How was your gig last night?

[Merton]

Our gig last night was weird. It was the 40th birthday of our old head of music (2 other guys in my band were in my year at school, we've known each other for EVER!). the gig was in the new purpose-built music building. When we were at school in the 90's we had 3 portacabins!!

So, lots of old teachers we recognised, some of whom recognised us too. Lots of reminiscing about "old times". And lots of me coughing, wheezing and sneezing as my chest infection took total control of me. How i managed two and a half hours I will never know.

Sound checking:
[attachment=5240:DSC00539.JPG]

'Twas a good gig, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and the dancefloor was packed all night. The new songs we've added to the set went well (especially Footloose, love it!!)

[OldGit]

[quote name='Rich' post='128620' date='Jan 27 2008, 11:54 AM']The Fiddlers in Bristol last night... being January we weren't expecting much, but it was a belter. Great crowd well up for it, and our very own [b]joegarcia[/b] behind the desk... I've heard nothing but excellent reports on the FOH sound, most of them being of the "best sound you've had at the Fiddlers" variety.
The only sad thing is that it was Dr.Liz's last gig on alto sax... she's off, taking her shiny new medical degree to pastures new. Gonna miss her.[/quote]

Ah The end of an era ...
I suspect you have an equally attractive young bright alto player to take her place though

[elom]

The last few gigs we've done the turn out has been low, really low, single figures low on one occasion. I know it's not us because these have been new venues in new towns for us, maybe its a January thing. It's hard to put in the effort though for an empty room, though we do try.

However last night was great. A pub full of a younger crowd than we normally seem to get and they loved it. What's more we loved it too - it's amazing what a bit of crowd reaction does for you. We played a stormer too and playing the last song of the night (I predict a riot) with the whole pub dancing and singing along I thought yes, this is exactly why I put so much time and effort into the whole band thing. We got booked up by the venue for the rest of the year, got offered a slot at a local music festival (which we cant do cause of holidays - damn), had a couple of enquiries for parties etc and even had someone come and ask for a copy of our set list, which was a first. All in all it was just the boost we needed.

[john_the_bass]

friday's gig was odd
3 band bill, us in the middle - the headliners played a set of half a dozen covers with the front man from the opener. it sort of undermined the rest of their stuff though and i felt it was a bit uneccessary. opening band were mediocre, nothing i'd not heard before, we came on and played the fastest and loudest and i was really happy....until.....
"can you play another one?" Sure yeah - only the decision was made to play one of our numbers which is opened tuned on guitar to D and capo'd at the third to open F - only our guitarist spent some time open tuning his guitar badly. Christ it was awful, really quite embarassing.
Then the headline act came on, bass player seems to have been drinking heavily and looks like he's about to lose his breakfast - gets off stage, i step in and we do a rock and roll set - which was fun

[slaphappygarry]

Gash!

[Freuds_Cat]

[quote name='wayne58' post='128634' date='Jan 27 2008, 10:56 PM']Sounds pretty good to me (I lived in a Hostel in Adelaide before moving to Whyalla in 1967), so I can just picture the scene.

AND free beer[/quote]


Yep, we've played there a number of times now and Phil the owner offered us a gig every six weeks for the next 12 months with an option to do NYE so I guess he likes us

[urb]

Well for my first gig of 2008 it was amazing - I played at this great (but quite posh/trendy/expensive) Moroccan bar called Momos with this Rai singer called Cheb Nacim - I've played with him before but this time most of the guys from my other Algerian rock/funk/Rai band were also playing. The music is a mix of Spanish, Latin, African and funk with a few rocky/dubby parts - great for the bass! I've been playing with the drummer for 3 years now and we just gel big time and it's so funky that it all just felt effortless.

The place was rammed - it only holds about 100 maximum and as it's a basement club it got very hot and loud - but the groove was just on last night. Nacim the singer has an amazing voice and he's got great stage presence - so him plus a slamming rhythm section equaled a really funky gig.

