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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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Played a 25th wedding anniversary last night, first gig with my new covers/function band which is basically four of us from my soul band with different material. Our singer was really nervous because it was the first time she had sung on her own ( she usually sings sings with two other singers in the soul band ). Unfortunately she had a little too much dutch courage beforehand and was pretty tipsy by the second set which resulted in our carefully rehearsed arrangements being abandoned and the rest of us having to guess what she was going to do next. It all turned out OK in the end, people were dancing and the guy who booked us tols us how pleased he was afterwards.

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Wedding gig for us last night at Tankersley Manor near Sheffield.

Best wedding gig for me so far... very relaxed and timings bang on !!!! (shock) DJ played first dance and then we were on for the first spot, kicked it off with heart of gold (N. Young) and dancefloor started to fill (amazed!) pretty much stayed that way all night. Second set has all the dancy tunes in it... finished off with Maggie May so guitarist could get his mandolin out.

All packed up and ready to leave by 11:45 result.

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[quote name='spike' post='288808' date='Sep 21 2008, 09:59 PM']Our singer was really nervous because it was the first time she had sung on her own ( she usually sings sings with two other singers in the soul band ). Unfortunately she had a little too much dutch courage beforehand and was pretty tipsy by the second set which resulted in our carefully rehearsed arrangements being abandoned and the rest of us having to guess what she was going to do next.[/quote]
Make sure you have a word with her about that so she doesn't do it again. We had a singer who was like that every gig - the band was close to splitting after two years of that. Fortunately he left, and the guitarist took the singing over again.

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A very busy but civilized weekend...

Friday was a diamond wedding party in Grimsby, so just gentle jazz trios while they scoffed and chatted...

Saturday's event was a 70th birthday party in Coalville, Leicestershire with a 4-piece jazz outfit with male vocals. Lovely party and the hostess did a lot of singing herself (v.good!) with backing track cd's! So another nice'n'easy job there!

Sunday was a bit of a chore after only 4 hours' sleep, but went to Sheffield for 9am for a big band recording. Nice couple of pints of quality real ale in the sun afterwards, though. I haven't had any beer in ages!

Rich.

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[quote name='tauzero' post='288885' date='Sep 22 2008, 12:23 AM']Make sure you have a word with her about that so she doesn't do it again. We had a singer who was like that every gig - the band was close to splitting after two years of that. Fortunately he left, and the guitarist took the singing over again.[/quote]


Yup, nip that in the bud, Bud...

"Hey you were great! however you don't need to relax quite that much"

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[quote name='OldGit' post='289045' date='Sep 22 2008, 11:21 AM']Yup, nip that in the bud, Bud...

"Hey you were great! however you don't need to relax quite that much"[/quote]

Don't worry, it's dealt with, based on past history I'm pretty sure this was a one off.

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We had a good gig on Sat and an interesting one on friday.
Friday should have been easy. It was only 1min walk form my house in my 4 year olds new school (he starts in Jan). My girlfriend was doing the disco for the younger ones and we were in the main hall (canteen) playing between 6 and 8.
Get in was a pain as they shut the car park 5 before we could load in but it was all pretty easy.

As we were setting up we noticed a few of the the kids (i guess 6-8 year olds) hanging around us and trying to sing in to the mic's. We had to keep asking them nicely to move away but a few of the little gits just wouldn't budge. It seemed like as soon as we set the mic's and stand up to our liking they would bend them right down to their hight. At first it was funny but as more of them came over they were running all over the place.
After the first set two of the band went out for a smoke, leaving me and the singer to look after the gear.
Now, we all know how society has gone and we felt we could only ask them to leave things along. we daren't touch them or shout at them. At one point there were 9 kids all around the drum kit, all banging it and trying to dismantle it. all the guitars we de tuned other than mine as i put the fear of god in to a couple of kids and they left it alone (as im the only parent in the band i had a bit more experience telling small people what to do;-).
What got us though was how ignorant ALL the parents were. They were all sat at tables in the canteen in front of us, drinking the free beer and eating the free food chatting away without a thought that their kids were 1. spoiling the night for everyone and 2. the kids could have injured themselves.
when we saw two boys looking directly in to our Alligator light from about 2 inches (that was full on) i was tempted to move them on but by this time we couldn't be bothered. We had turned the music off and told the headmistress we were going home etc. She managed to clear them away and the second set went down well but never again. Kids are one thing but ignorant parents letting them run Wilde and pull away at expensive equipment is another and next year they can go F@@K themselves.
The Staff were wonderful though and its a shame the parents couldn't have helped a bit more.

