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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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First proper gig last night without our keyboard player, who has finally emigrated to Australia.. For various reasons, it took him nearly 2 years to get his move sorted so we've been in gigging limbo for most of that time..

Anyway, in advance of him going, I've been experimenting with a 2 bass rig set-up for a while now - one rig for the pure bass sound and one for bass FX, which I'm using to add more interesting sounds now we're down to being a 4 piece.

Running my bass into a Hughes & Kettner Bassbass 600 head through an SWR Triad, and then DI'ing out of that into my Boss ME50B straight into a Peavey Mark IV head into an SWR 212...

Not the easiest set-up to lug around I know, but it sounded pretty good; plenty of clean, solid bass tone through the H&K head and then, having the facility to mix in the FX as and when needed without losing any low end (which has always been my worry when using lots of FX).

We were playing the Rockin' the Barn Festival in Southwick near Brighton, along with the awesome KXB band and 80's rockers Iron Tyger.. The place was packed and the crowd were very enthusiastic, so all good from that point of view and the stage/PA/lights were a real treat after most of pub gigs we do.

Don't think I'll really know whether the 2 rigs idea really works until I've done some more gigs with it, but it was a lot of fun to try..

So, potential back problems aside - here's to the next one! :)

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A game of 2 halves on Friday. The glorious weather and football conspired against us somewhat and it took an absolute age to get the PA levels right (why the singer didn't mark them up is beyond me). He'd pissed off half the audience before we started with incessant "One, Two"'s for a good 30 minutes.

The first set went down okay but we had to work hard to regain the audience's faith after the set up debacle.

The landlord made a point of coming up to me to say how much he enjoyed my Fretless playing which was nice.

The second half we went down a storm and had the place moving, which was a great recovery. We got booked again and had a few enquiries from people in the audience and the landlord again made a point of telling me I was a "stand out" bassist and he really enjoyed listening to my lines.

That's 3 compliments in a month. I could get used to this :)

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Not bad.

Did a wedding with my classic rock covers band. I was dreading it a little bit since I don't think we're quite polished enough in our performance (still way too much faffing around between songs), but it went down well.

The venue was full of stone-clad pillars and consequently very reverb-y but luckily the bride's wedding dress went a long way to soaking up those reflections! She did a song with our guitarist at the beginning of the first set and it took up most of the available stage area.

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Fourth gig in three weeks yesterday. Second one in two weeks with my main band with a dep drummer (different one each time too). A little shaky on a couple of intros and endings, but nice and tight for the most part.

It was a biker event and we had plenty of people on the dance floor playing air guitar, pogo-ing and generally having a good time.

The venue didn't have its own PA, so we put some music on while we broke our stuff down. And then had to hang around for almost another hour playing DJ until the crowd thinned out enough for us to load the PA into my car without having it dragged from us and put back up again.

The venue liked what we did and have invited us back for another (different) biker event next year.

I used my wireless rig and ventured out on the dance floor a couple of times early on to see what we sounded like. Couldn't hear myself much, but the overall sound was good and we could hear everything clearly on stage.

On Tuesday week we start rehearsals with our new drummer. Fingers crossed it'll be a positive experience for all of us. He's never gigged, though, so it'll be a steep learning curve for him. We have gigs for November and December, but nothing until then.

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Fishstock at Brixham yesterday. Got there to find there was no parking so we had to quickly unload gear then go and pay to park at the other end of the harbour! Not a good start!

Luckily for me there was a Hartke rig supplied so minimal faffing with gear for me. Set went really well too, bit of variation with a folk 3 piece and some saggy belly dancers before us but the crowd were mad for the Fools!

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Fishstock at Brixham yesterday. Got there to find there was no parking so we had to quickly unload gear then go and pay to park at the other end of the harbour! Not a good start!

Luckily for me there was a Hartke rig supplied so minimal faffing with gear for me. Set went really well too, bit of variation with a folk 3 piece and some saggy belly dancers before us but the crowd were mad for the Fools!

