casapete

I largely agree with you - I had high hopes for this after the absolutely wonderful Northern Soul event a couple of years ago. Plus points - Beverley Knight, the orchestra and most of the backing singers were all fabulous. Some great tunes featured too. Rhythm section were great ( although don’t know who they were). Minus points - Some singers were featured too much, in particular Jacob Lusk whose dodgy falsetto like range was at times off key more than on it. I nearly turned it off when he kept reappearing to murder more tunes. A few of the songs chosen were a bit puzzling, although am guessing they were significant in the Civil Rights movement which was the main theme. Trevor Nelson seemed rather underwhelmed by it all, and his hosting skills were a bit lacking. I noticed one or two cock ups too, particularly in ‘War’ where the vocalist seemed to lose his place completely at one point, and nearly carried on as the band finished the song. I was quite disappointed overall, and almost pleased when it had finished. ☹️

Just following on from your dislike of certain instruments onstage, that’s all.

I quite like acoustic guitars mixed with electric ones. Stops that dreaded two electric guitar thing where you get both players playing exactly the same thing for no apparent reason. At least acoustics bring a different texture and percussive feel to things. Here’s another one - guitarists who have all their sounds on a ( usually massive ) pedal board, with everything done by doing a dance on the damned thing every time there’s even a slight change in sounds. Most of the time it’s variations on sounding like a wasp in a jam jar, and makes the choice of instrument almost redundant as anything they used would sound the bleeding same… Volume and tone controls on guitars are there for a reason!

Me too. I’ve realised over the years that I’m a ‘live’ musician, not a ‘studio’ one. I seem to lack the concentration needed to function well in studios, and hate the hanging around and tech involved as well as being inside in such a sterile environment for hours on end. Much rather a boozer with an enthusiastic audience anyday.

If I see a ‘rawk’ guitar or bass ( stupid coloured, daft shape etc) I’m not hanging around to see the band. Likewise massive drum kits, band logos in ‘metal’ fonts, and even stages with no backline ( although I’m realising this is rapidly becoming the norm so may have to change my thoughts on that one.) 🤣

OK, here’s my six penny worth…. I have a couple of the V3 Rumble combos, a 100 and a 500. I use the smaller one for gigs with my duo and the larger one for loud duo gigs and also depping with other bands etc. Both are great sounding bits of kit, and have the magic ‘vintage’ preset which gives a very usable classic ‘rock’ tone, with all the tone controls set on roughly 12 o clock. ( I sometimes use the smaller one with a Fender Kingman acoustic electric and it works well too, mainly in smaller gigs like cafes etc. ) Both combos are also lightweight, the 100 astonishingly so! This is getting more important for me these days, as I do maybe 150 gigs a year and am in my late 60’s. These amps, along with my Barefaced cab, have enabled me to carry on gigging with no problems. I haven’t had any reliability problems with either, although these have been some of the first amps I’ve had where I know that they may prove difficult to fix should anything go wrong - hard for me to get my head around, but sadly becoming more of a modern dilemma. Didn’t stop me from buying them though, and so far hasn’t been a problem. Possibly the only minus point is the DI, which on all the combos (other than the 800 I believe) are post eq/ volume. This means any change of volume onstage does affect the out front level too, which can be a pain. ( Not a problem for me as I just set my onstage volume and leave it.) Regarding your thoughts on the earlier Rumble range, I’ve only used a couple when sharing gear on gigs, and didn’t find them particularly great, as well as being heavy for their size. The V3 amps are completely different in most respects. I personally like the vintage vibe of their appearance too, but you can get some models in all black rather than the silver speaker cloth versions. I don’t mind the top mounted controls either! I would consider the 500 combo to be the best all round choice. Weighs around 36lbs, 2x10 speakers, great tone and loud! However, for your circumstances where it’s for home use only I would suggest the 100 combo, which is a 1x12. These can be picked up s/h for less than £200, and sound great too. Hope this helps, cheers.

Think I’ve mentioned this before but when a venue asks to see any PAT certificates for your gear, then you also have the right to see their up to date EIC (Electrical Installation Certificate). If it’s a temporary event then the organiser should have evidence of the electrical supply completed to BS7909 standards.

My duo has been working for around 30 years now without one rehearsal, ever! 😁

This 100%. One of the reasons I always prefer Precisions over Jazz basses. My P-Lyte (PJ pickups) has a single volume plus a pan control which works fine for me.

Confession time - I also have a Danelectro Longhorn ( okay 29 and 3/4 “ scale) which is never going to leave me, so that makes 3 shorties really. I’m currently trying to reduce my bass / amp collection, and just concentrate on keeping stuff that gets used. ( Oh yeh, also forgot the Ibanez PNB14E acoustic - that’s 25”, and Fender Kingman 30”). 😁

Or The Moody Blues.

I’m the same with my U5, not a problem for me. My issue now is that I have two 30” scale basses - the U5 and a Squier Jaguar a mate has recently given me - and only really need one, but which needs to be moved on? Both have their good points, and are almost identical weight wise. Going to take them on gigs over the next few weeks to try and decide.

It’s a fairly budget system comprising two passive bins with internal crossovers linked to two 10 inch passive tops. We use a Yamaha EM512SC to power these, 2x500 watts. It all works okay, but does need upgrading. Did a gig recently where we used in house QSC powered 12 inch cabs and it sounded great. Ideally would like something to handle acoustic guitar, acoustic / electric bass as well as 2 vocal mikes, probably powered cabs like your Mackies or similar. RCF stuff gets lots of recommendations on here too, so will have to start looking.

Two gigs again for me this week. Wednesday as usual at the rock n roll club. Plenty of dancers in, but very hot though - think the club have stopped using the air con till next year! I did ‘ Memphis Tennessee’ in my now regular Chuck Berry spot, and went down well. Always a bit knackered next day after playing mainly fast songs for nearly two hours, fingers / hands in particular a bit achy. Sunday afternoon saw our duo performing at our favourite pub in Beverley, The Sun Inn. With it being a bank holiday weekend it turned out to be almost ridiculously busy, all seats & tables taken and little standing room before we even started playing. We had the usual wide range of requests, ranging from ‘Guantanamera’ and ‘He’ll have to go’ ( Ry Cooder style) to ‘Dead Flowers’ ( Stones ) and even some Coldplay ( following their recent Hull gigs!). I used a Squier Jaguar shortie into my Rumble 500, leaving the PA for vocals and acoustic guitar. Our PA only just coped with things TBH, so we will be needing to address updating it soon I think, especially as whilst packing down the landlord offered us a series of monthly gigs for all of 2026.