How was your gig last night?

[dmccombe7]

2 hours ago, ezbass said:

Seconded. I mixed a FoH sound once, in a decent sized venue (not a pub/club). All I did was listen to the stage sound, then brought up the individual instruments so that it just enhanced/reinforced that original sound, no thumping/booming bass drum, etc. There were no complaints about the sound not being loud/visceral enough.

Yep that's exactly my thoughts on it. 

Dave

[dmccombe7]

2 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

My gig last night was horrible.

 

I play is a Stax-orientated soul band. The singer (a good fried of ours) has Huntingtons, and the band has existed to keep him gigging. There are gigs when things go ok (never more than that) but last night may have been gig that we all knew was on the horizon. I won't go into detail, but it was horribly below par.

 

Desperately sad though it is, I think we've reached the stage where he is unable to deliver a gig that can be classed as acceptable. In truth, we're probably past that point already, but we've kept going through the bond of friendship. The guitarist is a particularly long-standing mate of his.

 

To complicate matters, the rest of us are a band in our own right that is, dare I say it myself, awesome. We are well known locally (where this band gigs) and we cannot allow the one to affect the other. Tough decision (in some ways) but it is simply a case of the negatives have now exceeded the positives - and there was only one positive really.

That's so sad Steve but understandable. 

All credit to you guys for keeping it going as long as is possible for him, but sometimes difficult decisions need to be made.

As hard as it might be i think you've made the right decision for everyone.

Dave

 

[martthebass]

5 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

My gig last night was horrible.

 

I play is a Stax-orientated soul band. The singer (a good fried of ours) has Huntingtons, and the band has existed to keep him gigging. There are gigs when things go ok (never more than that) but last night may have been gig that we all knew was on the horizon. I won't go into detail, but it was horribly below par.

 

Desperately sad though it is, I think we've reached the stage where he is unable to deliver a gig that can be classed as acceptable. In truth, we're probably past that point already, but we've kept going through the bond of friendship. The guitarist is a particularly long-standing mate of his.

 

To complicate matters, the rest of us are a band in our own right that is, dare I say it myself, awesome. We are well known locally (where this band gigs) and we cannot allow the one to affect the other. Tough decision (in some ways) but it is simply a case of the negatives have now exceeded the positives - and there was only one positive really.

I'm sure he appreciates all that you have done for him Steve.

My current band has stood by me while I've undergone cancer treatment over the last 4 years, I have to admit that it kept me going through the dark times.  I looked to quit but they wouldn't hear of it.  I have always stated they should use a dep though to avoid missing a good gig or venue but so far I've generally soldiered on.  

Maybe one option would be to look at a more part time/smaller scale situation for him to participate in?

As said, whatever you decide I'm sure he'll appreciate your friendship and efforts over the years; good luck going forward.

[Stub Mandrel]

10 hours ago, Boodang said:

Behringer XR18; 16 input stagebox with six monitor and two main outputs. You can control the mix of the monitor outs with an app, so each person using one is in control of their own mix. Each musician has a DI which goes to FoH, the 'thru' goes to the XR18 and the monitors to the IEMs, the mix of which each member of the band controls via the app (doesn't work so well if you have more than 6 members!). Once you've set it up it pretty much stays the same and it's not so bad to cable up.

In the old days, or when we're not using IEMs, we have an amp for each member of the band each side of the drums so at least we have a good mix of every instrument across the whole stage and vocal monitoring is this only major issue.

 

I think one of my bands has this.  Keys uses an app, the rest of us get a videocassette-sized mixer with about 12 physical sliders. A tiny lcd lights up to say which channel you are adjusting. Feels a bit ott for a pub gig but works well.

 

One gotcha - the stand clips on the mixers are too small for Hercules mike stands!

[Stub Mandrel]

9 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

My gig last night was horrible.

 

I play is a Stax-orientated soul band. The singer (a good fried of ours) has Huntingtons, and the band has existed to keep him gigging. There are gigs when things go ok (never more than that) but last night may have been gig that we all knew was on the horizon. I won't go into detail, but it was horribly below par.

 

Desperately sad though it is, I think we've reached the stage where he is unable to deliver a gig that can be classed as acceptable. In truth, we're probably past that point already, but we've kept going through the bond of friendship. The guitarist is a particularly long-standing mate of his.

 

To complicate matters, the rest of us are a band in our own right that is, dare I say it myself, awesome. We are well known locally (where this band gigs) and we cannot allow the one to affect the other. Tough decision (in some ways) but it is simply a case of the negatives have now exceeded the positives - and there was only one positive really.

 

That sounds really tough on all parties. 

[Steve Browning]

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

 

That sounds really tough on all parties. 

He has sent out two emails saying how good the gig was and how so many people congratulated him at the end. Difficult. 

[Jackroadkill]

On 12/08/2025 at 00:02, Stub Mandrel said:

 

That's what we call a shower in Wales 😁

 

On 12/08/2025 at 07:16, Geek99 said:

Wales is famous for its rain frequency, Daryl

 

We could blooming well do with some now; the farm is really struggling for water at the moment.

[Jackroadkill]

12 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

My gig last night was horrible.

