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Things you don't want to hear before a gig....


Bilbo
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[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1384777899' post='2280519']
I get about one soundcheck a year. Never did my any harm :lol:
[/quote]
Many of my gigs we only get a line check and sound is sorted out on the first number. But we normally have our engineer on the desk so he is able to get our sound pretty quickly once we get started.

Jazzyvee

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I remember years back when playing guitar and I started doing Jazz gigs from the real book. I didn't read music and so relied on the chords and I was on one gig and was given the set list. The one song we had was for example maybe in G, then on the count in for the song the keyboard player went went 1, 2, Bb, 4.. and straight into a song I completely didn't know and a new key I really struggled to transpose on the fly. The reason was that a trumpeter was coming on stage to do a solo and before I'd even got to grips with the transposition I was flagged to do a solo. ....



Jazzyvee

Edited by jazzyvee
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We arrived at a wedding last year to be told that "the bride never showed up at the church but the groom still wants the party to go ahead because you and the venue don't offer a refund. Try not to say or play anything to upset him".

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In Berlin last year we were expecting to be picked up for the soundcheck, nobody came so we walked to the venue to be told "The venue has been moved as the venue has been closed down because the band last night set off a flame thrower onstage - did you not get the e-mail?"

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The worst one we had was a pub where absolutely everyone was standing outside, and we were alone in a hall. The guy asked us to do two hour long sets, ended up playing to no-one until 12:30.

Oh actually, a battle of the bands in wolverhampton, you weren't allowed to use your own rig, there were 2 guitar amps and a bass amp, and my standard rig (in a 3 peice) was to use a guitar amp as well as a bass amp, so I set up like that. The organiser turned off the guitar amp and forbade me from using it because no other bassists did!

[quote name='gjones' timestamp='1384801450' post='2280925']
I've been told by drummers that, although sticks are louder, It takes more energy to play with rods than sticks. The last time our drummer played with rods (to keep the volume down), he ended up dripping with sweat after the gig, even though he sounded a lot quieter than usual. That energy transferred to the whole bands performance and we played and sounded better than ever.
[/quote]

Depends, my rods are about as heavy as my sticks, and I can get them to go just as loud too

Also, I don't mind playing without soundcheck. If you sound good at rehearsal, it would take a really sh*t soundman to give you a sh*t live sound, and I know they exist, but no amount of checking will help!

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[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1384773505' post='2280438']
I did a gig on Saturday with a bunch of musicians I didn't know (got a call out of the blue - always a little risky). Great singer, great trumpet player and fair alto saxophonist and piano players. The drummer, however, whilst setting up, said 'I am normally the other side of the footlights doing the p.a. I haven't done a gig for about a year'.... (not hadn't done a Jazz gig, he hadn't done ANY gigs)

Thud - (the sound of my heart dropping like stone)

It was bizarre: he couldn't swing and played it absolutely straight - no tension and release, no dynamics, no interplay, nothing; like a cheap drum machine without the time. Ironically, his ballad playing and Latin grooves were fine but he just couldn't swing. The rest of the band carried the gig off and the audience liked it but you just don't want to hear that before you start to play :lol:

Nice guy, jsut no swing in his DNA.
[/quote]


3 hours before a gig..German promoter calls to say his sound man now has a more important gig to do than ours so we can do the PA ourselves, can't we, as it is all set up.
PA is laying all around the club stage floor, all monitors incorrectly linked ready to blow the main amps!

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[quote name='Marvin' timestamp='1384800629' post='2280914']
"The dog's just been sick..."
[/quote]

I once played at a pub where an ancient Staffy had free run of the bar and and even older drunk insisted on helping with the set up and sat really close to the stage.
We open up with a song to get everyone's attention at which point the Staffy evacuated it's bowels and the drunk fell off his seat and stood in it! He was so drunk that he couldn't smell it. Everyone else in the pub did.
We giggled and gagged through the first set before apologising to the manager for distressing his dog.
Never got asked back.

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[quote name='bartelby' timestamp='1384863864' post='2281514']


Or what I've had:

Soundguy: your drummer emailed me yesterday and agreed it was ok if all the bands use you rig. Cheers.
[/quote]

Yep, had that. The worst thing was the sound guy was telling the flipping truth!

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[quote name='ubassman' timestamp='1384896032' post='2282113']
Running through the changes about to jam with a guitarist who says he plays in a 'jazzy style'

"what do you mean Fm7 is F [u][b]'minor'[/b][/u] 7 ? ....its not, Fm7 is F [u][b]'major'[/b][/u] 7

...bloody bassists what the hell do you guys know about music!" :blink:
[/quote]

I suppose big m's and little m's can be a bit confusing :)

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[quote name='ubassman' timestamp='1384896032' post='2282113']
Running through the changes about to jam with a guitarist who says he plays in a 'jazzy style'

"what do you mean Fm7 is F [u][b]'minor'[/b][/u] 7 ? ....its not, Fm7 is F [u][b]'major'[/b][/u] 7

...bloody bassists what the hell do you guys know about music!" :blink:
[/quote]
So, he does play ina 'jazzy style'.

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I don't think the rest of the band wanted to hear me say "I've left my amp at home" - I opened my case to find not my amp, but Mrs Zero's headset, the consequence of picking up the wrong one of two very similar cases. And although I had a spare amp, I only had a jack-to-jack speaker lead and my cab is exclusively speakon. Still, one 75-minute round trip later and I was sorted...

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In my old metal band I frequently had from one of the guitarists: "sh*t, I've forgotten my power cable/Instrument cable/amp jack again, Graham can I use your spare?" I swear I used to bring duplicate sets of all my cables so I knew we'd actually be able to play.

Edit: to the point where I was using speakon with my amp, but used to bring a jack cab cable as well for the times he would forget his.

Edited by Graham
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