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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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Wedding last nigt, lovely crowd and as a nice surprise my brother and his wife were guests and had brought their twelve day old daughter with them, so I got to meet my new niece.

It was a beautiful venue - high spec barn conversion in the Sussex countryside, but they had a sound limiter. God knows why, barn on a farm in the middle of nowhere and we had to be done by 22:00, so why they needed a limiter as well is unclear. 

We tripped it a few times, and we weren't loud, we discovered it when setting up and the guitarist (15 watt Orange valve combo, not loud) and I (no amp, DI'd with only one monitor live, louder than the guitar, bit hardly stage volume) knocked out the power.

We did alright, it was nice to be not too loud, but we all made daft mistakes as we were paying more attention to the limiter. The room resonances made certain notes spike it more than others - it really didn't like a low G from me, so I ended up transposing these up an octave, which was okay.

At one point we got the groom up to play guitar for a song, that didn't trip the power, but the audience cheering after he finished did.

The venue staff were very good about re-setting the power, but the owners didn't give a damn - completely ignored the guitarist when he pointed out having the power drop out is not good for valve amps; they seemed very entitled and weren't bothered about the disruption to the wedding.

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Two gigs this weekend after a 10 week break. My fingers are a little tender this morning. Last night we had a dep drummer that the guitarist and I hadn't played with for 8 years. He reckoned that was the last time he played drums too. Luckily he's a talented musician and did a fabulous job, when I remembered to give him cues :)

Anyway, we didn't get paid off, as I discovered when I walked back into the room to pack up...

20190518_232341.thumb.jpg.93fbde8d4f2649c489cf0d1693bad8f1.jpg

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Local football club, but it was a bit of a pain as we had to wait for an award ceremony before we could start. God knows why people go to those things :D

Anyway, the room was a total power suck, everything was way up, was seriously concerned the ashdown was going to run out of steam. It didn't though. 

Still, although it seemed quiet at the start, it was very busy and fairly rowdy. Not any hassle though just the large collection of drunk women dancing but no fights and not many people collapsing, which to be fair, there are worse things (and normally at this venue). Anyway, seemed to go down well, got the usual best group ever comments at the  end, which is always nice even if you don't believe it!

Onward and upward to our next event of the weekend, which is an outdoor one during the day, one of our favourites as it gives you a free night - light one this weekend, only 2 gigs!

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9 hours ago, Norris said:

Two gigs this weekend after a 10 week break. My fingers are a little tender this morning. Last night we had a dep drummer that the guitarist and I hadn't played with for 8 years. He reckoned that was the last time he played drums too. Luckily he's a talented musician and did a fabulous job, when I remembered to give him cues :)

Anyway, we didn't get paid off, as I discovered when I walked back into the room to pack up...

20190518_232341.thumb.jpg.93fbde8d4f2649c489cf0d1693bad8f1.jpg

Shows why short-scale basses are a bad idea 🙂

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I've just got back from my first gig since 1995, the 'Abbey Road Army' one.

We were the 'Grizzly Beers' and on second. The sound was spot on as you might expect from a venue with a proper stage and a list of past bands like this:

IMG_20190519_190147050.thumb.jpg.7d50c566383178473894de72731d4ca2.jpg

Were were hoping not to make fools of our selves but in the end we had a great reception and everyone was saying how good we were, especially how we fitted all the instruments together. We started with Going Back Home as easy to play and a crowd pleaser. The Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting which is a tad more challenging! Our secret weapon was Boulevard of Broken dreams where we got all those stops spot on, including the end - our effort to practice endings really paid off.IMG_6308.jpg.62ef63a43353c567e96c41f96e187a43.jpg

IMG_6307.jpg.6b22f095fa253656ffbfe9760ab019c4.jpg

We did 40 minutes and finished with My My, Hey Hey. I started it with my HM2 pedal dialled and a plaintive howl of feedback, calmed down a bit for most of the song, and finished with HM2, tremelo, flanger, EQ and chorus on and the compressor off! The plan was to go out with a bang and it turned out we managed to make a picture fall off the wall at the far end of the building in the next room 🙂

We ended witha group hug!IMG_6310.jpg.9009b4460e03a5008557a30c79b1a897.jpg

A few moments of sheer terror, but in the end we all had a brilliant time and the other bands were great too! We are meeting up in a couple of weeks top discuss a plan for world domination!

