borntohang Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 (edited) Hello Basschat; my name is Richard (formally Richard II when onstage), I am a session musician of the (currently) semi-professional variety, I have just returned from my first genuine big boy tour, and I would like to tell you about it! A couple of months back I mentioned this would be happening in another thread and it was suggest that I post a trip report - the last month has been something of a blur and this will mostly be an attempt to collate some of my memories into a parsable format so I thought there might be some interest in reading about something not many people get to do. Wembley - Night 2. Please excuse the hair... For roughly the last 18 months I have been working with a lovely set of musicians called Bang Bang Romeo covering various roles including bass, guitar, and keyboards. They aren't famous (yet), but are a little higher up the ladder than most club bands so it's been a real pleasure to drop onto most of the gigs they've been getting. I've known them on and off for a long time as we're all from the same town and there are only so many people working at that level in the local area so it became inevitable that our paths would collide. About a year into my stint our agent told us to clear our summers and kiss our wives goodbye as we had dropped onto a big tour. He admittedly says this a lot, but this time it turned out to be a genuinely life-changing run of 14 dates supporting P!nk on the UK Beautiful Trauma Tour around the UK and Europe, with an option for another 6 dates if we didn't manage to show our entire asses on the first leg. I was nervous but just about keeping it together until I received the tour manifest through and found that the SMALLEST date on the run was a 30,000 cap stadium... The next six months were mostly a blur of rearranging songs for maximum impact and paring the set down to a machine-precise 25 minutes until about a month before we left when it really started to hit home that this was happening. In particular there was a moment of panic where the other guitarist and myself were doing a stock-take of equipment and realised that we had no cables long enough to reach our pedal boards from where the amps would be at the back of the stage. We'd all played some big events before, but this was a whole new kettle of fish and we were very much the amateur chancers on this tour - yes we were playing two nights at Wembley but right now we were still fitting rehearsals around our day jobs! In the end it was probably the best introduction to the touring life that we could hope for. Pink hires the best in the business and every single person we met was lovely to us. I was however reminded on regular occasions that this is unusually cushy for touring life and I shouldn't get used to this standard in the future... Her band introduced themselves to us early on and we got quite chatty with them over the course of the tour; Justin Derrico is the loveliest guy as well as a MONSTER shredder who incidentally has not just the best LP with piezo sound, but possibly the best acoustic sound I've ever heard in a live setting. Regarding gear, we are luckily good friends with the Hiwatt UK guys who kitted us out with rental amps and overnight shipped a replacement when one went down at Paris, so I can't give enough love to those guys. Initially I took my Tokai SG and a second guitar out, but after a string of equipment failures in the second week I was left with no usable guitars. I contacted Gibson Germany in a blind panic who very kindly talked me off the ledge and provided me with two gorgeous black SGs as loaners for the remainder of the dates. In the middle of the run we also flew from Belgium to Switzerland to play Montreux Jazz Festival with Sting and before you ask, no I can barely believe that particular sentence myself; at one point I actually burst into hysterical laughter in the airport shuttle because the whole thing had begun to seem so ludicrous. I think we stayed in Switzerland for about 18 hours before catching another flight back for the Wembley run (see above regarding hysterics) but we were privileged enough to play a full 50 minute set in the Stravinsky Auditorium with the best in-ear sound I've ever heard. While I can't hope to entirely do justice to the legendary spirits of improv that have walked those halls, we certainly gave it everything and it was possibly the most technically perfect set we've ever played. We also dropped onto the lakeshore to do a session for Swiss national radio with me on bass in the traditional four piece lineup while our tour bassist (Phil) chilled in the lake for a bit. I initially thought I got the better half of that bargain until we spent an hour sweating under a brutally hot tent canopy trying to parse the French-speaking interviewer's questions as Phil gambolled and frolicked in the blissfully cool waters of Lake Geneva behind him. I'm incredibly sad to be back now, but at least we have a few dates left on the run as I go back out for the Scandinavian leg of Copenhagen, Oslo, and Horsens in August. I'm not counting the days, honest... I'll spare the gory (and fairly tedious for those who aren't interested in tour buses!) details of each individual show, but here are a few highlights: Mercedes-Benz Arena, Stuttgart Mercedes-Benz Arena, Stuttgart - "Hello... gods, where are we? Hello Stuttgart!" Olympiastadion, Berlin - screw Wembley, what a venue! La Defense Arena, Paris - the gig prior to the SG taking a tumble! Montreux Jazz Festival - extra fly date supporting Sting. HELLOOOOOO WEMBLEY! (Night 1) Thanks for bearing with me this long - I'll be happy to answer rig questions or anything anyone might be curious about in later posts. If anyone is still interested in checking out more informal pics of backstage/touring life then my tour instagram can be found HERE. Edited July 19, 2019 by borntohang 19 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LewisK1975 Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Amazing - I think most of us here would love to be able to say we'd done that! Congratulations to you all! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graham Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Wowser, what an amazing experience, hope you get to do it again soon 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merton Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Bloody awesome - thrilled for you to have had that experience (and very jealous!) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandypjb Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Wow, fantastic. Thanks for posting. Have to say I love these threads about touring and big shows. