here a shout, he is the bass player for T Alan so he can get you one mate.

[pete.young]

[quote name='waynepunkdude' post='787786' date='Mar 27 2010, 12:38 PM']Give Crikey on here a shout, he is the bass player for T Alan so he can get you one mate.[/quote]
Cheers Wayne, Ive sent him a PM.

[OldGit]

[quote name='the_skezz' post='787734' date='Mar 27 2010, 11:23 AM']Had a ten minute slot in a Battle of the Bands at our rhythm guitarist's school. We played alright, got a good reaction, but didn't win (or even get 2nd or 3rd place) unfortunately...that said, of the bands that did get in the top three places, two of them played quite popular stuff (the winners playing Lady Gaga's 'Bad Romance', for example) and the others were quite young children, making me wonder if the judges were influenced by the genre of songs played or by the age of the participants.

Sorry if that came across as sour grapes; I'm not denying that those three bands were very good (the young uns in particular were very good for their age; the fact that they played mostly AC/DC covers particularly enamoured me to them) but in my opinion there were several other bands there (not necessarily us) who should have been in the top 3.[/quote]

Never act (or play BOTBs) with animals or children...

Did they tell you the criteria for doing well, what the judges were looking for?

[tonybassplayer]

Brilliant gig at Montey's in Harrogate last night

Wild audience with at least two 21st birthdays being celebrated

Can't wait to play again ( see pics )

[attachment=45877:IMG_3311.JPG]

[WHUFC BASS]

Not me playing but went to see Cocksparrer at the Forum in London - brilliant night.

[thepurpleblob]

Last night was Bar Bliss in Kirkintilloch. A small gig but a good one. John the owner is a good guy too. Lots of new sockets installed this time..... why can't other pubs do that if they have regular bands rather than one cracked socket at the other side of the room???

First outing with my newly acquired Stingray5. Even better than anticipated (you were right, Stewart !!). Couple of new songs in the set - Gomez's "Get Myself Arrested" (sea of blank faces) and Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning" (went down well). Singer pissed as a fart and forget a few things and the drummer almost killed him. Don't think anybody noticed though

[attachment=45932:photo.jpg]

Edited March 28, 2010 by thepurpleblob

[thepurpleblob]

[quote name='tonybassplayer' post='788439' date='Mar 28 2010, 12:17 PM']Brilliant gig at Montey's in Harrogate last night

Wild audience with at least two 21st birthdays being celebrated

Can't wait to play again ( see pics )

[attachment=45877:IMG_3311.JPG][/quote]

Was the blonde with the prominent "assets" in the photo just a coincidence then??

[Mog]

Gigged on Saturday night, was bloody ragin by the time we home. Story: A band from the same town as us is on a bit of a tour at the moment with the same band supporting them at each gig. Two weeks ago the support band pulled out of this particular show and the guys asked us to step in as cover. We said sure we'll step in and help them out. Everything was arranged at least a week before the show, all we had to bring was cymbals, a guitar head and cab. With the extra room to spare we thought we'd give some of they're mates a lift to the gig. "Cool, nice one lads!" they said. So anyways, Saturday evening rolls around and we hit the road. We were about an hour and half into the journey, maybe 20ish km from the venue when we got the phone call from the main act. " Ahhhh......howya.....ahh..listen, theres a bit of a problem.......we cant play the gig tonight..... something came up......sorry lads" The little feckers left it until we were on the road to tell us that! Did the show, sounded muck, Hiwatt B150 or whatever they're called. The new set we were going to run through for a pretty important gig next Sunday went out the window and we were over an hour later leaving the venue than we had planned.(I had to get home for a wedding reception) I suppose the next one cant be as bad!!???????