Gig at the Spice Of Life in Soho last night

Voxman

Playing with the Alan Linfoot Band, we were the second of 4 bands (originally 5 but one pulled out). We only had 30 mins playing time each, with 15 mins to set up and sound check and we had to pack up fast too. 

As I had to go by tube I had to travel light.  This meant taking compact easy to set up gear and a less expensive guitar in a soft gig bag and as I was going to be going through an unknown back line, I had to prepare to keep it simple and risk using gear that whilst I'd used for rehearsals and auditions, I'd not actually gigged with.  Our drummer had a problem with a bit of the kit that didn't fit but one of the other drummers lent him his, which was lovely of him. It was a lovely warm, supportive and friendly venue, with all musos together! 

I took my Line 6 Pod Go, set up to go through the front of an amp, with no amp/cab models, and 3 'effect only' patches with a volume and gain boost, kept it in stomp mode and set my 2 external momentary switches to scroll forward and back. I set the volume knob to 12 noon so I'd quickly be able to tweak volume if needed.  The guitar I took in a gig bag was my (freshly restrung) Yamaha Pacific 611VFM as its quite light, comfy to play, and has a coil split for HB and single coil tones. I took two cables and a steel bottleneck and that was it.  I must admit I felt naked with no backup guitar that I always take to gigs. 

We played 7 songs. 5 originals, Alan's original rocky arrangement of an old classic, The Letter (originally by The Boxtops) and a classic blues number, Statesboro Blues, on which I used slide in standard tuning. 

Even though the sound guys couldn't get my stage monitor to work, I think the fully packed audience loved us, cheering and dancing to every number and we got a lot of compliments and I even got some really nice compliments on my playing too, which is always reassuring..no, make that a relief, especially as I was struggling to hear myself

Alan really does write some great songs. However they all have quite complex structures and guitar parts which means they are quite demanding, especially for an old hack guitarist like me to learn and play.... and there's even a classical riff in one that's just a bitch to play! 

Although it seemed like a lot of travelling and effort for just half an hour on stage, and inevitably there were some fluffs ( hey, it's live innit!) , it was actually very enjoyable and great to play to such an enthusiastic and appreciative audience. I think TSOL had someone taking videos so maybe they'll share some clips with us.