Franticsmurf

Bruce to his band: "Stop." Bruce to bloke 60 yards away at the other end of Villa Park: "Did you say you were in a band too? Come on up, brother, and join in. Plenty of room on stage." 😃

You'll be on the live recording when it's released. It'll be forever known as the 'Hey Man, We're in a band too' tapes. 🤣

I've often thought this - recently I've been rehearsing in a series of different spaces (big hall, small hall, medium sized recording studio) and I always record the rehearsals on a small Tascam digital recorder. The sound varies so much, like it does in venues, that it seems pointless tweaking the sound to perfection for anything other than a studio recording session.

Currently our guitarist uses pedals and an amp, but we're not always using FOH for every gig. To be fair, it's a great sound and not too loud. I think it would take him a lot if time and money to recreate it without and amp.

"Hey, man. We're in a band too but you're so much better than us, and you have gigs."

Gong: Live on TV 1990. My first band (in which I Geetard) was heavily influenced by Gong (with Steve Hillage). We never got on TV.

I guess that applies to whoever you choose to follow and as you say, sometimes stopping and making light of it can be the best way out. I've had to do both, and they both work. It's great if you can make a joke out of it. But I think it's also good to have some plan about what to do if there is a arrangement faux pas because in most of the cases I've experienced, we've got away with it without the audience noticing by following the singer, despite it being his mistake. Absolutely no recriminations on stage and I'd even say none in the dressing room, because potentially you're still on show to the guys that book you. I was the lead singer for one song and for some reason, against the arrangement we'd rehearsed, the main singer chose to sing with me,. But he ended up singing exactly half a verse behind me. Which singer do we follow? 😃 Fortunately the band knew the singer well enough to guess that he either didn't know he was wrong, or didn't care, so I stopped singing, made sure the others knew, and we followed him. Oh how we laughed on stage. 😬 He's working on his solo act now.

The BDI21 was my first pre-amp/DI box about 3 years ago and it's just gone back on my board as the overdrive is just what I'm after at the moment. In between, it's been gigged, rehearsed, left in a gig bag, lent to a mate (who broke the 9v socket) and resurrected. No reliability issues from it. I now power it from the battery terminals using a converter lead and it's sounding as good as it did on day 1. I'm even considering getting a second one as a back up and/or to try out the mods mentioned in this thread.

When it turned out the the band I was auditioning for had him on guitar and vocals, I walked away. Didn't look back. Don't think I missed out on much there... 🤣

Add me in to the mix. 😃

I saw/heard David Gilmour make a mistake on one of the opening four guitar notes to 'Shine On'. (You had one job, David). It got huge round of applause and the only reason I remember it is because when I got the Pulse album (I was at the night they recorded it), it has been edited out. But you can still hear remnants of the crowd cheering. As you say, who cares. 😃

Yeah, exactly. And where is he now, eh? 🤣

Yes, I've had this experience and the singer told the band 'if you don't follow me, you'll be the ones looking bad.' He was right, of course, and is now on his own trying to make it as a solo artist. But the experience taught me (and the others in the band) how to quickly adapt to random changes to arrangements, keys and even moving from one song to another unexpectedly and although I hated it at the time, I have to accept that it made me a better musician.

Yes, I completely agree. Mistakes are natural for all sorts of reasons. I'd add that it's also about what you do to minimise making the same mistake again in the future.

Ahh, you're an experimental progressive jazz player? Like me 🤣

It does tend to look good if the band are singing backing vocals, even if the actual BVs are just following the main singer. I'm not the greatest singer and in my three piece I sing lead on three straight forward songs mainly to give the singer/guitarist a break. But I try to contribute BVs to the songs that benefit from it. For those I tend to sing the straight vocal and the singer takes the harmony.

Everyone makes mistakes, it's how you deal with them that matters. Follow the singer as the rest of the audience will be and if you don't, they'll only notice you going wrong. It's good for the band to have something definite to do as well, as there is nothing worse than everyone doing something different as a reaction or the stubborn 'well it wasn't me' plough on regardless approach on stage. Yes, me too (within reason). One of the bands I'm in has inexperienced musicians in the line up and I've told them if it doesn't clash too badly, repeat the mistake and own it. If it does, stop playing until you can come back in correctly as it's better to play nothing than notes/chords that clearly stand out as wrong.

You beat me to it. I have a couple of dead matches in the tool box and I've had to use them in the past.

I'm still friends with him and for all the faults (and there were many) I always trusted him with the financial arrangements. I don't believe he was every trying to con the band but he needed to be seen as the 'professional musician' and his ego struggled if someone said 'too loud/wrong music/you're not very good'. He would spin the situation sometimes so that it seemed as if the band was at fault rather than him. I depped with him and a scratch band last year to play an Eagles tribute gig at which there were a couple of agents and some club secretaries he hadn't p***** off. Honestly, given that we were six individuals with 4 rehearsals (2 in my case as i joined late) we played a good gig with some dodgy moments but afterwards he claimed that the agents had said we were scruffy and hadn't made an effort visually and that we needed to tighten up. Over the next few weeks he let slip that they thought he was scruffy and he needed to tighten up with the rest of the band. 😃

Definitely the psychedelic one. Maaaan. 😀

Yes, unfortunately.

I've had my V5 for several months now and I'm very happy with it. Great playability out of the box, looks good and sounds great.

About 10 years ago, over a period of about 6 months, our singer managed to p*** off a number of local contacts (landlords, club entertainments secretaries etc) until all our local gigs dried up. Until then we'd enjoyed a couple of residencies in local pubs (every 6 weeks or so) plus an informal club circuit netting us about 10 gigs a year and from these came the bigger gigs - weddings, birthdays, charity gigs and Xmas/New Year. Suddenly we were only getting work from the agent he was friendly with and it became clear that the agent was using us to fill gaps that his other acts wouldn't touch ("You're in Aberllanllinllyngweryngoch Sewing Circle club tonight, boys. £100 pick up.") The direct consequence for us was the loss of about 50 gigs a year but in the longer term it impacted on the reputation of the band because the nature of a network is that it shares information. The band very quickly drifted apart until it became just a collection of musicians who were available on the night. Needless to say I am no longer a part of that collection. Edit: Other bands are also part of the network - I've recommended bands I know when my band hasn't been available, and we've had gigs through recommendations from other bands.

I've told this one elsewhere. Three piece playing a holiday park with a proper stage so at the very last minute (as we're being introduced) the singer/guitarist decides he wants to start the set with him on his own playing 'Knocking on Heaven's Door', and me and the drummer are to walk on stage behind him and start playing after the chorus. We're not happy, but he goes on and starts. Very quickly it's obvious he's gone off too quick and sure enough, the 'Knock knock knocking on heavens' door' line is delivered at just less than the speed of a woodpecker creating a new home. Needless to say we allowed him to enjoy his own brain fart and only came on for the second song. 😀

I take two to a gig, but only one is on stage. The other is in hospitality (i.e. 'the broom cupboard') waiting for its moment of glory.