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Interesting observations:

Nearly every band had a telecaster in it, the only 'strat' shaped ones were a Yamaha Pacifica brought in when someone snapped a string and our guitarists home-built bitsa strung for slide guitar.

Basses:

2 Fender Jazz, 1Peavey, one genuine 1960s Gibson SG and my Fender Performer.

Who said everyone plays a Precision?

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A very pleasant afternoon at the Derbyshire food and drink fair at Kedleston Hall.

Full back-line and pa supplied and sound engineered by a competent crew.

A well-oiled audience and we got paid too.

My Swift Lite Bass made by our own @Andyjr1515 was almost the best looking thing on the stage.

 

image.jpeg

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I played another acoustic gig with my BL today at The Redmonds today 4:00-7:00.

I like doing these acoustic gigs so far. I'm merely an invited guest at this point. This was my first outside gig for this season, beautiful weather. Fantastic Court Yard. Small crowd but they were all into our performance.

 

Here's the bad thing. We got a check for $400.00 instead of the agreed $500.00. Not cool.

Blue

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7 hours ago, Len_derby said:

A very pleasant afternoon at the Derbyshire food and drink fair at Kedleston Hall.

Full back-line and pa supplied and sound engineered by a competent crew.

A well-oiled audience and we got paid too.

My Swift Lite Bass made by our own @Andyjr1515 was almost the best looking thing on the stage.

 

image.jpeg

Very nice, looks like fun gig. What is that percussion instrument?

Blue

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9 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I've just got back from my first gig since 1995, the 'Abbey Road Army' one.

We were the 'Grizzly Beers' and on second. The sound was spot on as you might expect from a venue with a proper stage and a list of past bands like this:

IMG_20190519_190147050.thumb.jpg.7d50c566383178473894de72731d4ca2.jpg

Were were hoping not to make fools of our selves but in the end we had a great reception and everyone was saying how good we were, especially how we fitted all the instruments together. We started with Going Back Home as easy to play and a crowd pleaser. The Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting which is a tad more challenging! Our secret weapon was Boulevard of Broken dreams where we got all those stops spot on, including the end - our effort to practice endings really paid off.IMG_6308.jpg.62ef63a43353c567e96c41f96e187a43.jpg

IMG_6307.jpg.6b22f095fa253656ffbfe9760ab019c4.jpg

We did 40 minutes and finished with My My, Hey Hey. I started it with my HM2 pedal dialled and a plaintive howl of feedback, calmed down a bit for most of the song, and finished with HM2, tremelo, flanger, EQ and chorus on and the compressor off! The plan was to go out with a bang and it turned out we managed to make a picture fall off the wall at the far end of the building in the next room 🙂

We ended witha group hug!IMG_6310.jpg.9009b4460e03a5008557a30c79b1a897.jpg

A few moments of sheer terror, but in the end we all had a brilliant time and the other bands were great too! We are meeting up in a couple of weeks top discuss a plan for world domination!

So glad this went well for you, sounds like a great idea. And if you get a band out of it, even better. 

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1 hour ago, Bluewine said:

Very nice, looks like fun gig. What is that percussion instrument?

Blue

It's a cajon Blue. Very popular this side of the pond. Our man  has rigged up a foot pedal so it gives a decent kick-drum sound as well as the hand strikes. 

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1 hour ago, Len_derby said:

It's a cajon Blue. Very popular this side of the pond. Our man  has rigged up a foot pedal so it gives a decent kick-drum sound as well as the hand strikes. 

Cool, our percussion guy for our acoustic act uses one of those. I never knew what it was.

