Gig Reports - How did your gig go?

[Richard W]

A fun gig on Saturday night, if only because in the crowd was my 75-year-old mother in law (whom I love dearly) and her sister and brother-in-law (who are both in their late 70s)--it was the first time the latter two had ever heard me play. Joining them were a bunch of additional family--my wife, of course, but also my son and daughter, both home from college. This was the first gig my daughter has attended since my very first live public performance five years ago--in addition, she brought along five of her sorority-mates. We had a pretty good crowd beyond my family--I'd say about 150 folks at the peak.

 

My older relatives stayed for the first set--I actually handed out ear plugs to them and told them I wouldn't be offended if they used them. They simply are not used to that type of volume. Generally, our first sets are a little more mellow, so that was good. New tunes included "Valerie" (the Amy Winehouse version), the Stone's "Dead Flowers," and "Heat Wave" (a la Linda Ronstadt). Anyway, the folks loved it and I'm pretty sure they were being sincere.

 

Rest of the show went really well and we had dancers for both sets. We had one train wreck--our lead guitarist started The Beatle's "Back in the USSR" in the wrong key. We had to stop and start over again, much to the amusement of the audience, but it was all good.

 

The highlight for me was singing lead on Steely Dan's "Josie," a damn challenging song even without singing. I muffed one line of the lyric, but otherwise we killed it. A great feeling.

 

Last set was straight up dance material. Last eight songs were Doctor, Doctor (Robert Palmer), Uptight (Stevie Wonder), Little Sister (Elvis), Cool Jerk (The Capitols), Some Kind of Wonderful (Grand Funk), Road House Blues (the Doors), 10th Ave Freeze Out (Springsteen), and Hold On (Sam & Dave). We encored with Michael Jackson' The Way You Make Me Feel. Had a good 20-30 people on the dance floor the whole time.

 

One of those shows where you could have just kept on playing.

[Groove Mama]

Sounds absolutely wonderful!

[Wally Malone]

Always good when the gig goes the way you would like!

 

Wally

[Ross Brown]

COOL!!!!!!!!

[EddiePlaysBass]

We were booked to open for a very popular local cover band, called Juicy Lucy. This was their last ever gig - after 25 or so years they have decided to call it quits. Our sound guy ran sound for them for about 18 years, hence our opening slot.

 

We arrived, watched the last few minutes of the main band's sound check and sound checked ourselves. It went a bit randomly, we need more structure there. We had 30 minutes and used them - which in retrospect is a good thing.

 

About 10 minutes before we were supposed to go on stage, someone from the organization comes and asks if we would mind starting 15 minutes later, thereby cutting our set short by about a quarter. Yes, we would mind ... His excuse was that the sound guys were grabbing a bite to eat at 8 PM, which is when were were told to start. Anyway, around 8 PM those same sound guys showed up so we asked them if we could get started.

 

We opened quite energetically with "I'm So Excited", which was the only "new" song in our set tonight. Featuring one of the lead guitarists on keyboards (alongside our keyboard player), this meant I had a bit more stage to myself for this song. And I used it The first couple of tracks went quite well, mostly up tempo stuff. We had the audience's attention a few times, and given that they had decidedly NOT come for us, but rather for the other band, I was glad to notice this

 

There were some mistakes and some speeding up here and there, but on the whole this was probably the best gig I have played with this band so far. This was also the first gig where absolutely NO music stands graced the stage. And it showed: there was a lot more interaction between the band members, a lot more dancing on stage and a lot more interaction with / directing attention to the crowd.

 

My main (and only) real measure for a successful gig has always been when at least ONE person whom I do not know at all, comes up to me and tells me I played really well. As I stood watching the main band, a really tall Dutch guy put his hand on my shoulder and said, with a smile from ear to ear: "Well played, man!" I thanked him and gave him a business card :grin:

 

Currently listening to the soundboard recordings - yes, I plugged in my trusty old Zoom into the sound board Sounds like a well-balanced mix!

