Played first gig in over a decade without IEMs, through a powered speaker.

[eric]

One of my bands is a tribute to The Clash called Clampdown. It's a loud band. We don't play all that often, maybe quarterly and usually a lineup with other similar tribute bands.

 

This past weekend we had a pool party gig at a pretty hip local club that has local bands every weekend to increase their hipness factor (LOL). Last year when we did this gig, there was a full PA and I was able to use my normal IEM rig. This year, the band members started texting a few hours before our load in time indicating that there had been another band earlier and we were going to use their simple "speakers on poles" PA just for vocals, and otherwise depend on stage amps for monitoring and stage volume for the instruments. Hmm. I asked if I could still patch in and get an IEM feed and the PA was too simple to support this.

 

I've been an exclusive IEM user for well over a decade (dating back to 2011) and this was a new thing for me...I do have a couple of different options for keyboard amps, powered monitors, etc. However, none of them were readily accessible for me to grab for this gig. Except for a single Mackie SRM450 that probably hasn't even been plugged in for ten years. I grabbed that speaker, put it in the front seat of my gear mobile and made it work for the gig.

 

Luckily we were only doing a couple of 45 minute sets. It was loud. It worked out ok. I wouldn't want to do this often, maybe once every 10 years. The band is so loud and punk rock and most of my sounds are organ/piano with a few synths and special effects. Monitoring through a single mono speaker was just ok. The guitar players were using Marshall stacks and luckily the bass player didn't bring his Ampeg SVT 8x10. I am thankful that I'm able to use IEMs 99% of the time! 

 

P.S. The Clash is a great band and I would never have imagined playing keyboards in a Clash tribute.

 

 

[Stokely]

I recently did the same.  I'd had a few others where I had to use wedges (sound company provided and they were outdoors) but I brought out a powered speaker with our PA.  I simply ran the line out from my Behringer P16m headphone monitor mixer, so my normal IEM mix was feeding the speaker, though in mono.

As you say, keyboards in mono through a speaker (same keyboard in fact!) is only "ok".   I loved singing through it though.  While the detail wasn't quite as high as with IEMs, I didn't push as much and it was a more pleasing sound (which is no surprise when comparing an open air speaker to canned phones.)

The big difference from your gig is that my gig was quiet.  The only sound on stage was acoustic drums and my speaker    Bass actually uses a powered speaker as amp sometimes, but thankfully the days of guitar amps are long gone (our guy uses a fractal, latest model, sounds amazing.)  The drums were far enough away, and it was outdoors so no reflections, that they weren't taking my head off.  He was on a riser too so the cymbals weren't at my head level, that helped.   If I'm indoors and within 10 feet of the kit, it's a no-go--I wear IEMs for protection above all else.  I dearly wish he could afford an electronic kit.

I must say I *really* like the cable bundling you are doing there out the back of the NS3!  I tuck cables against the leg of my stand but that is next level there, looks super clean and neat.   I'd definitely have used my "gig rug" there though--I bring a 4x6 cool-looking persian rug in my car to every gig, and bring it in if the stage is not carpeted.

[nursers]

Great post eric - would be interested in you exploring what you play during the set i.e. what sounds / songs etc? You're right, The Clash are brilliant.

[NewImprov]

48 minutes ago, Dr Nursers said:

Great post eric - would be interested in you exploring what you play during the set i.e. what sounds / songs etc? You're right, The Clash are brilliant.

I went down a Clash live video a few years ago, and noticed that a lot of their early live footage had a Hammond player onstage, for instance check this out:

If you listen carefully, you can hear the organ in the mix. Great, great band, nonetheless.

[eric]

15 hours ago, Dr Nursers said:

Great post eric - would be interested in you exploring what you play during the set i.e. what sounds / songs etc? You're right, The Clash are brilliant.

 

Thanks! Sure thing - I do a number of different things in our Clash tribute. In general, when in doubt, a grinding rock Hammond works well (as evidenced in the London Calling video above). I play some kind of organ in most of the songs, though there are more actual keyboard tracks than one might imagine. For example, Rock the Casbah has a pretty iconic honky tonk piano part that's up in the mix, along with some sound FX (bombs dropping). The song Bankrobber has a lot of breathy male vocal pads and some cool TB303 acid-type bass, along with a mono synth part. I do some Moogish bass drones on a few tunes and take some Hammond solos whenever asked. A few other songs have sound FX like breaking glass and so forth. I'll try to cover anything special like that as well.

 

14 hours ago, NewImprov said:

I went down a Clash live video a few years ago, and noticed that a lot of their early live footage had a Hammond player onstage, for instance check this out:

If you listen carefully, you can hear the organ in the mix. Great, great band, nonetheless.

 

Great video! Thank you for sharing it! I hadn't seen that one.

[eric]

Here's the set list for the Clash tribute band, I think this is about 90% of the songs that we play.

 

 

[vonnor]

I still want those shoes, @eric.

 

[vonnor]

I played my last two gigs without ear bugs - fighting eczema in my left ear atm. I just used a little QSC CP8 and really loved how it all sounded on stage. Plus folks on the dance floor confirmed being able to hear keys from there, so I may continue using the little monitor.

 

~ vonnor 

[nursers]

14 hours ago, eric said:

 

Thanks! Sure thing - I do a number of different things in our Clash tribute. In general, when in doubt, a grinding rock Hammond works well (as evidenced in the London Calling video above). I play some kind of organ in most of the songs, though there are more actual keyboard tracks than one might imagine. For example, Rock the Casbah has a pretty iconic honky tonk piano part that's up in the mix, along with some sound FX (bombs dropping). The song Bankrobber has a lot of breathy male vocal pads and some cool TB303 acid-type bass, along with a mono synth part. I do some Moogish bass drones on a few tunes and take some Hammond solos whenever asked. A few other songs have sound FX like breaking glass and so forth. I'll try to cover anything special like that as well.

 

 

Great video! Thank you for sharing it! I hadn't seen that one.

Brilliant run through - thanks!