Easy to pack up and and out 😀

Blue

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8 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Did they give any reason why they short changed you Blue.

Dave

The owner was "lit up" and the BL decided it wasn't the time to confront him .

It's not a lot of money, however we're  still going to try and recoup it.

Very rare for this to happen.

Blue

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We played my favourite gig on Friday as a last-minute cancellation (we're there again a week Satdy, but as discussed elsewhere, it's the Champions League Final that night, so it might be an odd one), and it was the loud (actually too loud, but that's a long and tedious story), lairy, singy and rambunctious evening we always enjoy. One odd addition this time, though: a punter who looked the spit and image of a Greg Allman waxwork left too near a hot radiator*, complete with shoulder-length grey locks and velvet jacket, kept walking through the dancing throng up to the singer, standing right in front of him (just that bit toooo close for comfort) and looking at him like he was trying to work out if he knew him from somewhere, then strolling away. We play on a foot-high raised stage, but even so... He repeated this several times. The singist was more spooked by this than the occasional outbreaks of violence this venue is prone to, and I don't blame him... 😕

 

* I was originally going with Jim Steinman for this one, but when I checked myself vis-a-vis Jim, he looks delightfully like Michael Winner on Cowboy Night these days:

jims.JPG.bf0458434a001b730e156ed99ebe2800.JPG

 

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Had a great sunday afternoon outdoor tent gig at a local beauty spot, the start of the summer season, got 1.5 songs in and the guitarists amp crapped out (makes a change from the leads), so we had to stop. Someone in the village said that he had an amp and went to get it. So only a 15 minute delay. The rest of it went really well, and always a good sign if you get people dancing on a sunday afternoon. The place was heaving.

Unsurprisingly, considering they don't pay much they said before that they would pay us £50 if it was busy, but apparently it wasn't busy enough (never seen it so busy). But that is what I assumed would happen.

Still, loads of people came up afterwards for a chat, and got a few more likes and comments on FB than normal, so its pretty good.

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7 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

Interesting eggcorn!

I got it from my grandparents, aaaaaages ago...and it's technically the original form: 'spitting image' is the eggcorn 😀

'Spitting image is the usual modern form of the idiom meaning exact likeness, duplicate, or counterpart. The original phrase was spit and image, inspired by the Biblical God‘s use of spit and mud to create Adam in his image.'

Edited by Muzz
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3 minutes ago, lou24d53 said:

Not gig last night, but gig tomorrow...I'm absolutely buzzing for this one...the new rig get it's first proper try out too...

 

 

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You're gonna love the noise that rig makes, seriously great tone, absolute monster volume too 😁

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Absolutely brilliant day today at Kelso Scooter Rally...literally off stage and the organiser comes up, we're booked for next year already...headlining the Friday night...!

She also said the reception we got today was the best she's ever heard for any afternoon band...as they play same time as the Custom Scooter show is on...

Pretty chuffed all round...

 

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Steam Railway, Swindon. Nice venue, friendly staff, punters usually up for a good time. 

A bit quiet due to the bank holiday but those present enjoyed themselves thoroughly. 

Only blot on an otherwise fun evening: Despite using the space suggested by the venue, the same one I always use, in the carpark of a row of shops all closed at that time of night I came out to a parking fine stuck under my wiper. 

75 quid. So taking my petrol into account that cost me dearly to play tonight. I can't believe anyone patrols a virtually empty carpark at 9 o'clock at night. Nor that a private company has the legal right to issue fines. 

Ah well, I shall say the serenity prayer and try to get some sleep. 

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5 hours ago, lou24d53 said:

Absolutely brilliant day today at Kelso Scooter Rally...literally off stage and the organiser comes up, we're booked for next year already...headlining the Friday night...!

She also said the reception we got today was the best she's ever heard for any afternoon band...as they play same time as the Custom Scooter show is on...

Pretty chuffed all round...

 

FB_IMG_1558811759090.jpg

IMG-20190525-WA0008.jpg

I played that rally once in the distant past. Great fun isn't it? 

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