Edited by dave_bass5
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Bit of a mini tour for the function band this last weekend....
Did a Corporate at the Royal Lanc Hotel north of Hyde Park on friday, then straight to the aiport for a wedding anniversary in Sicily on saturday. Came back next morning and stright to another party at The Cumberland, Marble Arch.
Interesting thing about the Sicily job was all instruments were laid on but my request for a left handed bass never got through, so ended up having to play a very nice stingray 5 upside down. Strings were also the wrong way round for me as I could not change them due to the guy who was kindly providing the bass quite rightly refusing to let me do anything with it other than play it. My brain was fried by the end of the gig but really got into the challenge about halfway through.

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[quote name='dave_bass5' post='289225' date='Sep 22 2008, 03:25 PM']We had a good gig on Sat and an interesting one on friday.
Friday should have been easy. It was only 1min walk form my house in my 4 year olds new school (he starts in Jan). My girlfriend was doing the disco for the younger ones and we were in the main hall (canteen) playing between 6 and 8.
Get in was a pain as they shut the car park 5 before we could load in but it was all pretty easy.

As we were setting up we noticed a few of the the kids (i guess 6-8 year olds) hanging around us and trying to sing in to the mic's. We had to keep asking them nicely to move away but a few of the little gits just wouldn't budge. It seemed like as soon as we set the mic's and stand up to our liking they would bend them right down to their hight. At first it was funny but as more of them came over they were running all over the place.
After the first set two of the band went out for a smoke, leaving me and the singer to look after the gear.
Now, we all know how society has gone and we felt we could only ask them to leave things along. we daren't touch them or shout at them. At one point there were 9 kids all around the drum kit, all banging it and trying to dismantle it. all the guitars we de tuned other than mine as i put the fear of god in to a couple of kids and they left it alone (as im the only parent in the band i had a bit more experience telling small people what to do;-).
What got us though was how ignorant ALL the parents were. They were all sat at tables in the canteen in front of us, drinking the free beer and eating the free food chatting away without a thought that their kids were 1. spoiling the night for everyone and 2. the kids could have injured themselves.
when we saw two boys looking directly in to our Alligator light from about 2 inches (that was full on) i was tempted to move them on but by this time we couldn't be bothered. We had turned the music off and told the headmistress we were going home etc. She managed to clear them away and the second set went down well but never again. Kids are one thing but ignorant parents letting them run Wilde and pull away at expensive equipment is another and next year they can go F@@K themselves.
The Staff were wonderful though and its a shame the parents couldn't have helped a bit more.[/quote]

Oh I hate that.
Parents will assign responsibility to anyone else given half a chance.
We see this at gigs too but we've adopted a routine. Some kind of physical barrier between the gear and the dance floor - a stage is best but a line of chairs or some-such if the band is on the floor, a stern look and refusal to allow them near, right from the start. use your strict teacher /professional voice. most kids and some parents will respond to that.
Then, if they persist, a PA announcement about how sorry you are but
"Elfin Safety/local by laws/Public Liability Insurance (or some other external to the band and generally despised authority figure) does not allow kids in our working area. Please help us to comply by asking your children to stay away from the stage area or we will be unable to play."

Saxophones, mics and drum kits are just magnets for all sorts of idiots of all ages, especially drunk young men at posh weddings where they think that because the B&G have hired you, the band can therefore considered "staff" and they can do what they like....

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[quote name='OldGit' post='289690' date='Sep 23 2008, 09:28 AM']Oh I hate that.
Parents will assign responsibility to anyone else given half a chance.
We see this at gigs too but we've adopted a routine. Some kind of physical barrier between the gear and the dance floor - a stage is best but a line of chairs or some-such if the band is on the floor, a stern look and refusal to allow them near, right from the start. use your strict teacher /professional voice. most kids and some parents will respond to that.
Then, if they persist, a PA announcement about how sorry you are but
"Elfin Safety/local by laws/Public Liability Insurance (or some other external to the band and generally despised authority figure) does not allow kids in our working area. Please help us to comply by asking your children to stay away from the stage area or we will be unable to play."

