To follow up my "growing up" thread...

digitalscream

...here's one of me doing something unashamedly widdly from last night's gig:

A few observations:

1 - My lack of stage presence is...disturbing.

2 - That solo looks a lot easier than it feels when I'm playing it.

3 - I really need to work on my bends. I pretty much nailed the solo (except for a couple of tiny details), and then bent the big finish flat. Typical.

TTony

digitalscream said:

1 - My lack of stage presence is...disturbing.

Which one are you ???

Si_

The bass player is going for it..

Good version..

not_the_dj

TTony said:

digitalscream said:

1 - My lack of stage presence is...disturbing.

Which one are you ???

I'm guessing guitarist stage left (who takes the solo).

not_the_dj

Watched the clip again, sounded great to me. Guitarists tend to get caught up with every tiny detail that only they noticed. 

 Today I saw a group of photos from a recent gig of ours and on almost every one I'm staring down at my feet, I think I need to work on my stage presence as well.

PolarityMan

Guy in the plaid shirt is only one i thought had stage presence issues....maybe the drummer too but non-musos never notice that.

You made the solo look almost casual

viz

I thought it was great! Pumpin'! Had great drive and movement, and you look very relaxed and played awesomely. And your singer is bloody excellent.

digitalscream

not_the_dj said:

I'm guessing guitarist stage left (who takes the solo).

Aye, that's the one

not_the_dj said:

Watched the clip again, sounded great to me. Guitarists tend to get caught up with every tiny detail that only they noticed. 

 Today I saw a group of photos from a recent gig of ours and on almost every one I'm staring down at my feet, I think I need to work on my stage presence as well.

It's a problem we constantly have - none of us are particularly great on stage, except maybe the singer (she's getting better at it quicker than the rest of us).

File under "work in progress"...

PolarityMan said:

Guy in the plaid shirt is only one i thought had stage presence issues....maybe the drummer too but non-musos never notice that.

You made the solo look almost casual

Believe me, it was anything but. Because we play it quicker than the record to get some bounce into it, I'm constantly on the edge of losing it during that solo.

viz said:

I thought it was great! Pumpin'! Had great drive and movement, and you look very relaxed and played awesomely. And your singer is bloody excellent.

I like you, man. You can stick around

She's pretty good, isn't she? I'm trying to get the videos from the rest of the gig - she's positively awesome in some of our original tracks. I may skip the other cover - Bark at the Moon - 'cos I have a strong feeling that it didn't go so well for me

EricTheWeary

PolarityMan;222727" said:

Guy in the plaid shirt is only one i thought had stage presence issues....maybe the drummer too but non-musos never notice that.

You made the solo look almost casual

Yeh, he is fairly centre stage and looks a bit lost ( and does that look at the ceiling thing when he is struggling) - although that could have described me on a gig TBH!

Great solo, great singer.

Camcorder mics love cymbals don't they?

Grunfeld

Tight band.  I bet that sounded good live in the room (cam corder mics not the most flattering).  Nicely played solo.  [You've made me want to up my game on that one!]

2p's worth (sorry, it's criticism) :  sort your bloody wardrobes out!  Your singer looks great, but you lot look like you were found in the local chippy.  Actually no, if you were working in the chippy you'd probably have white overalls on and if you went on stage at least you'd look like the chippy band or something with a band "look".  But you all look more like the queue from the chippy -- random dudes in jeans and tees and a bloke who wandered in from an Oasis covers band in 1995.  -- A very small amount of sartorial thought would go a very long way.  It doesn't have to be velvet jackets and shirts with frilly cuffs.

digitalscream

Grunfeld said:

Tight band.  I bet that sounded good live in the room (cam corder mics not the most flattering).  Nicely played solo.  [You've made me want to up my game on that one!]

Cheers, dude As mentioned, there were a few little mistakes in there, but that's the sort of irritating guitarist-self-criticism that annoys everybody in the room

It was actually my first gig using the Eleven Rack, with the Jet City as just a power amp. I'm quite pleasantly surprised by how clear it all was on the video - a couple of hours on my own in the rehearsal studio sorting patches out was time very well spent (as opposed to the way I did it last time I had an 11R, which was set it up at home and then tweak patches between songs while the rest of the band were moaning about bloody guitarists and their gear).