 

 

[Groove Mama]

You sound pretty happy about this, Eddie. Are you SURE you want to join a different band?

[EddiePlaysBass]

You sound pretty happy about this, Eddie. Are you SURE you want to join a different band?

 

Nancy, if there's one thing I am sure of, it's that I'm never sure of anything!

[Richard W]

A different sort of gig yesterday. Rather than the full band, it was just four of us: me, the guitarist, the keyboard player, and our female vocalist. We got hired to provide music for a family luncheon. The first set was just half an hour, and we played outside in a gazebo. Set up was pretty easy, with so much less gear (as we were missing the second guitarist and our drummer).

 

Downsides of outside playing: the guitarist got stung by a bee while we were playing Sitting on the Dock of the Bay. The thing flew into his head and then fell down the back of his shirt. He started flapping his arms and stood up. The rest of us kept playing, but it was pretty comical.

 

We then had to break down everything and set it up again inside for the actual luncheon. We were in a small room and almost on top of the 30 or so guests. As a result, we played at a very low volume. That actually turned out pretty well--we could hear one another clearly and really nailed the vocals and harmonies.

 

We'd like to do more of these "unplugged" type of shows.

[Eric VB]

Yeah, Richard, those unplugged shows are a nice change of pace. Glad you liked it!

 

Last gig for me was outdoors, on the lake. We heard there was going to be 300+ people!

 

Turns out Mother Nature had different plans for Father's Day Saturday.

 

A lot of people didn't show due to the upcoming holiday.

 

More were daunted by a chilly night.

 

Then, about halfway through the night the fishflies descended. That cleared out everyone except the diehards.

[Richard W]

Our female vocalist is also afraid of spiders, so it didn't help that the gazebo was covered with them.

[lug]

New band's very first gig at the Houston Reddit annual meet-up. No one lost their supper and no one passed out. I concluded from this that the bass amp wasn't loud enough.

[Danzilla]

We were scheduled to play on Friday at a 3 day festival, "Hope for the City" in Gettysburg, PA. We were notified late Thursday night that the Thursday portion had been rained out, and more rain was expected for Friday. We got rained out, too, but they offered us a shortened slot on Saturday afternoon. Thank God it was sunny, but the field was still swampy in spite of them putting down a lot of hay. Big stage, good PA, friendly stage crew and sound man. With barely a 2 minute sound check, we did our set, and got a good response form the people who were there (it was early in the day, and most people were expected later on). Watching the video of it, the bass tone was great - full and fat with just enough top bite. Makes me wish I was playing bass instead of guitar. House bass amp was a Peavey; our bassist was using an Ibanez SRX650.

 

They had golf carts to help us get our gear back to the parking lot afterwards. Oh well - we can't all get limos.

 

Best part was having a lady come up to me afterwards and compliment us. She was staying in a hotel across the street, heard music and came over. She really liked what we do. 1 fan down, 4,999,999 more to go.

[Ross Brown]

Great! I didn't make it over..... glad you got to play.

[Eric VB]

Nice report, Dan!

 

Since it's festival season I did a couple of those, too, last Saturday.

 

The first was in Saline. They had two nice big stages side-by-side to allow quick switchover between acts. Somehow we got two morning slots, one hour each, with an hour break in between. I used the DI out on my head to feed the FOH and kept the volume to my 4x10 low; just loud enough for stage volume but not loud enough to roll off stage and frustrate the sound guy. I got south side of stage so I was in sunshine the whole time despite the cover. Good response from everyone I talked to; I think they'll give us an evening slot next year.

 

From there we went to Grosse Pointe Park. It was about a 50 mile drive but of course there was construction on the freeway so it took longer than it should have. This time it was one of those mobile metal stages in the middle of a street they had closed off. Regular 4 hour show with breaks. We had to bring our own PA to this show and we didn't have a sub so I just cranked the 4x10. No problem. We did a quick sound check but later we had to turn up keys and guitar; at least my "little" rig held up. (I have a second 4x10 cab.) This time I think we were facing west, directly into the setting sun. Hot! Again, good response, and this time we had a decent crowd and a private gig offer. One of the shop owners near the stage went so far as to say we were the best band that event ever had.

