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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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Played in Mother's Ruin last night in Bristol, It went ok for us apart from a couple of key changes to songs the guitarist decided on at the last minute :) . However, the band we were supporting were AWESOME! Check 'em out - [url="http://www.schnauser.co.uk/"]Schnauser[/url] . The bass player was especially good - really beautiful melodies.

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Played at Newcastle City Hall on Saturday.. always a treat. :)

It's an annual do, and we always have a few different guests on. [url="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.247990261929273.58610.104384302956537&type=1&l=1fc69c8e4f"]Here's some photos[/url].

If any of you get the chance to see the New Rope String Band, don't miss 'em. They're a hoot.

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Played a function do at the Ghillie Dhu in Edinburgh the other night. Apart from the venue giving us duff information about load-in times (which they have since very nicely apologised for), and the client mucking about with how much ceilidh they wanted, it wasn't too bad.

However, getting home was a bit fun! Whilst driving along a dark country road with no street lighting, come round a 90-degree bend only to find a f-off large black horse in the middle of the road! :) Managed to avoid it, as it wandered off down the road, and phoned the local police to warn them. You could tell that the bloke on the other end of the phone suspected he had a real chancer on the line! :)

"So, sir. You've just finished playing a gig with your band and you are telling me you that you can now see a large black horse in the middle of the road..."

For added irony, first song in the set is usually "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree".

Edited by Simon.
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Had a great gig on Thursday in a small café styled bar in Darwen called No.39. Used to be a thai restaurant... anyway, against all my assertions that I'd have a nice chilled gig and all, I ended up jumping around like my previous 16 year old bass playing self! Flea would of had a hard time keeping up :) Playing for it now though...

Any how, we got a fun review of the band of NWB site:

"They're [Cottonhouse Shakers] a damn fine band and deliver their material with such energy and panache that I wouldn't care if they were singing the contents of an Argos catalogue. A must see for any serious music fan."

Needless to say, we have new material in the pipeline :)

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Prog gig last night @ Weltons Brewery in the brewhouse :) which was different. Inside but it was open to the elements so the crowd were wrapped up warm but we were fine under thw lights.

First night with the GB Streamliner 6.0 and it sounded marvellous :)

A few slip ups but no one died. Most annoying was playing through a new number (Spocks Beard - Day for Night) pretty much perfectly in the sound check - that I wasn't recording or videoing - then having a few issues on the gig, which was a shame.

Had some people looking quizikly at the bas pedals as to "what the hell!?"

Just the Wal all night because there was not a lot of room but it was all good (after a mad dash round Bognor & Worthing to get some new strings in the morning

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Played a new venue in Faversham called the Vault, Old Brewery Store.

They seem to like us as we have been back there 3 times and are working on a bill for another.
Rider was very nice...from a brewery..:) :) and we had a great time.

Can't wait for the next time. pics and video, etc etc

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Played a pub in the centre of Leeds to a room full of Norwegian Leeds United supporters who had come over for the Millwall game. There were also quite a few blokes in LUFC suits & ties - the younger ones were obviously players but didn't recognise any from the first team

Our Nordic friends were obviously well lubricated but were a great audience. We even had one guy try to book us for a blues club somewhere in the north of Norway for next year!

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Second gig with our temp singer.
Thank f*** she`s gone.
She didn`t like half the set and suggested/insisted on loads of 80s crap like Lisa stansfield.Loads more work getting the set playable again,then last night she`s all "nah dont fancy that, do you know...?" in the middle of a set.
Like I said, she won`t be coming back.I`m not prepared to work with folk who have me deconstruct a tune, transpose it, rehearse it, and then unilaterally bin it on a whim.
Now all I have to do is work up the next singer in time for Saturday.
Positive was I just took my Jazz necked Hohner P last night and it sounded pretty damn good. Nice and growly,and the slight amount of slapping I do was clean and sharp.
Can`t help lusting for some Wizards trads to try in it, even though the Hohner ones (tis an 82/3 bass)sounded great.
Also, as I`m waffling about kit, I`m using the MB II/Dave hall VT1 into an Ashdown mini 48 and I have to say it`s really good for this gig, small as it is. I`m able to put the whole setup on a keyboard stand which gets it nice and high,so for better detail all I have to do is turn my head a little and it`s there.

Edited by Monckyman
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Played a wedding nr High Wycombe last night. Both bride and groom are hardened bikers so wanted a rock covers act - we don't get booked for too many weddings as we're defo more rock than pop. The bride was like Nessa from Gavin and Stacey in a black leather dress and knee high boots and was 7 months pregnant. Thankfully everyone showed a great sense of humour when we opened with Billy Idol's "White Wedding". In talks with a promoter who was there who wants us to do a run of biker events next summer which is a good result.

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Interesting weekend of gigs. Last nights was your standard Xmas party dans le marquee, but Friday we got the opportunity to support the Beautiful South, which was a lot of fun. After the support slot and the Beautiful South had finished, we went upstairs in the venue we were playing and did another 2 hours. The Beautiful South we good enough to stick around and watch us. At the end of the night, Alison Wheeler asked if she could get up and sing with us, unfortunately we had ran out of time but it was nice of her to ask and it would have been a great laugh had the venue not been closing!

A good weekend all together.

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I played a bit with my daughter's duo last night. They call themselves The Vixens (twins, both with Fox as their surname). They cover a lot of White Stripes and Black Keys but call me in for a few numbers. When the photo was taken I think we were doing Amy Winehouse's 'You know I'm no good'.

