Greg Edwards69

Saturday, Redonizm were back at The Cow & Telescope in Southend, one of our favourite venues in the area. Being that awkward Saturday between Christmas and New Year, we were unsure what the turn out would be. The pub was almost empty when we arrived and when my wife, bother, sister-in-law and a coulple of friends arrived around 8.30 the audience size doubled! But we needn't have worries, people started trickling in, including a lot of regulars, around 9pm and got quite busy by the time we started at 9.30. We get to got a little heavier in this place, which is nice, but still kept a few of the party anthems that always work, anywhere we play. In fact, it's getting harder to choose which songs not to play these days! That said, I was hesitant to play Dakota and Sex on Fire that one of the singers had included in the setlist, at this particular venue, as they're done to death (the new mustang sally). But they went down more that okay. In fact the regulars have their own call and response thing for Dakata that made it even better. Like having our own choir. All in all a really good night and a perfect end to the year. This was out 4th weekend out in a row, so set up seemed much simpler, and I wasn't aching as much as I normally would at the end of the night either. I could have kept going for another half hour, no problem. Just goes to show that your body gets used to things after repetition! Got a break from gigging for couple of months now. Time to work on new material, technical stuff and working on marketing stuff, not to mention booking some more dates in the diary!

Agreed I had the Nux mighty plug (non-pro) and the Mooer P1 and the Katana:Go is leagues ahead. I still need to spend some quality time time with it though and dial in some presets that match my Helix presets as close as possible.

Not a pedal, but I bought a Boss Katana:Go back in March. Very useful little tool.

Last one of the year for us in one of the best cover band venues in the City.

Yep. See my post above. At least we had some warning, but bad planning still spoiled what should have been a perfect "last weekend before xmas" party.

Saturday's pre-Christmas gig was at the Sarah Moore pub in Leigh-on-Sea. Little bit of a strange one TBH. It's been in the diary for months, but the boss contacted us some time ago when the big boxing match was announced and asked us to start a bit earlier than usual. We didn't really have much choice in the matter so we went with it. I think most of us here get a little annoyed when we have to compete with televised sport. So, we turned up after 5pm for a leisurely setup, aiming for a 7.30pm start, only to be told by the person in charge that we couldn't set up in the usual band area. Someone had reserved a couple of tables in that area for 20 people as they wanted to watch the boxing and those were their favourite seats. We argued to no avail that technically, we'd had that space reserved since spring. So we were told to set up in a different corner which although raised and has more space (the usual area is tiny), there's a partition wall cutting off visibility to half the pub. Be begrudgingly accepted defeat - the only other option was to not play at all. Still feeling annoyed whilst setting up and humping tables around, this was the last weekend before Christmas and had been advertised as a Christmas party + boxing. Anyway, the pub was really busy by the time we started playing. A lot of people had turned up just to see us, and a lot to watch the boxing who ended up enjoying the free music as well. Then apparently during our break the actual boss turned up and went apeshit wanting to know why the band wasn't in the usual, better sport, and allegedly read the riot act to whichever member of staff it was that reserved the tables 😆🤣. As nice as it was that he was on our side, it was too late to do anything about it (time-wise and the pub was bursting at the seams by this point), and he should have been on top of the situation and never let it happen in the first place. The second set went down amazingly well judging by the people we could see and hear - the whole place joining in for Fairytale of New York was a particular highlight. Liam, one of our singers was encouraging everyone to be as loud as possible and annoy the neighbours (this was our last time playing here as the pub is closing for good in the new year - sold to developers to build flats). "Let's upset the neighbours!" he said. "What are they going to do, shut the pub down?" So it was bittersweet in the end. We've always had a good gig there, and this was a good gig too, just marred by poor logistics! Oh well, roll on next weekend for the Cow & Telescope, one of our favourite venues.

Everyone knows trolls can’t even count up to four! In fact, trolls traditionally count like this: one, two, three, many, and people assume this means they can have no grasp of higher numbers. They don’t realise that many can BE a number. As in: one, two, three, many, many-one, many-two, many-three, many many, many-many-one, many-many-two, many-many-three, many many many, many-many-many-one, many-many-many-two, many-many-three, LOTS. Sir Terry Pratchett

Our leads are colour-coded and numbered, with corresponding numbers on the stage boxes, and numbers on the mixer. The CQ20T mixer also has corresponding colour codes for each channel. Even so, there's a couple of people who don't know how to plug themselves in. I think I might make up some more labels for the stage boxes with people's names and instruments (such as "Greg Bass" and Greg Mic") to make it even clearer. Whilst I'm at it, I ought to colour code the speaker cables and speaker sockets to make it as foolproof as possible. I think I'll take a couple of rolls of electrical tape and a Sharpie to the next gig! Come to think of it, can anyone recommend a good quality, not too expensive 6m dual XLR cable? We're running two leads from the mixer to the sub. A dual cable would save a few minutes