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Friday - regular gig that was well attended. Got some local (musical) talent up on stage too for a laugh and it went down well. I was sandwiched between two girl singers - it was a tough job but somebody had to do it.

Saturday - wedding in a marquee in da countryside. Even had a stage but they'd forgotten that bands need electricity so we had to rig something up pretty quickly which was effectively millions of plugs going into one socket. That said, there were some spectacular ladies jigging about a foot away from me and gotta admit that i can't remember many of the tunes we played.

Rant - outside catering. There was a company doing the food in a side tent attached to the marquee. They were making coffees and i had the audacity to ask if i could possibly have one. The boss gave me a face and said that if there was any left over and if he remembered then he might. FFS its a coffee. There was loads of it and they had to pour a jug and a half away - but they didn't offer any. Why is it that some people are such a**holes?

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Back to pur favourite gig in Chichester last night.

First set a bit thin on the ground, but the second they went ape.

It's quite a small & odd shaped gig with a small stage that I am off. Second set the crowd were mad & bouncing into everything, but it was a nice way to finish before my hols.

We've started doing Highway Star, but with two guitars & no keys so one guitarist emuates the keys solo & the other Mr B with both harmonising at the end of it. Felt hellish fast last night (though that was probably adrenaline) but it is really shaping up quite nicely. A few fluffs but all pretty minor.

Didn't have any decent gaffa tape for my pick hand fingers, so the first knuckle on the third finger (next to lil pinkie) is totally shredded to **** today. Still it was worth it.

Eventually stopped @ 12:15 having aimed @ midnight. Home by two.

While we were packing up one of the barmaids said to the WAG's waiting for us "So girls tea or coffee?" and while we packed up they had a little tea party in the corner. Very refined :D

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[quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1347177210' post='1797598']
I'm ok..and so is the horse I hit at about 50mph...I think.
At least it was walked to a vetinary horse box ...

Need to go and view cars today but I doubt the horse is insured.

Thanks for asking.
[/quote]

Blimey thats sounds scary!

Glad to hear all are ok, was it in a horsebox?

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Thanks... horse escaped from paddock and just appeared in middle of dual carriage way...so I had no chance..I thought it would try and move out of the way but we are talking split seconds here so it was..f*** me, horse and then whammo. Maybe it got trapped in headlights or something
Police had already been called so they were there about 5 mins alter.

All I remember was, horse, smack, windscreen and then bang on the roof...so maybe it tried to jump at the last minute .. its big backside tried to come through the windscreen but it was never going to fit so it went over the roof. Winscreen did a sterling job and it was very tough. Took out front drivers lights so it was coming straight for me in the drivers seat. I think the car would have survived if the horse hadn't landed on the roof but now they will write it off.

I don't understand how I got away so lightly tbh.. and not much front impact. Horse still standing afterwards and walked to vet horse box and the vet seemed quite happy with it.
I could have killed it myself last night but now I think the horse was young, might be some family pet and pride and joy so hopefully it isn't too badly injured. Maybe it was insured ...but am now just thinking how lucky I was... not even a scratch or bump...no airbags and the car has zillions of them so maybe I didn't hit it at speed although I didn't stop until 30 or mtrs down the road..
I recall thinking where the hell is it..and it had obviously gone over the roof and was looking forlornly at me..thinking why had I hit it..???

All a blur to me really but it just goes to show how quickly things in life might change...
After being annoyed initially, am mighty positive today and I have had a really good day... strange, but true.

So, now car shopping and have car gas.
Need to check all my gear works ok as well........

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[quote name='WalMan' timestamp='1347219006' post='1798227']
Back to pur favourite gig in Chichester last night.

First set a bit thin on the ground, but the second they went ape.

It's quite a small & odd shaped gig with a small stage that I am off. Second set the crowd were mad & bouncing into everything, but it was a nice way to finish before my hols.

We've started doing Highway Star, but with two guitars & no keys so one guitarist emuates the keys solo & the other Mr B with both harmonising at the end of it. Felt hellish fast last night (though that was probably adrenaline) but it is really shaping up quite nicely. A few fluffs but all pretty minor.