 

We were completely soaked from sweating all day. I (again) forgot to bring a towel so I had to wash my hands between sets. That wasn't enough to stop my strings from gumming up. Next time I'll bring a towel and some wipes!

 

I logged over 120 miles in the car. I arrived back home some 13+ hours after I left that morning. Long day! Ate something and went to bed. Next day my feet hurt from all the pogo jumping, but otherwise no worse for wear.

[EddiePlaysBass]

Marigold was booked for a "biker's meeting" today, which is held annually. Our band leader had played there with a different band a few years back, and said there'd be a decent mixing board / PA and attendance would be between 80 and 100 people. Sounds good, I guess!

 

First, there was the usual day job to be fulfilled (something's gotta pay the bills, right?) and I had actually calculated that I could take a 30/60 minute nap in the car after work. I tried that for about 4 minutes and then decided I'd arrive early at the gig instead. After all, if you're on time, you're late, right? In retrospect, this saved me a lot of time.

 

As I was driving to the venue, the scenery started to become more and more ... rural. Well, plain flat, really. All green, no movement whatsoever. I got an eerie feeling, wondering if I would end up discovering a whole forgotten civilization. Maybe I'd even find the last living dinosaurs, like in the movies I saw as a kid! At a certain point, I was very deep in uncharted territory, when a car came from the opposite direction. Turned out to be the band leader and keyboard player, followed by the sound man Like me, they'd gone in the wrong direction!

 

I turned around and followed them, and we arrived in what I can best describe as a farm house with a big field. Two campers parked and a very, very small tent awaiting us. Inside, the "stage" (some shabby wooden pallets stacked next to each other) turned out to be set up in an L-shape in a corner of the tent. The keyboards took up about a 3rd of the available space, and due to the placement of the drums, an additional 3rd went there As a result, the guitarist and I had some personal time to get to know one another a little better Hey, at least my Barefaced cab would finally get a workout - I was not to go through the DI, there was simply no use.

 

We were scheduled to play 3 one-hour sets, and our sets are set up so that the 1st is rather easy listening, the 2nd gets a bit more action and the 3rd has most of the "good" songs. The disadvantage of this, in my opinion, is that you really need 4 sets because the crowd will only have warmed to you by the end of the 3rd set. And indeed, by the end of the first set, it kind of felt like we were at rehearsal and there happened to be people in the room who really could not be arsed. "Marigold was playing, and not a frak was given that night." This attitude would kinda remain throughout all three sets - more on that in a moment.

 

There were a good few near-train wreck moments. If you get a mail asking to change the order of songs, and no further info is given, you kinda expect this to be the new order. Well, no. I was ready to play "Jolene" but instead we went into "This Is The Life". Ironically both start in C sharp but I managed to flub the intro anyway. Not my only train wreck moment, I have to admit because all through the three sets everyone seemed eager to change arrangements on the fly - including yours truly Some bridges were skipped, some choruses repeated (or dropped), we never seemed to agree on a note to END a song on and you would not believe how badly we butchered "Summer Of 69" ... and so on. Then again, the crowd hardly paid any attention so whatever, right?

 

In truth, this band needs rehearsals and preparation, and instead our BL decided to focus on replacing a singer instead, which meant that the little time we actually had to focus on this gig went to auditions instead. And it showed tonight. I won't lie: I really did not look forward to this gig. Having quit a while back, my mind has been on other things. I've hardly touched by bass in weeks and I was underprepared - I tried to play most of the 40 songs we played tonight by heart and it sometimes worked against me.

 

Add to the above the sheer lack of response of the crowd, and you can imagine how bad I could have felt all night. Instead I chose to enjoy it for what it was, and put on my biggest smile all through the night. At one point it turned out one of the keyboards, which is only used for 1 single song (by the BL no less) yet took up a good part of the stage was not plugged in, the drummer started a beat and I got a bit funky in Gm. It didn't work all the way through but the other guitarist chimed in an at least it filled the dead air!