Saxophones, mics and drum kits are just magnets for all sorts of idiots of all ages, especially drunk young men at posh weddings where they think that because the B&G have hired you, the band can therefore considered "staff" and they can do what they like....[/quote]

Yeah, the Toff's can be worse than kids. we've had gigs where they have grabbed a mic to sing and afterwards just throw it on the floor. Bloody hate those sort of gigs.

I did think of making an announcement (well, i wanted our singer to do it but i knew he wouldn't, he just sat there watching) but im not very diplomatic when im wound up so i went and got the head. she was very understanding (ive known her for years) but she was also very busy so couldn't stand guard.
As we were on the floor we set up a rope light across the front of the band area and that works to an extent but being on the floor the kids just walk over it.

Still, home in around 2mins and in front of the TV with money in my pocket by 8.30 so i cant really complain.

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Not long finished my first public appearance at an open mic night at the Music Club in Aberdeen. I was pretty poor (I have the excuse that I only heard one of the songs for the first time a couple of hours previous) but we got some applause from the 30-odd folks there so it can't have been all bad.

5 years of pretending to play bass it took to get here. I can only improve from here.

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[quote name='OldGit' post='289690' date='Sep 23 2008, 09:28 AM']Saxophones, mics and drum kits are just magnets for all sorts of idiots of all ages, especially drunk young men at posh weddings where they think that because the B&G have hired you, the band can therefore considered "staff" and they can do what they like....[/quote]
In my experience, its generally been blue collar crowds mainly attracted to the mics and the congas. We had one twat last week who came up while the percussionist was actually playing mid song and he started playing the congas as well (although that instance wasn't a blue collar gig).

They all start off on their best behaviour but once they get a bit of booze in them, their social judgement goes out the window. We've had kids on the drum kit in the past as well but an uncle or something was there supervising them. The drummer is normally a fairly placid chap so tolerated it well.

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[quote name='neepheid' post='290501' date='Sep 24 2008, 01:02 AM']Not long finished my first public appearance at an open mic night at the Music Club in Aberdeen. I was pretty poor (I have the excuse that I only heard one of the songs for the first time a couple of hours previous) but we got some applause from the 30-odd folks there so it can't have been all bad.

5 years of pretending to play bass it took to get here. I can only improve from here.[/quote]


Hey well done.
I do jam nights on a regular basis and there's always something I've not heard before (usually something "new" - Blink 182 album track? eh?) ...
So I note down the title of anything that comes up like that and come home and watch it on youtube - it's almost always there, and then next time I'll have a bit of a clue how it goes .. :)

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A weird one, set up on a balcony in a small pub, first time there. people were still eating there when i arrived. we did a sound check which was a bit loud but they had no problem with volume. we played our asses off but did not get a great responce off the crowd but at the end of the night we had a few complements and the landlord gave us extra and a promise of a couple saturday nights next time. result!

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I had a small gig at the vocational college where I teach. Year 1 of the course are about to graduate, so they hook up with Year 2, discuss what they did, talk about their work placements etc and then sit down for dinner and start drinking. I had been roped into playing with another teacher, and I roped in a student from Year 1 to sing. No drums.

We played "Let Me Entertain You", "Satisfaction" and "Knockin' On Heaven's Door". The crowd were fairly quiet, I thought, but they started to scream during "Satisfaction" and were hollering for more after we finished "...Heaven's Door". Sadly, due to time constraints, we had only managed to learn and rehearse those three songs (and not all that thoroughly, to be honest) and so we had to slink off and wait for them all to quieten down. All in all, we did very well and we are all proud of what we offered.

Great things:
Karin, the singer, was great.
My Ibanez SRX500 was a dream to play.
My GK head sounded great, even though bass and vocals went through it.
I managed to borrow a Marshall 1x15" cab (and a Marshall solid-state amp for the guitarist) for [b]free [/b]from a shop I regularly frequent. That just shows the importance of good relationships!
It felt great to be up there playing again.
Our boss thought it was great, so this will be a regular thing. As a consultant in the school (rather than an employee), this suggests that I'll be there for a while longer.
I was out of there by 8 o'clock.
Of the 60 or so students there, 50 of them were attractive girlies in their early 20s. Nice.

