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How was your gig last night?


bassninja

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Pretty good, sat on the volume and videoed it... once we review that, I expect to be able to get something out of it.

Currently reviewing how we use the keys re monitoring and FOH. Our live sound is always supposed to be good, so this might be nickpicking...but then that is what we do.
Never happy but at least we go down well, IMO. We do think we need a couple of more popular..but not cliched, new numbers to take into account a new audience on the night.

Depending on the audience make-up, we can afford to be a bit more adventurous with our choice of numbers but this is not something you can predict until you see and get a feel for them at the gig,

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You know how you're watching 'you've been framed'and from a combination of the situation in front of you and the fact that you know disaster is about to strike you can tell what's about to happen. You sit there screaming 'dickhead' at the screen because said disaster happening is so obvious.

So........... just before gig time last ightour guitar player asked me to see if I could fix his drooping mic stand clip - so I went and got a screwdriver , which amounted to a screwdriver attatchment on a very sharp penknife...................

can you see where this is going yet???!!!!!!

If you could mark on the pad of your left hand little finger the exact place where you actually finger the string - that's the bit that was pissing blood for 2 hrs. Bloody painful , I can tell you.

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Update -

We had another gig yesterday too - it was sore as hell so I did the only thing I could think to do and superglued the wound shut. Worked in Vietnam - worked in 'The Tank' , South Elmsall too !!

Mind you , it looks a bugger today - like I've got some dreadful flaky skin complaint.

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Not bad Saturday. Big boomy hall on a high stage, which the Gramma Pad handled, but I really couldn't hear the bass most of the evening.

Good crowd well up for some prog. Good reaction and possibly a gig or two out of it.

Loaded the car & drove home whereupon I realised I had left my clothes bag, mic stand, digital recorder & mobile at the gig. So a journey back up to Horsham Sunday to collect from the guitarist.

Just listened to the recordings. Good crowd reaction, but the sound is all a bit boomy to me....and I still can't really hear the bass :)

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Nice gig at Eastbourne TUC club - small room, low ceiling but balance was great, punters dancing from second song to the end, forgot my crib sheets (only been with this band a short while) but somehow got away with the few bits that went awry! All in all a good night - shame I need to be up in 6 hours time and don't feel the least bit tired!

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A good night at the Swan, Woolston. Started a little quiet, but they were well up for ir by the end.

Couple of start/stops to ba laughed off. Started Fire & Steve had not a clue what the first line was, and there's only so long you can go round the verse mouthing the words before we had to stop, joke & go again. DOH!

Still need to find the right place for Maniac in the set. Goes well but as a closer ends to end with a slightly stunned crowd. Still dragged out the old favourites and ended on a high.........which was nice :)

Edited by WalMan
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Odd one on Saturday. A blues night, with dinner, at a sports club bar… all went quite well, and not our usual kind of do at all.

Anyway, we'd been told there'd be no grub, not without paying for it, but we arrive to be told by the promoter that there was a Thai chicken curry going and we were welcome to some of that, so we set up and soundchecked and then settled down with a curry to while away the 90 mins till gig time.

Seriously lovely curry it was too, so when we nipped out for a ciggie afterwards and the chef came out for one at the same time, we all complimented him. The chef turns to us, snarling, and goes "I've been here since 6am slaving my f-ing fingers to the bone and you lot all waltz in and get 50 quid, well it makes me f-ing sick," and storms off shouting around the corner.

There was this very long silence while we all looked at each other until the keyboard player shrugged and said "Well... learn to play piano. Kitchen monkey."

Later we were told that the chef had been through booze and coke problems and is known for being the grumpiest man in town.

The only thing that worried us was what he might have done to our curries...

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Played a new venue on friday night, had a vast stage area and acres of space to move around in which was ace.
A younger crowd, so packed the set with oasis, feeder etc to keep them sweet. It paid off, they were up dancing away and the whole night went really well.
No cock ups which was a relief and the feedback from the punters was good. All in all, a cracking night.

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Rubbish gig. The first thing the landlord said is that "you have to keep the noise down." We then setup in a tiny space in the darkest part of the pub. We dutifully kept it quiet and the punters talked over us. After the first set the DJ put his sounds on about 3 times louder than us? Landlord then came over and reminded us to keep the noise down. We did and after the second set the landlord came up and said "brilliant - could hardly hear the bass and drums????" What a cnut - if the money wasn't so good i would have sh*t on the bar.