 

At the end of the third set, the 20 or so people actually in the tent started yelling for encores! So we played a song, and they wanted another one. So we played "Knocking On Heaven's Door" and towards the end one of the singers said: "Anyone feel like singing along?" and up steps this 14-year old kid, who starts belting out the chorus! Not good, but definitely not bad either We hadn't planned on MORE encores but they wanted another one, so we repeated "Sex On Fire" but with local Dutch lyrics which translate into "I Wanna Have Sex With That Bald Guy". The singers demanded that someone in the audience come sing the Dutch baldy chorus and our 14-year old friend stepped up to the mike again :grin:

 

To recap: we arrived a good few hours early, but this can often be the coziest part of a gig so I did not mind. The big ass mixing console had been sold 5 years ago and only 30 or so people showed up. Best part was when the BL cussed cos he wanted to pay our sub singer that evening. I asked what the issue was, and it turned out there is no ATM machine in the entire town :grin: The whole scene had a "Bob's Country Bunker" feel as it was, and that just added to it immensely :grin:

 

One down, two to go!

[Richard W]

Instead I chose to enjoy it for what it was, and put on my biggest smile all through the night.

 

and this is 90% of success in performing, I think.

[EddiePlaysBass]

Instead I chose to enjoy it for what it was, and put on my biggest smile all through the night.

 

and this is 90% of success in performing, I think.

 

I learned that during our previous gig, back in May. I was contemplating quitting there and then, after the gig, and figured I'd at least put up a smiley face and pretend to enjoy myself. Lo and behold, I enjoyed myself a lot more than I thought!

 

As for last night, it wasn't all bad, really. All through the three sets, a guy kept offering everyone shots of liquor. I kept declining cos there's not a lot of songs where I can spare a hand (with the rockabilly band I did do this for a while, as I could play all open strings so I'd be casually drinking a beer during that particular song ) but the singers kept accepting his offer - them womens can hold their liquor!!

 

Before we started playing "Black Magic Woman" one of the singers asked if anybody cared to dance, and off she went getting spun around the room while giving vocal queues to the sub singer we'd hired for the night That by itself was pretty hilarious And hey, they DID ask for encores after we announced the last song. But then again, they asked for encores after the first song of the first set, too

[EddiePlaysBass]

A video popped up - not sure if the bass is all that audible (I have better audio recordings):

 

Marigold - Bad Moon Rising

[SteveC]

Well, my only gig is church. We only had the "core" of the band there yesterday - drums, keys, bass and WL/vox/piano but I thought it sounded pretty good for a 4 piece. Guitars bailed (typical) and the girls were unavailable to sing.

 

I haven't posted many examples of my playing so I thought I'd toss this up for review, scrutiny, whatever. It's a board mix so the vocals are pretty dry, but it's something. Bass is a Roscoe 5 to a Radial JDI to the FOH.

 

The entire service is on here, but the high points are the tunes so you can skip around.

 

[slowfinger]

Hey David - that 'tube sounds pretty good! The band itself is tight, the singers sound good ... what's not to like about it? Like you said above "enjoy it for what it was/is".

[EddiePlaysBass]

Thanks slowfinger! We always have a blast playing that one I don't dislike the band, I dislike how it's being run and how the potential which is there (both in the musicians and the concept of the band) is simply not being tapped into. But I think that has been well-documented

 

[edit]

A good example of how it's being run: one of the next gigs has a "prom night" theme. So the band leader wants to play ... an Elvis medley. Now I love Elvis, I could listen to his music every day for the rest of my life and not get bored. But here's what we should be playing for a "prom night" theme:

 

- Earth Angel (Back To The Future prom night)

- Johnny B Goode (Back To The Future prom night)

- Footloose (Footloose closing scene)

- Ballroom Blitz (people know the Wayne's World version)

- a Grease Medley

- Time After Time (Cindy Lauper)

- Get Lucky (Daft Punk)

- Blurred Lines (Robyn Thicke)

- Happy (Pharrell Williams)

- anything by Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Black Eyed Peas, Ke$ha, Avicii and whatever else is currently in the charts ...