 

I play is a Stax-orientated soul band. The singer (a good fried of ours) has Huntingtons, and the band has existed to keep him gigging. There are gigs when things go ok (never more than that) but last night may have been gig that we all knew was on the horizon. I won't go into detail, but it was horribly below par.

 

Desperately sad though it is, I think we've reached the stage where he is unable to deliver a gig that can be classed as acceptable. In truth, we're probably past that point already, but we've kept going through the bond of friendship. The guitarist is a particularly long-standing mate of his.

 

To complicate matters, the rest of us are a band in our own right that is, dare I say it myself, awesome. We are well known locally (where this band gigs) and we cannot allow the one to affect the other. Tough decision (in some ways) but it is simply a case of the negatives have now exceeded the positives - and there was only one positive really.

 

 

That's really tough; I hope you can bring it to an amicable end.

[Norris]

12 hours ago, Steve Browning said:

My gig last night was horrible.

 

I play is a Stax-orientated soul band. The singer (a good fried of ours) has Huntingtons, and the band has existed to keep him gigging. There are gigs when things go ok (never more than that) but last night may have been gig that we all knew was on the horizon. I won't go into detail, but it was horribly below par.

 

Desperately sad though it is, I think we've reached the stage where he is unable to deliver a gig that can be classed as acceptable. In truth, we're probably past that point already, but we've kept going through the bond of friendship. The guitarist is a particularly long-standing mate of his.

 

To complicate matters, the rest of us are a band in our own right that is, dare I say it myself, awesome. We are well known locally (where this band gigs) and we cannot allow the one to affect the other. Tough decision (in some ways) but it is simply a case of the negatives have now exceeded the positives - and there was only one positive really.

All credit to you for keeping it going for him. It's tough to call it a day. Maybe you could move him to more of a cameo/feature?

 

You're good people. It doesn't make you bad people to know when it's time to wind it down or even quit completely. Let him bow out with dignity and head held high.

 

We have a guy that gets up and sings with us occasionally. He's not a great singer by any stretch of the imagination, but the adrenaline of the performance gives him some brief respite from his Parkinsons symptoms. It's difficult to say no when he wants to sing but the situation isn't really suitable.

[WalMan]

On 13/08/2025 at 20:04, Stub Mandrel said:

 

I think one of my bands has this.  Keys uses an app, the rest of us get a videocassette-sized mixer with about 12 physical sliders. A tiny lcd lights up to say which channel you are adjusting. Feels a bit ott for a pub gig but works well.

 

One gotcha - the stand clips on the mixers are too small for Hercules mike stands!

Last gig I connected to our A&H CQ mixer with the CQ4U app on my phone. Pretty much set it and left it with just a few tweaks. Great for me as we were using an electronic kit. Maybe OTT for small pub gigs but I wouldn’t be without it now. Takes a lot less space than having floor monitors and I can hear what I need. 🤷‍♂️

[BigRedX]

Last night was probably the biggest and best gig of the year so far.

 

We played "Twisted Firestarter" which is the InFest Festival warm-up party at Rebellion in Manchester. Six bands all in a post-punk/Goth/Electronica style from various parts of Europe. I did this last year with the other band I was at the time and with drums and noisy guitars we were very much at odds with the rest of the line-up. This time we were the only band that wasn't all synthesisers, although my Bass VI is pretty heavily processed, and musically we were definitely in the right genre.

 

We played second and I was a little worried that the event wasn't going to be as popular as last year when it was noticeably busy from when the doors opened; but this time the venue looked a bit sparse during the first act. However by the time we were ready to come on the bar area was heaving, and there was a noticeable rush of people to the front of the stage as we launched into our opening song. Excellent sound from the foldback and the large stage allowed our singer to really get into the performance. Even though our set was heavily biased towards new songs that have yet to be released, the reception was excellent with plenty of people down the front dancing and singing along, and even managed most of them to light up the room with phones and glow-sticks during "Calling Out".

 

Surprisingly we didn't sell a lot a merch afterwards, which  suspect was partly down to the fact that most of the people who liked us already have CDs and T-shirts and the strange decision for the merch table to be cash-only; this year the vast majority of our merch sales have been paid for by card.

 

The promotor seemed to be impressed so hopefully we'll get some more gigs from him. There were a couple of professional-looking photographers in the audience so hopefully some shots will surface soon on Facebook.

 

Next is a bit more down-to-earth as we'll be playing a small-scale multi-venue "festival" in Newark in just over a week's time.

[asingardenof]

On 13/08/2025 at 01:13, Bluewine said:

 

Seems like that's the way it is most of the time for me. Of course I can hear my bass and vocals when nobody else is playing. Why don't these sound guys come on stage when your actually into the set with their tablets and chrome books and and check the stage sound then ?

 

Daryl

Our sound guy is our keyboardist, but our "soundcheck" usually consists of our singer wandering about the venue with his wireless mic checking if he can hear us OK. Keyboardist and drummer have monitors which apparently all sounded OK, but some sequenced bits need remixing to make them more prominent. I'm thinking I might need to invest in one to give myself a fighting chance.