I was using my Thumb thru-neck plus my tiny but mighty (fine) Baby Blue and once again I got a really sweet, rounded sound - finger style was thick and full, slap was just bright enough - ace. And considering this was our first gig with this line up it was seriously good - even the manageress who sees loads of bands each week thought we stood out because we were so tight.

Hopefully this all bodes well for lots of festival gigs over the summer - I'll keep you posted.

Mike

[jwbassman]

It's 3pm and just got it... no not from last nights gig, this mornings!

Playing as part of the Jazz on A Winters Weekend at the Southport Arts Centre.

Not a bad line up included our standard big band guys and gals plus... Alan Barnes (Alto), Mark Nightingale (Trombone) and Bruce Adams and Steve Waterman (Trumpets).

Most of the stuff was sight read after a very chaotic 9am call to top and tail a few things... bass sounded great and I even managed to played pretty well, some of Steve's charts really give the fretless chance to speak, which is great - however it all seemed to be over so quick - even though we did two hour long sets, which I guess means it all went well

If you're gigging tonight have a good one, I'm off to the pub to watch the footy :)

[nick]

Very bizarre, would be the best way to describe it.

Six hours in a glass box (finished 10ish), in Bristol's Millenium Square. Was a pilot filming for Endemol/BBC3 new series of [i]'talent' [/i] competitions/reality-TV called 'UpstAged' Everyone 'miked-up', so anything said could be heard outside the box in the square, along with music played - no swearing/defamation allowed etc!

Was quite a good laugh.We should get some footage for our web page,gave us a bit of publicity on BBC Points West last night, & an insight into how the whacky world of television works....

Played our set about five times, interviewed, some interactive web stuff with 'fans' we didn't realise we had.
Was an interesting way to spend my birthday!

Edited February 2, 2008 by nick

[beerdragon]

Tonights first set went done well to an almost full pub. second set they all went to watch the boxing, bugger!

[wateroftyne]

Thursday night's gig was at a venue in darkest Northumberland called Rothbury Roots. The journey up in 80mph winds was a barrel of laughs, I can tell you...

It's a great gig... the room is small, and you can hear a pin drop. It's like playing in someone's living room.

It was an enjoyable excercise in playing VERY quietly.. we could really play with dynamics. It was a great night.

This gig had a capacity of 150.. our next one is at Newcastle City Hall which seats 2000. It's all very confusing!

[warwickhunt]

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='132879' date='Feb 3 2008, 08:28 AM']Thursday night's gig was at a venue in darkest Northumberland called Rothbury Roots. The journey up in 80mph winds was a barrel of laughs, I can tell you...

It's a great gig... the room is small, and you can hear a pin drop. It's like playing in someone's living room.

It was an enjoyable excercise in playing VERY quietly.. we could really play with dynamics. It was a great night.

This gig had a capacity of 150.. our next one is at Newcastle City Hall which seats 2000. It's all very confusing![/quote]

Are the audience in that pic actually sitting in rows of armchairs watching you?

That then the City Hall you do lead a bizzare, wonderful gigging life Mr B!

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='132883' date='Feb 3 2008, 08:52 AM']Are the audience in that pic actually sitting in rows of armchairs watching you? [/quote]

Errr... yes.

ROCK AND ROLL!

ha ha ha

[quote name='warwickhunt' post='132883' date='Feb 3 2008, 08:52 AM']That then the City Hall you do lead a bizzare, wonderful gigging life Mr B![/quote]

Innit?

Actually, I played at an open Mic night [url="http://www.jollybeggars.co.uk/eb60/"]with my Dad [/url]on Friday. That helps to break up the repetition...

We're playing a few songs at [url="http://www.newcastle.gov.uk/cityhall.nsf/eventkey/02AB7A03A308ECDB8025736300514959"]Sunday for Sammy[/url] at the city hall. Time for a bit of star-spotting!

Mind you, I'll pay for this over the summer when I spend half my life baking in the back of a van...

Edited February 3, 2008 by wateroftyne

[gary mac]

We had a forty five minute set last night, playing as people were arriving and getting their drinks and so on.
It's always hard work playing at that stage of the evening and to make matters worse, one of the many guitarists managed to collide with the headstock of my fender.