[/edit]

 

Ironically, the BL got a mail from the organisation say

ing they had a blast, totally loved us and if the band is available next year they're welcome to come play again. I wonder if I'll get a call to sub on bass come September 2015 :grin:

[Danzilla]

I was hoping to be able to post on here next weekend, about a return to gigging on bass. My band's bass player travels a lot, and we've had a guy subbing for him. The sub told as at the last gig that he could no longer sub as he has other commitments coming up. Our regular guy was supposed to be at the gig this Friday, but told us that he's really tight in between business trips and would prefer if a sub could do the gig. Seeing as our sub just bowed out, we decided I would play bass for this gig.

 

Well, between our drummer not being able to make it (though we do have a sub for HIM), losing our practice space (w story for another day) and our singer getting horribly sick and not feeling she'll be ready to sing by Friday, she cancelled the gig and got another band to cover for us.

 

Oh well. One day I'll get back to bassin'.

[Phil W]

Been having some great gigs recently - an African wedding, a jazz trio gig with a guest appearance from my Balkan band but the cake was taken on Saturday.

It was a wedding reception - covers for dancing - maybe not the most high profile gig but the band just locked and rocked.

I played a borrowed Fender Precision with rounds and a pick where necessary - I've been really getting into pick playing on the precision - that sound!

The bride and groom were orchestral musicians so were many of the guests so they got down from the start. The funkier tunes: Happy, Blame it on the Boogie, Superstition really grooved but it was also the straight eighths rockier stuff that really flew - funny how I am only really discovering the joys of pick playing after 30 years of bass.

Am using some custom wooden picks too, great tone.

[Eric VB]

Tomorrow will be my 5th gig in 8 days.

 

That may be old hat for you full-timers but for someone with a day job this is both exciting new territory and exhausting work.

 

Tuesdays are "T&A" nights at a biker bar. (The wait staff wears lingerie.) For some reason they get a lot of out-of-towners there; one night one of them dropped a C-note tip on the band! The regulars complained that we hadn't added any new material lately, so hopefully we'll have something new for them tomorrow. Classic rock/Top 40 4-piece with female singer/keyboardist and female drummer.

 

Friday was a small, low-volume bar. This was my second time playing there with a classic rock/Top 40 trio. We're establishing a good rapport with the manager and the regulars. They danced (on the carpeted floor no less) and bought us two rounds of shots (Fireball), so I think we're on to something here! Only downside was one of the dancers spilled a drink on my nearly brand new OneSpot; no damage but now it'll always smell like beer.

 

Saturday was the 90s-today alt rock 4-piece. We played a bar where, as one customer put it, they draw "an eclectic crowd". So the song list is a good fit there; one guy was hooked after we opened with "Brian Wilson" (BNL) because "nobody plays that song". Had some technical difficulties. One guitarist broke a string in the middle of a set and the other was helping him replace it so I grabbed the other guitar and did a solo number to fill time. We also had a round of shots (whiskey) bought for us. On the last break someone wanted to touch my hair (not the first time that's happened -- I spike it straight up) and we talked about hair products. lol!

 

Sunday was the classic rock/Top 40 4-piece again but with a fill-in drummer. We played an afternoon event outdoors at a Harley-Davidson dealership. They rented one of those mobile fold-out metal stages from the county parks & rec. That was good because it rained a lot and the stage kept us dry. (Customers were under a tent.) Not a lot of people but management liked us and asked us to come back next Sunday. They had food and drinks: BBQ pork ("hog"), beans and slaw.

[EddiePlaysBass]

They danced (on the carpeted floor no less) and bought us two rounds of shots (Fireball), so I think we're on to something here!

