casapete

We had a great request shouted at our lead singer in Dundee -“ get yer c*ck oot” Thankfully he didn’t oblige….

I wish! My folks preferred Chopin to Chuck 😆

Beginning to think you may be right Mick! It’s certainly a growing trend, not helped by theatres leaving their bars open during performances meaning a constant stream of people going for more booze. That’s fine in standing venues, but in theatres where whole rows of people have to stand to allow people to get past can be a pain. I remember at a gig in Manchester a couple of years ago, the police had to be called to sort out a fight in the theatre foyer about this! (Always surprises me that it’s not just the younger folk causing grief either. At the Cardiff episode all concerned were in their 60’s & 70’s !!)

Two gigs for me this weekend, both a good distance from home. Friday saw us at a new venue, The Forum in Bath. Dreadful journey due to issues on the M5 and torrential rain so we ventured off the motorway and ended up on many A roads across the Cotswolds. Then our PA van broke down en route due to a faulty brake caliper, with our engineer fixing it on the hard shoulder after our lighting tech sourced a replacement from the nearest garage. Everyone arrived late at the venue, meaning a mad dash to get set up and sound checked. Anyway, a great old theatre with good staff and around 800 punters so we were hopeful it would be okay. It turned out to be a belting gig, audience with us right from the off and excellent sound both onstage and FOH. Absolutely knackered afterwards though, and we didn’t even have a few drinks afterwards when we got to our hotel. Not too bad a drive to Cardiff next day for a gig at The New Theatre, another venue new to the band. Right in central Cardiff, with very limited loading space which meant only one van at a time could be accommodated so had to take it in turns with our 4 vehicles. No parking facilities either, necessitating a lengthy walk to find anywhere that would take LWB vehicles. Lovely stage crew very helpful though, and plenty of places to choose from to eat before the show. We had another healthy turnout of around 850 people. The gig started fine, but some annoying drunk people in the first few rows were causing problems for many others all through our first set, nearly resulting in a fight at one point. The staff were on it though, and after many warnings ejected 5 people in the interval! Rest of the gig went really well, so another venue to hopefully return to next year. Long drive back to East Yorkshire afterwards, home around 3.30am and totally wiped out all day Sunday! (pic below shows me dragging our PA guy Rik onstage for a bow, after his epic efforts in fixing his truck roadside!)

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I’d agree - Eminence Kappalite 3012LF.

I seem to remember a bit of a teddy boy /rock n roll revival in the early mid 70’s. Bands like Sha Na Na in the USA and Showaddywaddy over here sparked a lot of interest in the 50’s, which were soon helped by Happy Days, Grease etc. The London Rock n Roll Show at Wembley Stadium in 1972 attracted a massive audience, and featured Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Bo Diddley as well as Bill Haley & His Comets, all of whom were riding a new wave of popularity. ( I wanted to go, but as I was only 14 my parents wouldn’t allow it! )

In the early days playing in our ELO tribute band we would often get requests for ‘Mustang Sally’, ‘Brown eyed girl’, etc etc. This was from people who had paid for a ticket to come and see a band playing solely ELO stuff. In my acoustic duo, we often do gigs entirely based on requests. We put out request slips on all the tables in the room, and do our best to play most of them. The hardest are usually obscure songs / artists which I’m sure people write to test us out. I’d say our ‘success’ rate is around 90% on average though, so usually punters go away having heard stuff they wanted.

Blimey! 2 for 1 for some folk on here - Adele and an acoustic bass guitar 😂

I kinda know what you mean about Tom. Sometimes people who write great songs aren’t always the best people to record them etc. Having said that, I was driving back from a gig late one night a few years ago and his amazing version of ‘Somewhere’ ( from West Side Story) came on the radio, and his voice damned near moved me to tears. A true one off, wonderful artist.