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si600 Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 What an experience to have had, I hope that it continues for you. I have a question about the tour poster, you are billed as special guests. When I see that I assume it's because the headliner either knows the band personally or knows of them and has requested them. Is that true or am I being too fluffy and it doesn't mean anything apart from it looks good on the poster? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fleabag Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Top banana bth. This is what its all about. Absolute fun all round , from what i can see. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steantval Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 That female vocalist in your band has one hell of a voice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard R Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Congratulations indeed! Nobody operating at P!nk's level is going to put chancers or losers on the bill, so you evidently earned the right to be there. Of course the photos are good, but any chance you can post recordings?? Especially of Montreux or Wembley 🤞 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger2611 Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 I'm only slightly jealous....really! Great report, I am glad you are enjoying it, as they say "the bigger the stage the bigger the buzz" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borntohang Posted July 19, 2019 Author Share Posted July 19, 2019 (edited) 57 minutes ago, Si600 said: What an experience to have had, I hope that it continues for you. I have a question about the tour poster, you are billed as special guests. When I see that I assume it's because the headliner either knows the band personally or knows of them and has requested them. Is that true or am I being too fluffy and it doesn't mean anything apart from it looks good on the poster? A little bit of fluff for sure but she's at the level where she gets to tour with who she wants. From what I remember she picked Vance up after seeing him at a festival; Kid Cut Up she saw in some club somewhere and he's been on tour with her for two years now; there's a songwriter called Wrabel who was on one song on her last record and she's taken him out every night to sing it. She doesn't have to do any of that, but she looks after her people. For us the agent saw us at a showcase, got a recording in front of her, she approved it and we were on as long as we could afford the travel costs. 48 minutes ago, Richard R said: Congratulations indeed! Nobody operating at P!nk's level is going to put chancers or losers on the bill, so you evidently earned the right to be there. Of course the photos are good, but any chance you can post recordings?? Especially of Montreux or Wembley 🤞 We've got a full set of Montreux but it's not up on YouTube yet unfortunately. I'll definitely drop it in when I get it though. Edited July 19, 2019 by borntohang 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borntohang Posted July 19, 2019 Author Share Posted July 19, 2019 50 minutes ago, steantval said: That female vocalist in your band has one hell of a voice. She really does. She's one hell of a front-person too. If I'd been performing at that level when I was her age I'd have been extremely happy! 4 minutes ago, Roger2611 said: I'm only slightly jealous....really! Great report, I am glad you are enjoying it, as they say "the bigger the stage the bigger the buzz" Honestly (and whisper it) the big stages are a bit of an anticlimax... I mean, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world, obviously, and there's nothing like seeing 60,000 hands clapping to your tune but 95% of them are so far in the distance you're basically playing for the front rows anyway. Apart from a few pre-show jitters on the first night it's been smooth sailing nervewise. Berlin was probably the closest - I walk out first to get to my station so our camera guy caught my expression as I came up the stairs and there was a definite moment of "OK, that is a metric sh*ttonne of people!" but I recovered gracefully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bassman Sam Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 I'm looking forward to seeing the YouTube video. Well done that man and thanks for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maude Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Absolutely brilliant. I would sooooo love to do a gig like some of those. I would probably poop my pants leading up to it but I'd still love to do experience it. Well done 👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 Looks like it was great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teebs Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 WoW! 👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newfoundfreedom Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 Absolutely awesome! We're playing a bar gig tonight to probably about 50 people and I'm absolutely bricking it. I have so much respect for anyone playing to crowds like that. I honestly don't think I could cope with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
borntohang Posted July 20, 2019 Author Share Posted July 20, 2019 18 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said: Absolutely awesome! We're playing a bar gig tonight to probably about 50 people and I'm absolutely bricking it. I have so much respect for anyone playing to crowds like that. I honestly don't think I could cope with it. You're obviously entitled to not believe me here, but there's not much difference between fifty and fifty-thousand. 🙂 Once the audience is over a certain size they all just become the multi-headed hydra of Crowd, which is mostly a lot of noise and a bunch of dots that you can pretend aren't there. I've been a lot more nervous doing theatre gigs to thirty people where you can see every pair of eyes in the room and in between every song there's this awful hushed silence that you feel the need to fill... Enjoy the show tonight and play as if it's Wembley regardless of the size of the room! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maude Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 Whilst never having played to anything like those crowds (yes I am jealous 😁) I've found that the fun factor goes up with crowd size, but the biggest crowd I've ever played to was 1500 and you can really feed off the energy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cato Posted July 20, 2019 Share Posted July 20, 2019 Good to see someone living the dream. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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