How was your gig last night?

[asingardenof]

A return to the Plumbers Arms in Huddersfield last night. The usual postage stamp-sized area for the band to set up in, with the added bonus of our drummist having some sort of tree-shaped lighting fixture next to him that took up one of the two available plug sockets, meaning that everything was daisy-chained off my 4-way extension with me having been the first to plug in.

 

The lack of space also meant that I was stood facing perpendicular to the rest of the band because I was positioned right behind one of the PA speakers and I was in constant danger of knocking the thing into some unsuspecting punters as it was.

 

I used the Siredowsky, and the lack of space encouraged me to give the Elf it's first outing since New Year's Eve and it performed admirably despite the terrible acoustics. For most of the first set I could barely hear myself while our singist who was stood next to me claimed I was too loud, until at the break we realised that one of the PA speaker's input levels had been set too low, and after that everything sounded pretty good.

 

We all played pretty well apart from a minor stumble in the breakdown of A Town Called Malice when our keyboardist randomly missed a beat, but fortunately it was right before the bass solo so we righted ourselves after that. We had a few people dancing through both sets, and afterwards a few people came up to tell me we'd played well, which was nice.

 

After having no gigs since August we have another one next Saturday, at a larger venue which promises to be rammed, so looking forward to that!

 

[StingRayBoy42]

LAST NIGHT!

Azura (ignore the posters that say 'Azure band') at O'Neill's Leicester!

We always have a good one here so we were really looking forward to it.

We did it as a 3 piece due to the singer/guitarist being in the prcoess of being sacked (due to continued and sustained acts of egregious knobbery (with arseitude aforethought) and a complete lack of theology, geometry, deceny and good taste).

Horrendous journey up (down?) the M6 through biblical rain courtesy of storm Bert (who names these storms? Seriously... 'Bert'?!), load in was the usual with the added fun of heavy rain, setup was good - the drummer and I had it 80% done by the time singer/keys/guitar had gone and dumped the van.

It was pretty busy and the dancefloor was already packed when we started (I think the East Midlands Drop Dead Gorgeous Blonde Convention (EMDDGBC) was on in Leicester that afternoon) and the floor stayed full all the way through the first set, which was ace and went really well.

Singer/keys/guitar (he's called Henry but it's probably easier to just call him singer/keys/guitar) had a gaggle of EMDDGBC alumni in front of him who were giving him loads (in a good way - asking for Justin Bieber songs, trying to put him off, asking him for mad announcements and suchlike), we got asked to sing Happy Birthday to Chloe (?) then someone else came up and said it was Alison's (or Alistair's?) birthday and they wanted Happy Birthday as well and before you know it, we're singing Happy Birthday *again* to NINE different people.

I sang Shake Ratlle and Roll which we did in the wrong key so it was a Paul Robeson remix, I got all the words in Escape (The Piña Colada Song) right for (I think) the first time ever (singer/keys/guitar cocked up the BVs which is always hilarious (there are SO MANY words and all the choruses (chorii?) are slightly different)), the drummer got propositioned again (happens every gig, he always says no thank you (he's engaged)), quick vape and shandy break, second set was even better than the first (except some spunktrumpet grabbed singer/keys/guitar's mic which is attached to his keyboard and got some choice anglo-saxon from me, singer/keys/guitar and a bouncer), Country Roads had the whole place up and singing their hearts out, the holy trinity (Dakota, Sex on fire, Brightside) took the roof off, three encores (oh... go on then), we were all knackered and very sweaty by the end of it.

Pack down (we have got way too much stuff), load out (bouncer gave us a hand with the big stuff), back down (up?) the M6 (rain: biblical), back to singer/keys/guitar place, stuff out of the van into my car, back up (down?) the M6 (the rain had somehow progressed from biblical to apocalyptic) to my Dad's place in Brum about 2am for a pint of Old Pa StingRayBoy's homebrew pear cider (ABV unknown) and the world's loveliest cat (and two other cats who are also very nice) and bed about 3.

(Up at 10 and back down (up?) along  the M6 to Jazz Orchestra rehearsal (with Birmingham's best japanese non-binary morris dancing trombonist) which was really good (first set Bond themes, second set christmas) but that's not really about last nights gig)

I'd planned to take the P for a change but I picked up the wrong case and took the Sterling (no great hardship, it's a lovely Bass (did I ever tell you Ernie Ball gave it to me for nothing?)) -> small board -> amp board (VTDI set to fliptop) -> MB 802 -> PA (Newly re-soled cherry red DMs, foot fans).

An absolutely top night.

[mep]

We played a Christmas Party for some Bikers last night in Paignton. They hired a function room in a good venue on the seafront, which was much better than the glass box they hired last year nearby. We used the venues parking spaces which was a bonus. A local gig for us all, so no big deal with storm Bert. There is a stage area that doubles as seating, so a balustrade in front of us. We had plenty of room and good setup and stage sound, although we couldn't hang our backdrop behind us. The venue turned all the lighting off when we started, it felt a bit dark, as they only had some Christmas decoration lighting. Our stage lights just about did us justice. There was some dancing at times, but a slight decline towards the end which was a bit surprising. We played well and I used my usual rig, Stingray into RM500 and BF210, which also went through the PA. They will book is for next year, and we will be increasing our party prices a bit.