How did last night's gig go?

darius

Played a mate's big birthday bash last night. Venue has a sound limiter, if the big red light stays on for 30secs the power is cut. We managed to bypass it a couple of years ago but they have fixed that little loophole. We have never played as quiet and that thing was still lighting up. 

Audience kept asking from more vocals volume - Nope!

It was definitely the lower frequency bands of the vocals that was triggering it, ironically our very loud drums seemed fine. 

So much stress. All ok in the end but man does it affect the performance.

Supportact

darius said:

Played a mate's big birthday bash last night. Venue has a sound limiter, if the big red light stays on for 30secs the power is cut. We managed to bypass it a couple of years ago but they have fixed that little loophole. We have never played as quiet and that thing was still lighting up. 

Audience kept asking from more vocals volume - Nope!

It was definitely the lower frequency bands of the vocals that was triggering it, ironically our very loud drums seemed fine. 

So much stress. All ok in the end but man does it affect the performance.

That sounds very frustrating. Well done for persevering.  

digitalkettle

Supportact said:

darius said:

Played a mate's big birthday bash last night. Venue has a sound limiter, if the big red light stays on for 30secs the power is cut. We managed to bypass it a couple of years ago but they have fixed that little loophole. We have never played as quiet and that thing was still lighting up. 

Audience kept asking from more vocals volume - Nope!

It was definitely the lower frequency bands of the vocals that was triggering it, ironically our very loud drums seemed fine. 

So much stress. All ok in the end but man does it affect the performance.

That sounds very frustrating. Well done for persevering.  

Sounds a bit 'village hall'...venue would be added to my shit-list...not always easy to refuse 'mate's big birthday bash' request though!

That said, most of our less enjoyable gigs have been birthdays/weddings so I'm fairly reluctant...don't know why I'm in a band really 

Open_G

Managed to turn off the foh sound at break and didn’t remember or realise I’d done it until well into 2nd set. Still feel pretty grumpy about it. 

darius

digitalkettle said:

Supportact said:

darius said:

Played a mate's big birthday bash last night. Venue has a sound limiter, if the big red light stays on for 30secs the power is cut. We managed to bypass it a couple of years ago but they have fixed that little loophole. We have never played as quiet and that thing was still lighting up. 

Audience kept asking from more vocals volume - Nope!

It was definitely the lower frequency bands of the vocals that was triggering it, ironically our very loud drums seemed fine. 

So much stress. All ok in the end but man does it affect the performance.

That sounds very frustrating. Well done for persevering.  

Sounds a bit 'village hall'...venue would be added to my shit-list...not always easy to refuse 'mate's big birthday bash' request though!

That said, most of our less enjoyable gigs have been birthdays/weddings so I'm fairly reluctant...don't know why I'm in a band really 

Yeah - parties can be a massive riot or massive quiet. The people who book us love us but that doesn’t mean many/any of their guests will. 

Especially if the venue has lots of places to go hide and actually talk to each other. How very dare they.  

darius

Open_G said:

Managed to turn off the foh sound at break and didn’t remember or realise I’d done it until well into 2nd set. Still feel pretty grumpy about it. 

Oof. Must hurt even more if no one noticed! :-/

Supportact

Open_G said:

Managed to turn off the foh sound at break and didn’t remember or realise I’d done it until well into 2nd set. Still feel pretty grumpy about it. 

I assume you were doing your own sound from the stage? Been there - it's not easy to keep all that going AND play your instrument.  

newi123

We played St Patricks Day om O`Neills in Oxford - it was a Guinness dripping off the ceiling kind of Tuesday! :-) We only actually played 1 Irish song.............

Monkeybone

Mine was... eventful. There was a birthday party there, drunk rowdy women mostly. Turns out, they hadn't bought a single drink all night but had snuck in their own alcohol, and when confronted got aggressive with the bar staff, leading to the police being called. 

Ahh, wacky fun...

PC_Dave

Had a nightmare on Saturday night - I thought there was something wrong with my in ears as my guitar was dropping in volume and then coming back to normal throughout the gig, and then just as the singer shouted "Guitar!" in I Believe in a Thing Called Love.... nothing. Absolutely no sound from my amp. Absolute panic set in as I tried to work out if it was the guitar, the cable, a pedal or the amp. Unplugged the input from my pedal board and stuck it straight into the amp, still nothing, then remembered that the FX loop cables were still plugged in, whipped those out and it was back, albeit VERY loud as I'd pissed around with the master volume. Managed to get it under control, finished the solo and then at the very end of the last solo my strap came off and nearly dropped my new Fiore! Finished the song kneeling down.