 

You should play Deep Purple's "Fireball" (the song, not the entire album). Hey, it even has a bass solo! Someone'll have to take the keyboard solo, though (which kicks all kinds of A)

[jcadmus]

I played a short set with a band called Psycho Merchants at my friend Rick's guitar store grand opening on Sunday. Rick is the guitarist in the band. Their regular guy had another gig, so we did a quick rehearsal Thursday night and then played Sunday afternoon at the store.

 

You can hear their record here:

 

We did the cuts Stop Pushin', Even More and Thank You.

 

First song was a bit challenging because of all the stops and starts, the others I picked up pretty quickly. The place was packed and the crowd seemed to like it.

[jeremy c]

Last Saturday night was another gig in the Castle. Someone with way too much money built a replica of a 12th century castle in Calistoga, California.

 

For this particular party, all the stops were pulled out. Hundreds of guests came from all over the world. All the wait staff dressed in period clothing. Knights in armor on horseback greeted the guests in the courtyard. Another band was flown in from Las Vegas to do a show after dinner. This was a tribute band to the "Million Dollar Quartet" with songs by Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. They were quite good.

 

Then it was our turn. We were in the next room where dessert was served. We played for about 75 minutes and the people danced the whole time. The desserts were unreal and there were amazing amounts of them. After the guests left, one of the wait staff said, "we're going to throw out everything that doesn't get eaten and the staff and band descended on the dessert buffet like hungry vultures.

 

I could get used to this.

[Eric VB]

Last Saturday night was another gig in the Castle. Someone with way too much money built a replica of a 12th century castle in Calistoga, California.

I visited that winery as a tourist. It's amazing to what lengths the owner went to build an "authentic" medieval European castle in Napa; almost one million antique bricks were shipped from overseas.

 

We enjoyed our tour. We enjoyed the wine. We stayed nearly all day.

 

I imagine a gig there with free desserts afterwards would be heavenly. Nice one, Jeremy!

[Russkull]

Well, my only gig is church. We only had the "core" of the band there yesterday - drums, keys, bass and WL/vox/piano but I thought it sounded pretty good for a 4 piece. Guitars bailed (typical) and the girls were unavailable to sing.

 

I haven't posted many examples of my playing so I thought I'd toss this up for review, scrutiny, whatever. It's a board mix so the vocals are pretty dry, but it's something. Bass is a Roscoe 5 to a Radial JDI to the FOH.

Enjoyed this Steve, thanks for posting. Nice tone and playing, especially the little walkdowns on Your Grace is Enough.

 

When our lead guitarist is out, it always seems empty and I feel like I (and the drummer) wind up playing too busy to fill up the space. Doesn't sound like you needed to do that - you're right that it seemed pretty full. I guess having both piano and keys helps.

 

BTW I hadn't heard All Things New before, I sent that one to our WL. So, thanks!

[Richard W]

Played a short set as part of a benefit to raise money for brain cancer research. The show was in memory of a local musician (who I never met, but who was a former band mate of one of my current band mates). This was the "lite" version of the band--drummer and other guitarist did not play, so it was just me on bass, lead guitarist, keyboards, and or very talented young woman vocalist.

 

I find it intimidating to play a gig at which a large part of the audience is other musicians. My first thought whenever I'm in the room with other bands is to assume I'm probably the weakest bassist in the bunch. Turns out I was actually the first bass player to take the stage. We were preceded by a couple of singers just playing guitar, and then a small band with just two guitars and a mandolin.

 

We held our own pretty well, compared to what came before and what came after, so that was a great feeling to see that the band is "competitive," so to speak.

 

Here was the set list: Blue Bayou (Linda Ronstadt version), Woman Be Wise (Bonnie Raitt version), Lyin' Eyes (Eagles), Harvest Moon (Neil Young), and You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (the Dylan tune, as done by Miley Cyrus).

 

I never thought I'd say I was a fan of Miley Cyrus, but her version of Lonesome is really very good. I sang the low harmony.

 

A fun gig, made all the better by the fact that we were not involved in either the set up or break down. Always a plus when all you have to do is show up with your instrument.