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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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6 hours ago, Bluewine said:

Lack of talent, our guitarist sand a lot of lead vocals,plays great blues harp, did all the bookings and his wife did all the administration ( paying the band, managing our website, Instagram and email campaigns)

Tough act to follow, but someone is out there. At least for the musical side.

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Tonight, nightmare. Jazzy acoustic duo gig. Me on guitar + singer. The singer asked a drummer she'd met at my New year's Eve party to join us for the night. I warned her but she said it'll be okay.  I was right, prize silly billy. Never again. Told me on three occasions that he couldn't gel with my strumming pattern and I'd have to play differently. Then, says he'd like a drum solo in a particularly lively number. No problem, away you go. Singer turns, "On the drums, jean-francois" at which point he shouts, " you need to tell me earlier" gets up from the kit, comes over to me (yes, mid song) and points out that he'll need me to play a chord at the start of each 8.

You couldn't make it up. Not sure whether I should be laughing or crying about this.

Foot-note, I didn't use the term "silly-billy" when I wrote this.😂

Edited by leschirons
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First time at new venue last night, it's been about three weeks since we last played and it showed - a little rough around the edges in the first set, but overall went well - had a few people come up at the end and say how much they enjoyed it.

Our singer finally lost patience with his Behringer X-Air and swapped back to an analogue mixer, he did seem much happier with that, but it lead to me only having the left channel working on my IEM, will have to see if I can sort that out.

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First of three gigs yesterday. Last minute booking. Pub gig, odd set up with us tucked around a corner with a choice of playing at an angle to a large pillar or facing one of two ways, either choice meaning one set of punters watching us from the side. 

For some reason there was quite a few tipsy groups done up for St Patrick's Day - on the 16th! They were high spirited and wanted us to play Irish music. I advised them to come to my two St Patrick's Day gigs I'm doing with my Irish band, actually on the right day. 

So lunchtime gig in Oxford evening gig in Bath still to come. Busy weekend. 

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Great gig at Caird Hall in Dundee. Took us nearly 8 hours to get there, due to high winds on the A1 causing chaos. Always get brilliant audiences in Scotland, and Dundee was no exception - plenty of participation and dancing in the aisles. Fab venue with friendly crew and staff. Quite a cavernous sound but I got used to it fairly quickly and enjoyed the bass sound onstage - one of those nights when your rig sounds how you wanted it to! The return journey started off with blustery snow, but at least the winds had calmed down a bit. 700 mile round trip for the gig, but still well worth it. 

 

Dundee 2019.jpg

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4 hours ago, Bluewine said:

was an 8-12 gig, place was packed. We were awful. I'm having serious thoughts about getting out. My band is falling apart after 16 years.

Is it something you can fix, Daryl? I know how much the band means to you.

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10 hours ago, leschirons said:

Tonight, nightmare. Jazzy acoustic duo gig. Me on guitar + singer. The singer asked a drummer she'd met at my New year's Eve party to join us for the night. I warned her but she said it'll be okay.  I was right, prize silly billy. Never again. Told me on three occasions that he couldn't gel with my strumming pattern and I'd have to play differently. Then, says he'd like a drum solo in a particularly lively number. No problem, away you go. Singer turns, "On the drums, jean-francois" at which point he shouts, " you need to tell me earlier" gets up from the kit, comes over to me (yes, mid song) and points out that he'll need me to play a chord at the start of each 8.

You couldn't make it up. Not sure whether I should be laughing or crying about this.

Foot-note, I didn't use the term "silly-billy" when I wrote this.😂

 His behaviour was completely ridiculous.

Why is it that some 'musicians' try to justify behaviour which in any other field of human endeavour would be absolutely unacceptable ?

 

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On 11/03/2019 at 16:36, Bluewine said:

No gigs until Saturday night. First gig since New Year's. We're losing a founding member and along with schedule conflicts because the BL has an acoustic duo act.

 

The band leader stopped booking because of the difficulty in replacing a founding member who's leaving us in September, but he doesn't want to add anymore gigs to our schedule.

 

This is an awful time for me. I'm the only retired person in the band.

Well, It was a great 8 year run, can't ask for more than that.

I won't be looking for another band. There are no bands in my area that gig consistently. All there are is " for fun " bands and bands that might gig once every 2 months. I have no interest in those kinds of bands.

Blue

Sorry to hear this Daryl. Something will turn up. You have a professional and dedicated attitude that wont go unnoticed I'm sure.

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5 hours ago, Bluewine said:

St. Patrick day bar gig at The BlondePop.

It was an 8-12 gig, place was packed. We were awful. I'm having serious thoughts about getting out. My band is falling apart after 16 years.

Is it just because you are unsettled due to the changes?

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Local place we do, they don't pay much at all, but have the advantage that they are happy for us to take a better gig at short notice if it comes along, and £50 each is better than nothing.

Tiny place too. Anyway, it was a night of lead testing. Setup and had to use all the extra leads to stretch across the door, didn't want to tape across the floor as the last two times we were there, we pulled the floor up (tiles, then the concrete replacement) with the duck tape!