I haven't checked it for damage yet don't want to depress myself this early in the day.
The annoying thing is that I've always been so fearful of it getting damaged that I've never gigged with it before, it's lived in it's case for ten years. I finally decided that it really should be played, enjoyed and not hidden away.
Perhaps it gets less painful after the first dink.

All the best Gary.

[tauzero]

A bit of an odd one last night - return visit to the social club where I played my first gig with this band. Reasonable room, upstairs though.

It's about three weeks since the singer's mother died, and last night would have been her birthday, so there were assorted sisters, brothers-in-law, nephews, and nieces sat in the corner getting hammered (and having some sort of shouting match outside afterwards, as well as one niece getting abusive about the ents secretary).

As far as gigs go, it was about standard for us. The drummer and I are both getting a bit pissed off with the fact that we've been doing an identical set for two years though. Oh yes, and the singer went and invited this bloke up to sing, so he did a couple of numbers which Denis just about knew and I busked. I told the singer afterwards not to get any guest singers up again as it made us look like a bunch of amateurs.

In equipment terms, it was the first time out for the cut-down 2x10" homebrew, which proved to still have plenty of bottom end to it. Needs some acoustic foam in it, I think. Need to have a good session programming the Superfly for it - not easy while we're in the flat...

Oh, and the ents secretary had a word with me when I arrived - she wants to do an open mic night there and knows I regularly play at the one just down the road at the Roadhouse, so I (or Kaz and I) may finish up hosting one there. And the other band might get to do a barn dance there too...

[OldGit]

Cracker of a gig last night at Coaley Ceilidh VIII
The 8th year running for the first Saturday in Feb, Gloucestershire Save the Children fundraiser barn dance.
The organiser's become a personal friend over the years and looks after us really well - tea and coffee with biscuits during the setup and break down, help shifting gear, posive vibes all round.

First gig with out radio mics so we got in early to get them sorted. Very nice indeed. Thanks to P-T-P for some valuable assistance.
I've been on a wireless for years but our squeezebox man just got an AKG Bug to replace his constantly crackling cables and is as happy as Larry.

I had a good 30 minutes to mess with my relatively new compressor and zoom settings as well so that helped and the Shuker sounded magnificent

Sadly the gig clashed with the local choir's big concert night so there were mixed loyalties and split ticket sales but we still had 85 in a 100 capacity hall, with about 50% returners from previous years, dragging their mates along. So it was very cosy on the dance floor for all of the dances.

Steve decided to wheel out new dances for 90% of the called ones with tunes we haven't played for a while. This lead to some interesting moments
We don't have a set list or anything like that, oh no, we do it all by feel - how the dancers are managing determines the dances we do and that then dictates the tunes we can do. It's exciting to say the least We make the arrangements up dynamically too ...

At one point I was out in the audience between dances giving out jelly babies - our reward system for dancing well, in bare feet, with enthusiasm, when someone clearly has no idea but has a go anyway, kids, etc .
The guys started playing The Princess Royal - and old Morris tune. I had on my bass so put Bertie the jelly baby container down and joined in with the tune only to find Steve, making full use of his new wireless, playing his squeezebox at my shoulder on the empty dance floor. Well what should we do? Play whilst Morris dancing of course!
It went down storm and at least 3 people filmed it so maybe we'll get some cool footage for the website. Rock and Roll and Morris Dancing, who'd have thought it

At the end they wouldn't let us off the stage and instantly booked us back again for the 9th year. Makes up for abusive drunks at weddings and nice to know we've helped make some more money for the kids as well.

Edited February 3, 2008 by OldGit

[Sibob]

Played with FSOF last night in Wycombe, so a nice local gig!

200 or so kids, awesome atmosphere!
Went really well and i had a lot of fun, i knew that this weekend was going to be better then last week

Si

[Ray]

We supported the Sound Stylistics at the Jazz Cafe in London on Saturday night. Was a great gig. Don't like the house bass rig though - Ashdown ABM 8x10 with an ABM 1x15 combo on top. Good to see Gary Crockett play. He's a great player.

