ubit

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I can see by a few of these posts that weddings quite often feature in worst gigs. I think, certainly in my experience, that some couples see you play in a pub, think, oh, they are good, then book you for their wedding and the place is full of possibly older relations, couples who might have had fun once, but have young kids to look after. Said kids have free reign over the dance floor cos it’s cute. A mixture of relations that have never seen you. Plus the venue might be a large hall , when your pa is suitable for a small pub. At the end of the day, it’s a completely different animal to your pub gig edit. We played a party once and the whole of the first half, the dance floor was empty. The lights were on full and everyone was sober. As the evening progressed, gradually people started venturing onto the floor. I spoke to a guy after the gig and he said, once you started playing dancey stuff people got up. We had deliberately changed our first set to include more popular songs that this same guy had danced to at an earlier party! You can’t expect people to dance in bright lights sober. We were agonising as we know that you need to dim the lights to tempt the first revellers onto the edge of the floor. Once they get up, the rest will follow.

We actually had so many terrible gigs over the years. We did have many superb gigs. I think it was just the sheer number of gigs we were playing back in the 90’s and 2000’s. some of the wierd and backwater places that used to put on music , that by the law of averages, you are gonna get some terrible gigs. It’s funny, most of them we can look back at and laugh now. Just about everything that happened in Spinal Tap happened to us at some point. I think that’s why I can relate to that movie so much. It’s funny but you are thinking , wait a minute, we did that !

We were asked to play at a wedding once. We turned up at the venue and there was another Celidh band playing as well. They had set up taking up the whole stage. Everyone was still finishing off their meal, so we never got any kind of a sound check. We squeezed into the tiny bit left for us and started. It was like tumbleweed blowing across the dance floor. I’m also the singer, so I kept shouting to the guitarist , get out front and tell me how it’s sounding, is it us or is the sound bad? He wouldn’t move. I was raging because something was clearly wrong. A few weeks later the groom met me in a bar. Do you rehearse ? He asked. Yes I said. Well you should have rehearsed before you played at our wedding. I was mad. He knows we could play and it was himself and his wife that had asked us to play on the strength of seeing us play in the bars. It was all down to no sound check, no monitors, no room and the wrong crowd. Note to self. Never put up with another band leaving you no room. Always have some kind of sound check , no matter how many people shout at you to hurry up and start. Different venues have different acoustics, so settings from last Friday, won’t cut it for the wedding!

Is like to thank everyone for their input on this topic. I’m thinking now that as I tend to dig in anyway and frequently, towards the end of our set, due to loud stage volume, my ears would lose certain frequencies and I would struggle to hear my bass and I was probably digging in even more. Monitors and a quieter stage volume sound like the solution. Thanks again guys!

Our guitarist, my mate, was passively aggressive. We would all agree on a song. He might say I’m not that keen. We would say well look , the rest of us want to do it. Next week, did you learn that song? No, but I learned this, try it. It used to boil my wee

When it’s a supposed democracy that turns out to be ruled by a dictator

He actually was foolish enough to appear at one of his gigs in Glasgow wearing a Celtic top. There was nearly a riot. Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that if you play ANY city , you wouldn’t wear the colours of any team. You immediately alienate half the audience. He later said “ oh, I didn’t think anyone would mind” what a div!

It certainly is depressing and yes we did do a few trad tunes. The even more depressing thing is, up here they absolutely love that kind of thing.

One time we were taking a break and I turned round to see the guitarist with someone by the throat. I asked what was that? The guy had set his pint on top of our mixing desk. What a dickish move. The desk isn’t even flat!

We find this happens when we play locally. You play your whole first set to a very quiet bar, then later it just fills up. I think the drink pricing has gone a long way to causing this. People get tanked up at home, then head out later. Years ago, our local gig bar used to be heaving from tea time on a Friday until late Sunday. The times they are a changin’

We were booked to play on Mull. A large island near our home town. The bar had told us there was a large crowd of students on some weekend break and he wanted entertainment for them. The bar provided a massive pot of chilli for the students which they tucked into gleefully, especially as it was free. We set up fighting to move amongst all these drunken students Just before we struck our first note, the students as if given a sign from some unknown source, all got up and buggered off! The place just emptied. We were left playing to the bar staff and a couple of farmer types who had little interest in us. It was a rubbish night !The students were totally out of order to accept the free food and then leave, especially when entertainment had been put on for them.

I agree, but I met a medic recently who said he suffered from low blood pressure. I asked what did he do to alleviate this? I take more salt, was his reply 🤔

It’s done! C’mon folks , let’s see ‘em

C’mon, let’s start another thread with people not taking themselves seriously

You have to laugh in life and most of all you have to laugh at yourself and don’t take life too seriously. As I get older I realise that this is more true than ever.

You should all try it. Wear each other’s clothes for a laugh, get the smoke machine running , have a few if that’s your thing and enjoy life. I’ve suffered lots of black moods, but it’s nights like these that make everything better 😉

You only live once mate 😉👍

Couple of pints sorts that out 😉

That has happened to me too. After the gig it cleared right enough. Only troubled me when playing.

Some of the best nights we have had have been in small venues

Our Friday evenings are traditionally the times where we do nothing but listen to music very loudly and have a few. Sometimes you hit the perfect storm and the crazy stuff starts. I remember one night, I appeared with the smoke machine and electric light ball. It was like a nightclub in the living room! All part of the craic! 😉 Edit: these days we don’t go out that often so if Muhammad can’t go to the mountain ....

“I think we should do more Scottish trad music. The punters love it!”

The Damned. I’m sure in real life they were decent boys

It’s amazing just how liberating it was wearing that ensemble. I like to think of it as a slightly camp legionnaire! Scotsmen are allowed to wear skirts anyway don’t ya know?