Starr Sports, Canvey Island, on Saturday night. Load-in and set-up went quickly and smoothly. Everyone (well, nearly everyone) knew their roles and what to set up now. It was also somewhat aided by both singers now migrating to the Xvive U4 system the two guitarists and I have been using, meaning less trailing leads for P2 IEM packs. A bit of a challenging audience in the first set, apart from a group of young drunk booked going nuts over the heavier stuff, and getting way too close and knocked the singer's sample pad over - he managed to grab it before it hit the deck. The bouncers turfed them out shortly after. It didn't help that the bar has a new pool table in the middle of the room that is way too close to where bands play, leaving not enough room for dancing - and it can't be moved... at all. (Honestly, this is one thing that really pees me off in some venues). Oh, and shortly before we started, I came out of the loo to see the female singer walking away from chatting to the drummer and catch her flares on my guitar stand, and watched in horror as my Ibanez EHB fell face down on the deck! Luckily, it appears to have survived its fall unscathed apart from a small ding in its headstock. The second set was much better. More party tunes in this set and more lubricated people ready to sing and dance (at the space next to said pool table rather than right in front of it). Obligatory encores and we were done by midnight. By this point, I was running on fumes (and Red Bull) due to a late night the night before and a very early start (cruise ship dinner party with family - get to bed at 1am and didn't realise until I was awakened by my uncle phoning our cabin that we had to be out of the cabins by 7.30am!) So yeah, I was rather tired by this point, but we all mucked in (well, nearly all) and was tucked up in bed by 1.30am. Next stop, The Sarah Moore in Leigh. Earlier start than usual due to them showing the boxing after (🙄). It's usually a good one for us, but sadly our last one there as it's closing in the new year as the building owner want to build flats!

Glad to hear you had a barnstormer of a night to finish the band's run. Definitely one of our favourite venues to play, and the perfect place to play your final gig! We're playing there later this month on the 28th. It's that awkward time of year between Christmas and New Year, so fingers crossed we'll have a decent turnout. I'm sure the colourful regulars will be there no matter what!

Saturday was the first of a busy December for us at the Crumpled Horn in Upminster. We play here every Christmas and the landlord is a former DJ and agents and is an old friend of the band (indeed, he even DJ'd at my wedding). The weather was atrocious, as it was everywhere else in the UK - although I reckon it would have been cancelled if we were in the west of England. A decent sized audience when we turned up to load it, but by the time we was ready to go at 8.30 a number of patrons had left, and more during our first set - although they were singing and dancing while walking out the door. By the time the second set started the pub was nearly empty, but those who stayed were very enthusiastic. The doorman told us that this pub is half empty whenever there is bad weather, so we can take solace in the fact that we didn't cause the lousy turnout. The landlord was happy with us too and gave us a little extra on top of our usual fee. Oh well, roll on next weekend. Back to Canvey at Starr Sports. Usually a lively one!

Our drummer uses a small mixer for his IEM feed that sits on a shelf clamped to his hi-hat stand so his can quickly adjust the level without fumbling with a belt pack. He forgot to bring it Saturday night. Behringer P2 to the rescue! Seriously, any band that used IEM should have at least a couple of these or similar in a gig bag as a backup.

I recently acquired an EHB1005SMS. I needed a 5 string once again, but I wanted something lightweight and compact. I've also been exploring shortscale basses, so this ticked all the boxes. Generally, I find it easy to play. I adapted to it pretty much within 30 minutes of opening the box. Even jumping from my usual 34" 4 string to this 30-32" 5 string multiscale doesn't require major adjustment and I'm happy to do so at gigs. Only real niggle is playing more than one note at a time up the dusty end as @Dood mentioned. It's definitely more awkward than a traditional parallel fretted bass for higher register chordal playing.

Aren't they both copies of the (considerably more expensive) Fischer In-Ear Stick? Or have Ali-Express managed to copy a copy?

It's worth buying even if you have another solution or don't currently use IEMs. It's handy as a backup or a just-in-case tool.

I love Jarre. Have done since I was a kid and into keyboard playing. I finally got round to seeing him live at the O2 for his 10.10.10 concert. That'll stay with me for a long time.

Reminds me of an old Shooting Stars skit Do you want to see my minge? #fyp #comedy #bobmortimer #vicreeves #jim... | TikTok

Good Halloween fun on Saturday night for us at Starr Sports, Canvey Island. Load in and set up appeared to go smoothly, and we was ready for soundcheck within an hour. I still thinks there's work to do, to assign several tasks to other band members to get make it even quicker, however. Being a hallowed party, we went a little heavier with some of our first set, adding Enter Sandman, Run To The Hills, In the End and Zombie (yes, I know). For the second set our singers dressed up and we added a few halloween themed party songs that we learned especially for this even - Thriller, Monster and Ghostbusters that went down amazingly well. I think we may keep the first two in permanent rotation. Ghostbusters was a bit messy and my left hand cramped up toward the end of it - it's a bitch of a riff to play on the bass, and we purposely sped it up! Kudos to Ian Martin Allison for his Vintage Synth Pack — the Mini Mogue sounded perfect for Thriller. I'm not one for buying presets, but synths are not my forte, but it's made be consider trying one of his regular packs.

Halloween party in Canvey Island

I meant to add. I had the headrush frfr-108 for a while - apparently designed for guitar and bass. More power, a bigger woofer and a deeper frequency response than the Behringer B1C. It kept up with a full band in a rehearsal room fine but still needed an hpf to protect it - as I discovered when my drummer plugged his Roland trigger unit into it and damaged the woofer with a particularly deep bass drum sample. It was a good job the woofer was easily replaceable and not expensive!

Have you seen the new Spark Edge? Looks to be a more useful proposition than the Behringer. Spark EDGE – United Kingdom - Positive Grid Although, for bass, I still think it's more for practice and acoustic jams. I doubt it will hang with a drummer.

I wouldn't want to use one without a judicious hpf. Thre frequency response is 60 Hz – 20 kHz (±3 dB). Without a hpf it would be easy to damage the woofer.

Set length is rarely dictated, so we usually elect to do 2x60min, or occasionally 2x45min. If we're playing straight through we will do 90min max. Either way, we usually get asked to play "one more song" and then "one more song"...

Next? No idea. But I got a couple of tickets a few days ago for Iron Maiden at the London Olympic stadium next June. Bucket list item almost ticked.