Kevin McCloud from Channel 4 programme ‘Grand Designs’ apparently plays the bass ‘very badly’. Also Penn Jillette from magician duo Penn and Teller is a good jazz double bassist.

Wow, fantastic!

Same here Lozz. Did hundreds of gigs with my 80’s SVT rig, and most of them with no FOH support, even in reasonably large venues. Often the engineer would place a mic in front of one of the speakers ‘ just in case’ but I don’t ever remember it being utilised. There’s something about the SVT/810 thing that makes the bass felt throughout the room. Also worked with some FOH engineers who mic up the cab as well as use a DI. Some used both feeds to get a sound, others used just one source with the other there as back up.

Good call, but does look like a long scale job to me?

Not sure if this pic is ‘real’? Clapton’s band was involved in MusicMan endorsement in the 70’s and early 80’s, but this pic is later than that.

I must admit, I struggle with the whole Blues Brothers thing. Great film but the way it turned some great songs into what became boozy anthems I found rather annoying, especially as had been a fan of this music since the 60’s. Ditto The Commitments, and what followed on from that film. I suppose it’s best to regard them both as vehicles for younger generations to hopefully access fantastic soul music, same as I did with English blues players being a gateway to the original stuff.

The Housemartins. After a lot of success, ‘the fourth best band in Hull’ split meant two of the band, Paul Heaton and Dave Hemingway, went on to form The Beautiful South, with Norman Cook morphing into Fatboy Slim as well as forming Beats International and Freak Power. When The Beautiful South split ( due to ‘musical similarities’ ) Paul Heaton continued to record and perform with Jacqui Abbott.

I still have access to both a pair of HiSys 1 and 2’s. Haven’t used them for a while, but always sound pretty good. Couple of the horn drivers have been replaced over the years, but still have the original BW speakers in them. I also used a HiSys2 once for a bass cab and it was pretty good. Old Peavey stuff was just about bomb proof, great value and serviceable too.

I was fortunate enough to see the composer of ‘Wichita Lineman’, Jimmy Webb, perform the song last year at The Stables in Milton Keynes. Just him playing grand piano - absolutely wonderful.

One of my favourite ever songs. Good job we’re all different though eh? 🙂

I used one of these once, bit heavy but it sounded okay if a touch underpowered. On small gigs I occasionally borrowed our keyboard player’s Roland KC350 combo and that sounded okay too. Don’t you just hate it when manufacturers name amps something you believe to be the output and it isn’t? Often combos where the model number relating to output is only possible if you add another cab.

I actually quite like ‘You’ll never walk alone’, and aren’t a footy fan either. It’s one of those songs you think is easy to busk but then catches you out - well it has me a few times anyway. Also love ‘Ferry cross the Mersey’ too, despite me having no Liverpool connection. Great tune.

I agree, great tune although can’t hear it without seeing their bass player David Steele doing his strange off beat dance moves in my head. Same as when he formed Fine Young Cannibals too, brilliant stuff and a very talented guy.

Not sure about hating it, but I would be a very happy bunny if I never had to listen to ‘Careless Whisper’ ever again. Such a dreary repetitive song, with the usual G. Michael angst laden vocal making the 4 chord ’tune’ so annoying. It seems to go on for ever. And relax……

We did our annual gig last night at Conkers Discovery Centre, which is in The National Forest in Derbyshire. It’s an outdoor gig, in a small natural amphitheatre next to a lake. Great PA from Roger at Sonar PA and Lighting, and a capacity crowd despite the dreadful weather - torrential rain and lightning. Most of the audience were under cover but those who weren’t didn’t seem to mind! They were very appreciative of local band ‘Landslide’, who played a brilliant set of Fleetwood Mac tunes to start the night. We then went on to do one 90 minute set, which flew by. Quite disconcerting to hear torrents of water lashing down a few feet away from your bass rig, but no real issues thank goodness. The usual speed limits and diversions all the way back meant I wasn’t home until 2am, feeling rather knackered.