Bad things:
Now that they have seen my fun side, my students will never fear me again...

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Well not quite a gig but...

I got together with 3 guys last night, lead, rhythm and a drummer and we done good.

1st time I've played with anyone else in over 10 years :huh:

They were pleased and it looks like a regular thing. Aiming for some local pub gigs around Penrith in the Spring :)

Well chuffed, major hurdle overcome really.

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40th birthday party at the Stone Chair Variety club in Shelf near Halifax with yet another excellent dep drummer who once again we had not met prior to the gig !!

We were asked to play our first set before the food which is always ( imho ) the wrong way round as there seems to be a physcological barrier to dancing before people have eaten. We kept it quite short as the food looked gorgeous ( and was..... I had mushy peas and naan bread !! )

Second set was much livelier and the alcohol had filtered through enough to get the dance floor full.

Funniest part was our guitarist who broke a string in the first song in our four song funk medley. We kept playing but he couldn't find his spare guitar !! he had put it under a table we had put the mixer on so it was out of the way.....quite an amusing site watching him run about looking for it !!

Cross Keys at Morley tonight to record ( audio and video ) the gig so bound to be more mistakes than normal !!

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Was good apart from the drum kick pedal falling apart repeatedly, the bass amp not working (another reason not to use Hartke sh*te), massive bass feedback from the monitors and being forced to play first rather than main support.

Nothing beats using your own equipment, but one of the other bands (who should probably should be called "you can use the most expensive equipment in the world but it still won't make you good") insisted on using their own kit which took up 20 minutes of stage time swapping it over - then the kick pedal broke when we used it... Brill :)

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Wedding in very posh Hotel and Golf place in wilts.
Long long email exchanges with teh bride an groome including the promise of an imported stage, with mini stonehenge and knobs that go up to 11 .. They've seen us before so we had a lot of fun emails getting teh details right ..

Food was first which was weird, so we got in at 5 and setup ready to be quiet for the food at 7.30.
Upstairs over a outdoor balcony to get in, 4 hotel staff lighting paitio heaters whilst the sun beat down and teh tempreture sored to, oh well I don't know, some hot tempreture .. global warming anyone?

Professional temporary stage about a foot high - perfect, big and stable. It even had a nice frilly black curtain to hide its unders :)

When we started sound checking I noticed the room had exceptional clarity of sound - weird for what was essentially a stone barn roof...
Each instrument, drum, vocal etc was very clear and distict. There was very little mashing together .. odd .. and the stage was really bassy .. I may have to get an Gramma pad if we go back there ..

B&G were great, it was well organised and the food included inch thick bacon butties and hand carved chips - excellent!
Mind you the coke was £2.50 a glass, glad we werent buying :huh:

All in all a fine gig with lots of very nice comments afterwards.

Edited by OldGit
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Tap N Tin in Chatham

What a venue, reminded me of a New York club it's on 3 floors and there is about 10 bars all set in a really old building, loads of nooks and crannies 10/10 for the venue.

There was 4 bands Us, T Alan (BC'er Crikey's band) and 2 grunge bands it was billed as Ska Vs Grunge.

We were on first because our guitarist had to get back to London for 1 I thought we played very well, I was pretty tight for me except for the penultimate song I was out of time and all over the place but I tough we were good for a 7/10

Second band were Grunge not my thing but I thought they pulled it off very well and engaged the crown well 9/10

Third band another Grunge band but they were terrible every song sounded the same, no movement on stage , they seamed to have massive egos and didn't want to engage the crown at all, then they played an encore even if no one asked them to. 3/10

Then T Alan great stuff as I have come to expect from them, they had a stand in drummer who was playing the songs much slower than usual you could tell the band were getting frustrated with it but they played through well. 8/10

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Not bad, & a good crowd - which is always nice!!

Drummer loves the gig for the half tiled floor for the positive effect on the kit. I hate it for the really bright clanky sound it gives, but in my IEM's I don't need to worry about that & the PA helps matters basswise

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