Grunfeld said:

2p's worth (sorry, it's criticism) :  sort your bloody wardrobes out!  Your singer looks great, but you lot look like you were found in the local chippy.  Actually no, if you were working in the chippy you'd probably have white overalls on and if you went on stage at least you'd look like the chippy band or something with a band "look".  But you all look more like the queue from the chippy -- random dudes in jeans and tees and a bloke who wandered in from an Oasis covers band in 1995.  -- A very small amount of sartorial thought would go a very long way.  It doesn't have to be velvet jackets and shirts with frilly cuffs.

Don't apologise - perfectly good criticism, that, and very much on the money. It's something we have to get sorted, along with the stage presence issues

monquixote

Excellently played. 

In terms of stage presence I think you look assured and confident though not animated which is fine if that's what you are going for. The bass player looks like he is rocking out and having fun which is also a good look (and often makes the crowds enjoy it more which makes them hear it as sounding better). As others have mentioned the bloke in the middle is looking quite awkward so you probably shouldn't have him front and center.

@grunfeld hit the nail on the head with the look. You would benefit from looking a lot more consistent. If you don't want to be in the limelight then you could all just wear black shirts and get your singer to wear white because that puts the focus on her and looks really powerful:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/ee/Blondie_-_Parallel_Lines.jpg

Of course it helps if you have Debbie Harry.

viz

digitalscream said:

She's pretty good, isn't she? I'm trying to get the videos from the rest of the gig - she's positively awesome in some of our original tracks. I may skip the other cover - Bark at the Moon - 'cos I have a strong feeling that it didn't go so well for me

do that. Including BATM

Branshen

Sick chops and you look fine on stage man. Got the whole rocking out thing going for you. Great work!

TTony

TTony said:

digitalscream said:

1 - My lack of stage presence is...disturbing.

Which one are you ???

ps - I was only being jealous.

Jetfire

We cover this track too so I was pretty keen to how you play it. The only parts I do which are similar to the original is the intro and outro. Ive never tried tapping etc so I may have to give it a stab, but defo miles better version than I do, good work that man!

digitalscream

Jetfire said:

We cover this track too so I was pretty keen to how you play it. The only parts I do which are similar to the original is the intro and outro. Ive never tried tapping etc so I may have to give it a stab, but defo miles better version than I do, good work that man!

Yeah...we do it a bit faster, heavier and more aggressive than the original to make it fit a bit better with the rest of our set.

The solo is a bit odd to play without a trem, so a few bits have to change to avoid breaking the flow. The tapping bits from the original (which I do pretty much as-is) are a lot easier than they sound once you get the hang of it - the trick is that there's a different tapping pattern each time, and the first one comes in slightly late.

The main bit that I've changed is the fast-picked bit after the first tapping section, which I just find too difficult to reliably get right on stage. Oddly enough, of all the solos you'd expect people on YouTube to get bang-on, there are very few that even get as close as I do (and I make no claim to having it nailed, only "nailed in my own special way"). Hell, even Jennifer Batten was pretty poor at it, and she got paid gazillions to get it right.

monquixote

But even Eddie didn't play it like that. 

As I understand it Eddie sent in a tape of him shredding over the track and Lukather (who plays the other guitars on the track) cut it up into the solo. 

digitalscream

monquixote said:

But even Eddie didn't play it like that. 

As I understand it Eddie sent in a tape of him shredding over the track and Lukather (who plays the other guitars on the track) cut it up into the solo. 

According to Wikipedia, it was recorded at EVH's house all in one go, but Lukather took the DI feed and brought the gain down a bit. Not sure which is true, to be honest...

In any case, it's still feckin' difficult to get the right feel even if you get the notes right. I know I haven't quite got it right.

monquixote

This is a fuller version of the text quoted on Wikipedia which suggests they had to chop it up a bit.

http://johndenner.wordpress.com/eddie-van-halen-beat-it-guitar-solo/

digitalscream

monquixote said:

This is a fuller version of the text quoted on Wikipedia which suggests they had to chop it up a bit.

http://johndenner.wordpress.com/eddie-van-halen-beat-it-guitar-solo/

Well, FFS. That means that my two most favourite solos of all time (Beat It and Comfortably Numb) were both cut-and-shut jobs. I feel cheated by the universe.