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[quote name='Len_derby' timestamp='1323025975' post='1458448']
I played a bit with my daughter's duo last night. They call themselves The Vixens (twins, both with Fox as their surname). They cover a lot of White Stripes and Black Keys but call me in for a few numbers. When the photo was taken I think we were doing Amy Winehouse's 'You know I'm no good'.
[/quote]

wicked, playing as a family must be great. You must be very proud. :)

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[quote name='rOB' timestamp='1323029162' post='1458485']
wicked, playing as a family must be great. You must be very proud. :)
[/quote]

Thanks Rob, I am. Playing with family members can be very fraught though. We argue like hell......and as we all live in the same house at the moment there's lots of potential for those door-slamming moments :)
At least they've both got driving licences now, that's a big plus.
They're pretty much OK with gear and instruments being left all over the place too.

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Just played the Cavern again. They've installed a new K-Array PA which we thought looked ace and sounded great with the acoustic-y fella on before us....

Halfway though our second song, the right "array" died and smelled like it was on fire. We had to use our JBL Eon 15 for the right side for the rest of the evening. Then, first song into our second set, the left one starts to smell like fire, so we unplugged it, got their original PA cab out and used that instead! So, eventful! Nice people at the Cavern though, so we got it sorted and soldiered on.

Back up in 5 hours....need to wind down....

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A wedding do, out in the sticks near Kegworth. Strange time of year / day of week to get married, but hey. It wasn't the worst wedding I've ever played at, but certainly not the best.

Ever had one of those gigs where you have little enthusiasm, feel tired, and then with about 1/2 hour to go your bass seems to weigh a ton, your fingers seem slow, and you stand there smiling at the happy couple wishing they would all hurry up and sod off to bed? Yep. That was the gig.

The funny thing though was the guitarist forgetting to bring his decent clothes. He realised about 20 minutes before we were due to start, with an hour's round trip to go and get them and no-one available to bring them over. He ended up playing in borrowed clothes - the drummer's shirt and waistcoat (apparently some people still wear those!), and my black jeans which were a couple of sizes too small for him.

And the best bit? I'm sitting here at work having had a whole 4 hour's sleep - and that hurts when you're the wrong side of 40! :)

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For the next 3 days I'll only be adding to this thread by saying 'I didn;t have one'.You'd think I'd be glad of a weekend off but instead I'm already bored and the weekend hasn't started yet.

I could go up to the local pub venue and watch somebody else play but that's being audience isn't it. I know it sounds daft but I've forgotten how to do that.

I'll go to the pub with my mate then - and pretend I'm not jealous of all of you playing tonight and tomorrow. God knows what'll happen if my hands go - turn into a recluse I reckon. :)

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Crap.

At The Maze, a venue we've played many times before and it's always been pretty good. However last night there were all sorts of problems. When we were originally booked, we had what I would consider to be the optimum mid-evening slot on the main stage and I'd agreed to supply the bass rig for the night. By the day of the gig our slot had been moved 3 times and we were now on second and playing much earlier. Next we were told to be there at 5.00 to set up. When pressed the venue said that the drums wouldn't be arriving until 6.00! Since my rig takes all of 5 minutes to set up I arranged to arrive at just after 6.30. The drums didn't actually arrive until just before 7.00 and I could have actually turned up at 7.30 and it wouldn't have delayed matters any further...

Earlier in the week I'd been talking to the bass player from Practical Lovers (another fantastic Nottingham band - go and see them) and he'd said that they had all sorts of problems with digital gear at The Maze. I said that I'd never had any trouble and didn't anything more about it. Then towards the end of our 4th song the bass completely cut out. Looking down at my Floorboard the display was dead. Looking round at my rack the LCD displays for both the BassPod and the Peterson tuner were completely freaking out. At the end of the song I tried powering down all the equipment and switching it back on. The Pod and the Tuner appeared to power-up successfully. However still no bass sound - not even from the DI. Even bypassing all the other gear in the rack and just going straight into my amp produced no sound. Eventually attracted the attention of the PA engineer and got a DI box to go direct into the PA.

However all that messing around had completely destroyed the atmosphere and the flow of the set. The next song was a new one with a complicated structure, missing bars and tempo changes and we completely screwed it up. It took us another song to get back into the flow, but the vibe wasn't really there for the rest of the set. We missed out another song for no apparent reason and really it was all a bit lack-lustre.

Surprisingly after coming off stage we got a lot of compliments and even sold some CDs. From our PoV it was probably our worst performance to date, which just shows that bands are their own worst critics. The only good thing to come of it was that since my rig wasn't working anymore I got to pack it up and go home early. Luckily one of the other bands had brought a bass combo so those on after us didn't have to play direct into the PA like I did.

This morning I've just gone through all the gear and it all appears to be OK even the amp. However when I switched it on the amp made and extra switching sound that I'd not heard before which leads me to believe that it probably went into some sort of protection mode and had I waited a little longer it might have come back on at the gig. Since the rack mains is surge and spike protected, I don't know what else I can do to protect the gear other than to invest in a UPS which will probably be weighty and pricey. Still massively relieved that it's all working and disappointed that we let problems like this put us off our stride.

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Not too bad. Sort of stand in gig, but it is fairly regular occurrence - another tonight in Littlehampton about half a mile from home so a really easy one that I might try to sort some vids & sound for.

The Streamliner was sounding good to me, and I for the second week running I used the Wal all night leaving the L2500 on a stand as spare.

Met up with Bassferret as was at the gig and had a long chat about life, the universe & gear.

The Christmas season accidents seem to have started. On the way over there wer three way pileups on both sides of the dual carriageway, thankfully the closed side was in the opposite direction to where I was headed and my side was flowing OK. Coming away from the gig there was another bang and police everywhere - still kept them busy on that, not that I care as I am now virtually teetotal and my last drink was a bottle of beer when I got home from last weeks gig.

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