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We played the Hootananny in Brixton, a massive pub that stages regular live music and has a proper stage and sound engineer. Various Balkan/gypsy type acts before us and of course Princess Knickers, who acted out stripping tableaux to a couple of songs, including "(I may not be a lady but I'm) all woman" by Lisa Stansfield! Sharing the dressing room with her was an interesting experience, I had to study the ceiling closely at points :) Anyways, we came on about 12.30am and played an hour to a big (don't know how many but several hundred at least) crowd and got an encore. I used the double bass and struggled a bit with feedback on the boomy stage (which meant I had to have quite low on-stage volume) but I suspect more experienced players than me would have had the same problem. Apparently it sounded good in front of stage though so all good :)

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Nice one Clarky! well done mate! I have the same problem with the dressing room at our regular Burlesque club gig - half a dozen girls in corsets - it's awful! :)

As for feedback - I've tried everything piezo wise, muting the strings, phase shifting, praying and swearing - unfortunately you have to use a mag pickup in small/medium halls at big volume - the schaller is loud but sounds rubbish and rattles - Kent Armstrong is pretty good; I've just got a Moses Graphite to try which will be interesting and have my eye on their new one....you can borrow one and try if you like if we can find a gap where gigs don't clash

Anyroad up well done mate!

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Did a charity gig last night for a laydees function.
Packed the set full of girlie favs, Blondie, Pink etc etc.
Went down really well with the dance floor jammed most of the night and several people asking for cards and phone numbers, for the band that is, not personal numbers alas!

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[quote name='bob_pickard' post='1194264' date='Apr 10 2011, 07:28 AM']Nice one Clarky! well done mate! I have the same problem with the dressing room at our regular Burlesque club gig - half a dozen girls in corsets - it's awful! :)

As for feedback - I've tried everything piezo wise, muting the strings, phase shifting, praying and swearing - unfortunately you have to use a mag pickup in small/medium halls at big volume - the schaller is loud but sounds rubbish and rattles - Kent Armstrong is pretty good; I've just got a Moses Graphite to try which will be interesting and have my eye on their new one....you can borrow one and try if you like if we can find a gap where gigs don't clash

Anyroad up well done mate![/quote]
Thanks mate - I really have to solve the volume/feedback problem as our band plays quite loudly and, with 13 of us last night (plus two clowns), I have to stand tight to a fairly noisy drummer. I used an Auralex Gramma pad for my extension cab and put the AI Coda at head level behind me on a solid old Trace bass amp (not switched on!) and still could barely hear myself at the levels that didn't produce feedback. My strings are Silver Slaps so I would need to move to metal strings if I went for a mag pickup - mind you I also have a set of Presto Ultralights (on my Eminence now) which I think contain metal, so can be used with a mag p/up.

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We played a punk aall-dayer in Leeds yesterday, our set went well, great sound and well received so we enjoyed ourselves, they had some fantastic bands on the bill, some rockabilly, Irish folk, punk, oi, ska, surprising amount of diversity in the line up and some really great live performances. Hope they have us back for the next one. :)

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Played a 50th birthday party last night in Frimley. We were booked by the Birthday Boy's wife who had seen us play last year and it was a great crowd.

We played from 9 until gone 1am with a 30 minute break so it was pretty tiring and my hands and throat are sore today. The load in/out was horrid too as the carpark was about 200 yard from the hall.

Sadly too we had to busk a version of Mustang Sally as it was requested several times. It made me feel dirty.

I'm off to get a shower now....

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Strange one last night! Played a new club (for us) in High Wycombe. When we got there, they had a sign up saying "sorry no live music tonight due to band illness!!" :) We spoke to the promoter who showed us a text message he had recieved from someone alledging they were from our band saying we had to cancel as one of of us is ill! :)
No body has any idea who sent it!!
On another note, I struggled with the sound of the Ray, as the G string was inaudible! :lol: no amount of EQ twiddling could sort it out.

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[quote name='Hobbayne' post='1194577' date='Apr 10 2011, 01:40 PM']Strange one last night! Played a new club (for us) in High Wycombe. When we got there, they had a sign up saying "sorry no live music tonight due to band illness!!" :) We spoke to the promoter who showed us a text message he had recieved from someone alledging they were from our band saying we had to cancel as one of of us is ill! :)
No body has any idea who sent it!!
On another note, I struggled with the sound of the Ray, as the G string was inaudible! :lol: no amount of EQ twiddling could sort it out.[/quote]

hmmmm..sounds dodgy. Who would cancel by text anyway...??

not sure I would want to be notified of such a thing like that.