Forgot my smooth hound transmitter, so going cable, so have to join that to the board, sound cutting in and out, one of the patch leads is broken at a certain angle, manage to get it in a working position (new one ordered today plus spare). Sound check, couldn't hear the sax. Sax wireless not plugged in. Plug it in, still no sax, then there is, then there isn't. Went to cable on the sax, still nothing, the sax microphone wiring appears to be borked. No replacement for that, so tie a spare microphone with duck tape on the bottom of the singers ipad holder, so he has to stand there. Actually pretty good sound, but variable when he gets into it.

Start playing and for some reason tons of distortion in my in ear headphones. Between songs change the channels, nope, replace the batteries, nope, move the lead around, seems to work but nope, finally start to connect my wired in ears, but not much time between songs, so it is going to take at least 3 songs to do (lucky the guitarist is so slow at tuning and needs to do it every song), during that time I am not wearing in ears, which is a pain as I am singing. I notice distortion in the PA (which I am right next to), the guitarist asks what that noise is.

Long story slightly shorter, finally find out that it is my voice live that when I sing at any sort of volume has a digital break up thing.

Need to work out what is going on with that.

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11 hours ago, Kirky said:

Is it something you can fix, Daryl? I know how much the band means to you.

I really don't think so. The band leader is a milinnial,they think so differently from an old baby boomer like me.

Plus her acoustic duo has bookings and they're doing fine.

Blue

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Saturday night's gig was cancelled at short notice, which makes me sad.

It had originally been booked in October, and on Friday we contacted them just to check in. They replied that (a) they didn't do live music any more, (b) they didn't have our contact details to tell us (which is clearly nonsense because they made the initial contact in the first place!) and (c) we never actually confirmed anyway (which is also nonsense and we have the screenshot of the conversation to prove it!)

Ah well, not worth getting too bent out of shape about it. This is just the unfortunate cost of doing business - sometimes people are eejits.

S.P.

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3 hours ago, Stylon Pilson said:

Saturday night's gig was cancelled at short notice, which makes me sad.

It had originally been booked in October, and on Friday we contacted them just to check in. They replied that (a) they didn't do live music any more, (b) they didn't have our contact details to tell us (which is clearly nonsense because they made the initial contact in the first place!) and (c) we never actually confirmed anyway (which is also nonsense and we have the screenshot of the conversation to prove it!)

Ah well, not worth getting too bent out of shape about it. This is just the unfortunate cost of doing business - sometimes people are eejits.

S.P.

Happens far to often, especially when a new owner/manager takes over a venue. 👎

Edited by steantval
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We gigged at Albert's in Nottingham Saturday night, (it used to be known as Spanky van Dyke's if you know the area) supported by an alternative music DJ. Good venue, proper stage, their Pa and lights and the crowd loved it, asking for more after our 3rd encore. Some interesting attire in the crowd too, 2 gents in their late 50's dressed entirely in black cowboy gear - think ZZ Top but with shorter beards, and a lady dressed head to toe in figure-hugging black leather! The venue is putting on a lot of live music so worth checking out 

Albert's Nottingham

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8 hours ago, Stylon Pilson said:

Saturday night's gig was cancelled at short notice, which makes me sad.

It had originally been booked in October, and on Friday we contacted them just to check in. They replied that (a) they didn't do live music any more, (b) they didn't have our contact details to tell us (which is clearly nonsense because they made the initial contact in the first place!) and (c) we never actually confirmed anyway (which is also nonsense and we have the screenshot of the conversation to prove it!)

Ah well, not worth getting too bent out of shape about it. This is just the unfortunate cost of doing business - sometimes people are eejits.

S.P.

" We Don't Do Live Music Anymore"

"Closed"

To phrases we hear a lot in my neck of the woods.

Blue

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Monday night gig - the Komedia, Brighton, opening for Finnish blues artist Erja Lyytinen - played a 45 minute set, nearly all originals - just one cover that works really well as a medley with one of our own. Band played brilliantly, amazing response from a pretty reasonable cold, wet Monday night crowd, and the three brand new songs fitted perfectly with the older material. All in all, an absolute corker of a gig! 

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Gig last Sunday afternoon 4-7 at The Swan, Woolston. Great gig and crowd who are always up for a bit of rock.

Second gig with our stand in drummer whilst the usual one is in New Zealand, and he’s doing a great job of it. Plenty of eye contact for ends and odd bits during, but he’s got 99% down.

First outing for the Zon and got some nice compliments on it and the gig as a whole - much dancing on tables, and looking forward to getting back there in June

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So as well as Monday night's experience, we were also asked to support Erja Lyytinen at the very charming Bridport Electric Palace last night. Fabulous setting, nice roomy stage, great sound engineer, and about 200 people who, unlike on Monday, where there were a good number of our friends attending, had no idea who we were.

Such a thrill getting a great response from this type of audience. It is so different playing original material to a paying audience than playing covers in a pub. I'm finding it so rewarding, and thrilled to think people actually genuinely like us!

Oh, and amazingly, one guy came to both gigs.

Big downer at the end, blooming road closure an the A31 - had to follow a diversion through Poole (oh, and had to go back to the day job today) 😕

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