Curious about what other bands are getting paid...

vitaminE · Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 5:36 pm Post subject:

At the end of the night we grab our guitars and leave the rest of the gear undisturbed until the next morning. Tubes ARE odd things. Our singer once accidentally dumped most of a Jack and Coke into the top of his Boogie - nothing happened! His amp guy was very confused by the black stuff that was burned all over the plate inside the amp.

lee_UK · Posted: Fri May 27, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject:

The gods must have been smiling on him that night, I had a singer from the set in front of us put a full pint of Lager on my AC30 and it was on standby, didnt stay there for long, i got on stage at the start of their set and moved it next to the drummers bass drum, he obviously didnt read the musicians book of etiquete before taking to the stage. They were a good band though, travelled with all their equipment on the train from Manchester to London (200+ miles?) did the gig (loaning our drummers kit) went back to the train station and slept in the station waiting for the next train back, now thats dedication.
and the gig paid £30 per band !!

1bassleft · Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 1:42 am Post subject:

Toco, I meant "turn up" as in actually make the date (some bands don't even appear, and leave no 'phone message) but I do like a band that 'turns up' in the way you mean.

Keep posting on how it goes.

vitaminE · Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 8:26 pm Post subject:

MINI GIG REPORT - sorry if this is pretentious. Our singer/rhythm player and drummer drove up from Minneapolis on Friday afternoon and rehearsal started at 5:30 p.m. We played through our entire set list (over 60 songs - many two or three times) and completed rehearsal at 3:30 a.m. - wow! We all live 180 miles away from each other, so we have to play as much as possible when we're together. Our practice space is a garage at our singer's dad's "farm" out in the woods = high volume settings and no complaints from neighbors.

We met up at the farm again on Saturday around noon and went through some more songs until 4:00 p.m. All our gear was at the bar and set up by 6:00 p.m. We went on at 9:30 p.m.

Three songs into the first set, the drummer's bass pedal broke - high end D.W. hardware my A$$! He actually stopped playing in the middle of the song and started to mess with it. ARRGHHHH! It came apart one more time before the night was over. Then, one of the mics started to feedback (it's the drummers PA system). On top of this, our singer was having trouble with his voice and was missing a lot of high notes. By the end of the first set, I was totally off my game - deer in the headlights sort of stuff. I wasn't able to get into a groove until the middle of the last set.

I thought we sucked, but the bar owner was quite happy. Most of his regular patrons were at their summer cabins / cottages for the long weekend and this was one of the busiest Memorial Day Weekends he could remember. He felt that we drew a large crowd and asked when we could come back. Unbelievable!.

High points of the evening - our version of the Supersucker's version of Hey Ya; Jet's 123 (not my pick); Song2 (as always); and our version of Dolly Parton's 9to5 with massive Mutron and wha.

Low points of the evening - a drunken bass player, drumming issues (including a drunk chick who kept asking if she could sit on the drummers lap and also kept yelling out "Takin' Care of Business"), and my out of control nerves.

Thankfully, the good outweighed the bad, we got paid, and we played super loud. Rock on!

lee_UK · Posted: Tue May 31, 2005 11:01 pm Post subject:

Well done, a lot of what you said made me smile, ive been there before, many many times, a bass pedal?? no matter what happens you play on! if you break 5 strings you play on, 60 songs?? my god, you guys must know more material than a fully stocked juke box, i bet the bar owner was pleased, our old classic rock covers band played 22 songs max, 60 is a marathon! how on earth do you remember all the solo's? anyway sounds like you guys played a great gig under trying conditions.

vitaminE · Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 4:10 pm Post subject:

Regarding my band’s gig last Saturday, I’ve always felt very strongly that a profitable musical performance in not necessarily a good musical performance. Regarding all the intros, leads, and fills that I have to play; I’m able to go home for my lunch break everyday where I spend 45 minutes pacing around the kitchen with my guitar going over the parts again and again. Practice makes perfect.

In an aside, one of our best friends (and former bass player) refused to drive up north to see our gig last Saturday, and the excuse he offered for his absence was totally lame. Our current bass player got to the farm early and created an effigy of our missing pal. Potato Dan spent the whole weekend with us, posed for tons of photos, and took the blame for everything that went wrong. We found him on the floor of the bar on Sunday morning stabbed with 30 plastic cocktail swords and missing an eye and a leg. Bastard!

http://usera.imagecave.com/vitaminE/PotatoDan.jpg

I don't know what this has to do with guitar playing, but it was pretty darned funny!

1bassleft · Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 11:09 pm Post subject:

Everything to do with playing, and a good read, Toco. There's more to a forum than "what gauge strings do you use?" stuff. You brought back mem's of one of my terror-gig nights. Briefly, a step-too-far pulled all of the electrics out of my bass, mid-song. I ran off to borrow the next band's which, of course, was right-handed. I can handle that, but it was tuned DADG, which was another thing to think about with the strings upside down.

In the meantime, the onstage soundman wondered why the bass was quiet and stumbled around in the dark, pulling out the mains to the two guitar amps. "Drum solo!" shrieked our vocalist. I did actually get people saying "I really got into the drum solo, man" and they weren't extracting the urine. Funny what you can get past Joe Audience, as long as you look like it's all part of the set.

Best one was a three-bander. One of the bass players snapped an A, so he dropped his bass and opened my case. Left-handed, of course, so he opened the next band's case. I knew what was coming, the other bassist played fretless. The look on the guy's face was priceless, he didn't even carry spare strings. I put one of mine on it while he hummed low notes into a backing mic Laughing

lee_UK · Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 11:50 pm Post subject:

We played a gig for free for our drummers friends birthday, this friend had a company that set up sound and lighting rigs, and we was told he was going to setup a small stage with all the bits on it. lights PA etc, and it was all i his back garden in Chingford London, well when we get there and see the stage, it was like woodstock in a 100ft garden, huge stacked 2Kwatt PA on both sides of the stage, the stage was the width of the garden, there was a small marquee off to one side which housed the Mixing desk, complete with engineer and lighting man, we was the only band that turned up, and at the time we only knew 8 songs, and to make matters worse the guy who at that point thought we was going to do a 2hr set said, can you split your set into 2 halves!!, but the worse thing was when i had to drag up our rythym guitar/singer on stage cos he was too drunk to climb up on his own, things went badly, but they all loved it and didnt notice any of the cockups, the best bit was the end of the night, we was loading up and someone put Voodoo Chile by Hendrix on the PA and let it blast out, the sound was enormous, and we could still hear it when we joined the A406 2 miles away, it was a good night though.

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