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We played one of our usual pub venues, but for the first time at this place we had a support act.
To give them lots of support we sat in the audience for their set. The front-of-house sound was good. Our soundman does a quality job. It's his PA, he's an ex-BBC radio sound engineer, and takes his role seriously.
When we went on it was a sudden shock to be hearing ourselves through the fold-back and standing close to our backline.
Very disconcerting at first after being treated to a nice warm front-of-house sound for 45 mins.
An interesting experience.

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[quote name='JTUK' post='1194656' date='Apr 10 2011, 02:53 PM']hmmmm..sounds dodgy. Who would cancel by text anyway...??

not sure I would want to be notified of such a thing like that.[/quote]


We suspect (although have no proof) that it was our former guitarist who was fired last year!!

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[quote name='Hobbayne' post='1194826' date='Apr 10 2011, 05:51 PM']We suspect (although have no proof) that it was our former guitarist who was fired last year!![/quote]

Thought it might be something like that..
If you can be bothered, call that number sometime down the line just to say hullo..and then you'll know.

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Okay, cheating somewhat because it was tonight's gig rather than last night's......

But, AWESOME!!! First gig for six months. New drummer, new material, loads of energy, plus two other great bands on the bill too. First band on (Vice Like Grip) were fantastic, pop-punk, played great, sang great and real gents too (happy for anyone else to borrow their kit). Next band (Three Sided Square), lovely guys again, very young but loads of confidence (but no arrogance), hampered by an unreliable guitar amp but still won the audience over with lots of banter between songs. Us? Well we did what we do well... Three middle aged men acting out a mid-life crisis, and a much younger drummer, playing our own take on ska, punk and alt-rock, but we had lot of fun and the audience seemed to too, plus my youngest was there too for the first time :)

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Well that was a good one! Terminus in Hailsham (again) this time there were a good few bodies in to start with and we had people come in because they heard us!! A few iffy moments (a couple from me, some from the keys and a couple from the singer) but the energy and vibe was the best yet! Positive feedback from some of th epunters including liking us not being a traditional "covers" band - yes, we do covers - Dylan to Ronnie Lane but play them our way.

Usual post gig problem, now not tired but got to be up by 7.30 :)

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Tonight's gig was at a hotel that we play often but they had us on the stage which meant that everything was booming. Sound was terrible.

There were a lot of pissed people who wanted me to die as they kept trying to put their drinks on the stage about an inch from my pedal board. Some drunk people trying to get on the stage and I managed to resist kicking one of them in the chest although the temptation was there.

Last weekend's gig was much better. Masonic do so it was raised trouser legs and 'how old's your granny'. They loved us and want to book us again. I'm not surprised as we did it for about half what we normally charge just to get us in the door so to speak. There were a couple of high up ones from other thingies there as well.

Had to resist the temptation to do any Grandmaster Flash or that Village People classic 'in the masons'

In the wedding band we have to do a fair amount of sh*te but tonight we actually got asked to learn songs that I like. The usual ones are songs that the guitarist and singer already know so it was disapointing when they couldn't be arsed to learn them properly.

AC/DC - Whole Lotta Rosie, You Shook me All Night Long. Stereophonics - Dakota. Killers - Mr Brightside

Edited by Delberthot
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[quote name='Old Horse Murphy' post='1160550' date='Mar 13 2011, 04:08 PM']Long-standing regular gig last night in Wimbledon.

The ne Drummer offered to help take the PA so popped round mine first. I told him it was in the garage and he loaded the monitors and mixing desk in his car.

90 minutes later we arrive and set up. unfortunately the Drummer has brought my camping table rather than the mixer!

Martin the landlord is unflappable and phones a mate who arrives with a spare desk in less than 5 minutes.

The gig went really well and the Drummer is now referred to as Baden Powell[/quote]

I was pissing myself laughing when I read this.

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First night at a new pub and we were doing fine until a chav 18th birthday party chased everyone away..or at least that is what we are thinking atm.
The landlord had a stand-off with them at closing time and the girls were throwing up outside so, I am inclined to think it was a one-off
and they were not local for that place otherwise we will not be going back there.

Still a post mortem on our account though as we played well, but we need to access why it cleared after haff-time, comparitively.
We had some very pleasing comments from the few that stayed, at the end... I am thinking it wasn't down to us..he says, hopefully :) :)

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