Absolute nightmare, and I haven't had chance yet to plug it all in a see what the problem is, but if it's the amp I'm in a pickle as I've got another gig on Saturday and I doubt a replacement would arrive in time (it's still in warranty)

Supportact

PC_Dave said:

Had a nightmare on Saturday night - I thought there was something wrong with my in ears as my guitar was dropping in volume and then coming back to normal throughout the gig, and then just as the singer shouted "Guitar!" in I Believe in a Thing Called Love.... nothing. Absolutely no sound from my amp. Absolute panic set in as I tried to work out if it was the guitar, the cable, a pedal or the amp. Unplugged the input from my pedal board and stuck it straight into the amp, still nothing, then remembered that the FX loop cables were still plugged in, whipped those out and it was back, albeit VERY loud as I'd pissed around with the master volume. Managed to get it under control, finished the solo and then at the very end of the last solo my strap came off and nearly dropped my new Fiore! Finished the song kneeling down.

Absolute nightmare, and I haven't had chance yet to plug it all in a see what the problem is, but if it's the amp I'm in a pickle as I've got another gig on Saturday and I doubt a replacement would arrive in time (it's still in warranty)

That sounds like a nightmare,  although at least your guitar survived. Hope the amp issue is just a lead or something relatively easy to fix.  

PC_Dave

Supportact said:

PC_Dave said:

Had a nightmare on Saturday night - I thought there was something wrong with my in ears as my guitar was dropping in volume and then coming back to normal throughout the gig, and then just as the singer shouted "Guitar!" in I Believe in a Thing Called Love.... nothing. Absolutely no sound from my amp. Absolute panic set in as I tried to work out if it was the guitar, the cable, a pedal or the amp. Unplugged the input from my pedal board and stuck it straight into the amp, still nothing, then remembered that the FX loop cables were still plugged in, whipped those out and it was back, albeit VERY loud as I'd pissed around with the master volume. Managed to get it under control, finished the solo and then at the very end of the last solo my strap came off and nearly dropped my new Fiore! Finished the song kneeling down.

Absolute nightmare, and I haven't had chance yet to plug it all in a see what the problem is, but if it's the amp I'm in a pickle as I've got another gig on Saturday and I doubt a replacement would arrive in time (it's still in warranty)

That sounds like a nightmare,  although at least your guitar survived. Hope the amp issue is just a lead or something relatively easy to fix.  

Yeah fingers crossed - I'm not sure it's a cable as they were all brand new, and the sound basically "fizzled" out, but we shall see.

guitarcookie1

Not a gig as such, but our weekly met up / jam session..

First up, singers mic working fine for the first ten minutes & then it suddenly cuts out. No one touched it, it was in a stand, just dead. Off he goes to fetch a backup which worked fine for the rest of the evening. 

Then my Boss IR200 started randomly switching itself off (the other two pedals, boost & tuner, still fine). Ended up plugging direct into my frfr speaker, which surprisingly sounded ok. 

ElectricXII

We played a new -to-us venue last night  in a converted art-deco era fire station. It was a nice place with a good audience, but we really struggled with the acoustics. We played in the area where the fire engines used to be housed, so high ceiling, lots of glazing where the vehicles entered and exited, and a ceramic tile floor. 

The room reverb was terrible, and it was hard to hear myself, never mind the bass which I could barely hear at all. We got through though as always, but having a sound man would probably have helped.

Supportact

ElectricXII said:

We played a new -to-us venue last night  in a converted art-deco era fire station. It was a nice place with a good audience, but we really struggled with the acoustics. We played in the area where the fire engines used to be housed, so high ceiling, lots of glazing where the vehicles entered and exited, and a ceramic tile floor. 

The room reverb was terrible, and it was hard to hear myself, never mind the bass which I could barely hear at all. We got through though as always, but having a sound man would probably have helped.

That sounds tricky, I imagine it was never going to be ideal in a space like that...

However, I want to know if there was a fireman's pole, and if so did you all slide down it as your stage entrance? 

ElectricXII

Supportact said:

ElectricXII said:

We played a new -to-us venue last night  in a converted art-deco era fire station. It was a nice place with a good audience, but we really struggled with the acoustics. We played in the area where the fire engines used to be housed, so high ceiling, lots of glazing where the vehicles entered and exited, and a ceramic tile floor. 

The room reverb was terrible, and it was hard to hear myself, never mind the bass which I could barely hear at all. We got through though as always, but having a sound man would probably have helped.

That sounds tricky, I imagine it was never going to be ideal in a space like that...

However, I want to know if there was a fireman's pole, and if so did you all slide down it as your stage entrance? 

Sorry to disappoint you @Supportact . I didn't see a fireman's pole anywhere which would've been fun. I believe that modern H&S regs have relegated such things to the past, unfortunately.

Stuckfast

We played a venue called Sydney & Matilda in Sheffield last night. It's a really cool place with several different performance spaces. We were in the smallest which despite being a largely unmodified old workshop has very good acoustics. The engineer was great too. 

It was less full for our headline slot than it was at the start, but the people who stayed really got into it. I think the first support rather put them off.

Supportact

Damn. 

Musicwolf

How did last night's gig go?  Shite, thanks for asking.

No one there, or in any of the surrounding venues.  We offered to pack up an waive the fee, but the venue asked us to play anyway which at least entertained the bar staff.

Stratavarious

Festival weekend.. and a couple of extras gigs…so I’m pretty knackered now.

Always nice to play for people who are there for the music.