R

[john_the_bass]

"battle of the bands" and it was truly BoB indeed. We came a slightly less than credible 4th, despite being scored second highest by the judges, but the bunch that came down to support us weren't allowed to vote because they turned up late. The buggers.
Had to store all of our gear in what was basically an unheated garage at near freezing temperatures because we couldn't keep it in the venue proper. Brought it all on to the stage only for it to be ALL covered in condesation. Bit panicky at switching on my amp and watching it go bang, but it all seemed alright, just hope everything works alright now!

[Jase]

The Wheatsheaf Caerphilly, Early evening gig 5.30pm. One of the few remaining venues around these parts that actually have punters in because of live music!!!! Great sounding place too and very intimate, people about 4 or 5 feet away from you, which I always find more challenging than a bigger venue.
They have Live bands Fri, Sat and Sunday. Great people, great vibe, hot and sweaty!! As a gig should be Plus we had a problem free night....Tidy darts.

[Ou7shined]

Café Mambo's Aviemore. Very basic set up. No stage and only one 13amp socket, staff just cleared away some tables and let us get on with it. Sound check (vocal only PA) was to be on the fly as punters were still eating. Things took a dive when, as we were setting up (8:30pm) we discovered the drummer had forgotten his cymbals. A 2 hour trip back to Aberdeen to get them was out of the question so the hunt was on or the gig was a no no. An hour later someone turned up a single crash but the drummer insisted that he couldn't even attempt our set with just 1 cymbal so we put out an APB with a £50 reward. Some girls from our "entourage" have just stared a musical project so they filled for us with a few acoustic numbers including a cover of Skunk Anansie's Weak - went down really well - voices of angels. Within 5 minutes of our self imposed deadline 2 sets of cymbals turned up. Drummer was finally happy. Unfortunately all the waiting around resulted in a few more beers than normal. Never the less we played a blinder and folk were still coming in even when the usual exodus to the clubs empties the rest of the town and wouldn't let us go until we did 4 or 5 encores. Oh and I think I played with a broken bone in my right hand - long story.

Youtube has sucked any definition out of [url="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qA7dk8hbl7g"]this[/url] but you get teh general idea.

[Alun]

The Sebastopol club in Pontypool, S Wales for me on the last night of a quick tour with New York vocalist Marlene Verplanck ( such a great name!). She's still got a few gigs in England over the next week, we were doing the Welsh leg.

Quite a fun gig, really pleased with the sound of my NS Wav EUB too.

Cheers
Alun

[stewblack]

We played a (relatively) local gig in a village hall. It's one of those rare occasions where the committee formed to fundraise and build the thing included local musicians who insisted the acoustics of the building were a priority. Anyone who's played big hard echoing barns which most modern village halls are will know what I'm talking about.
The place is amazing. There is a huge high ceiling (a badminton enthusiast was also on the committee) proper stage, PA incredibly high spec pro lighting rig, they laid on food and drinks for us paid us MORE than agreed and nothing, but nothing was too much trouble for them.
The crowd were genuinely appreciative that we'd made the effort to go "all the way out to our village to play for us" and I've never received so many compliments after a gig. In fairness we were good last night.
The acoustics of the place meant everyone playing at much lower level than usual and only vocals through the PA despite the place being pretty big - and the quality was crystal clear.
I'd go back without the briefest hesitation, these guys don't even make money out of it, last year they just about broke even and it's more people like that that this business needs, there are after all enough musicians who do it for love.

[niceguyhomer]

We drove all the way to Blackpool last night - a round trip of 80 miles for our drummer, only to be told on arrival that there's been a change of management and there's no live music any more. C*nts.

[stewblack]

[quote name='niceguyhomer' post='141789' date='Feb 17 2008, 09:36 AM']We drove all the way to Blackpool last night - a round trip of 80 miles for our drummer, only to be told on arrival that there's been a change of management and there's no live music any more. C*nts.[/quote]
Unbelievable, one bloody phone call is all it would have taken.
There, encapsulated in our two posts, is embodied the joy and frustration of the musicians lot.

Edited February 17, 2008 by stewblack