Didn't have any decent gaffa tape for my pick hand fingers, so the first knuckle on the third finger (next to lil pinkie) is totally shredded to **** today. Still it was worth it.

Eventually stopped @ 12:15 having aimed @ midnight. Home by two.

While we were packing up one of the barmaids said to the WAG's waiting for us "So girls tea or coffee?" and while we packed up they had a little tea party in the corner. Very refined :D
[/quote]

That's Chichester for you Al! :D

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We played at our Company meeting last Thursday in maidenhead.
My first gig after more than 10 years and first gig in UK - I moved here two years ago with my family.
A bit of emotion at the begin and some funny troubles finding the frets with the stage lights straight into my eyes :)
Went really well and we enjoyed it a lot. We made a lot of links between the songs and didn't left any dead moment between the songs.
Unfortunately I rented the amp (MB CMD103) but I didn't have time to set it properly so not so happy with my sound, too rumbling and dirty and the venue was a huge barn with a lot of reverb...
Definitely I'm going to buy an amp to nail my sound as I wish it for next gig :)

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We opened for Larry Graham & Graham Central Station last night. Not that many people there while we were on but we got a good response, which is nice!

GCS were great too. Not really my thing tbh - mid to late seventies funk - but I enjoyed their show.

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Another jam night at the dog an bollok. We played 4 songs and we were all really good on 3 of them. Unfortunately we each stuffed up on a different songs! Nevertheless the small crowd were aporeciative and were all gathered together at the front, so made for a good atmos.
Some of the other bands were good - one in particular was excellent. I said to the bass player afterwards 'Great bass playing, I really enjoyed it'. He looked pleased and was kind enough to say 'You too', but I think he was just being polite ! :-)

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I was playing a wedding in the Ubiquitous Chip (real name) in Glasgow, lovely venue and a great crowd. Had a woman in her 60s grinding on one of the roof's supporting poles and her equally aged other half doing what I think is called the mash potatoe to every song.

The food was good, had tablet in jars and the best chocolate cake I've ever eaten, bacon rolls were decent (in a sesame seed bun :blink: ) and singer said the pies were good too.

The usual classics didn't go down as well as they usually do (Summer '69, Sweet Child etc) but a couple of people asked for our card so all in all not a bad night! :D

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last night's gig was very much a last minute affair - the call came through at lunchtime. A gig on a school night? What the hell, why not.

It was for a do in a pub on the river (Thames), not sure if it was a birthday or engagement, but we announced both.

Despite being asked to play quietly for the first few numbers, then turn up as more people were in the pub, we had a full dance floor and the punters seemed to like us.

There were a couple of minor issues (i need to have another look at my noise gate) but overall a great paid rehearsal for our gig next week - details to follow on the gigs forum.

They even had Old Peculiar on tap - dangerous for a school night!

Unfortunately my enduring memory of the night, will be that on the way home on the tube, a woman opposite projectile vomited on the woman sat next to me. I sh1t you not.

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Got a call Wednesday night to play with a band I sometimes dep with but havent played with for over a year.

They do a lot of completely different stuff like Bed of Roses & In These Arms Tonight by Jon Bovi, Sledgehammer, Sultans of Swing and Ace of Spades so I had to run through what I had of their set on Thursday night which was about a dozen songs I'd written down the last time I played with them. They also tune down a semi tone.

No set list so I only found out what we were playing when we were about to play it which made it quite an interesting night.

The singer and guitarist are both showoffs but in a funny way. The both use wireless systems as do I so at one point during the night the singer was outside singing, the guitarist was behind the bar pulling a pint while doing a solo so I went into the next room as well.

It was a really funny night and I really enjoyed it. I came away with £40 for my troubles but I didn't care cos I'd had a great night. I think that years of playing in a wedding band had me always focussing on the money but I changed my attitude and now do it because I enjoy it.

If you're in your local and you see an ad for a band called Sideshow, go and see them, they're a really good entaining band and play for the audience, not just themselves

Edited by Delberthot
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