Guess it was inevitable: yesterday we had a gig with the band. Now before I continue with the actual report, let me say upfront then I am personally not very much into live performances. I like watching musicians play but rather sit in a studio then play live myself. The rest of the band didn't quite agree so we decided to go.
We weren't really scheduled for any time, it was in a pub where our bass player and some of her friends had organised a party, and we were free to do whatever we felt like doing. We arrived at about 20.00 to discover that 'tiny' is really too much honor for the pub, it was arguably the smalles bar I've ever seen. Setting up was a little nightmare with four people (drums, keys, bass, guitar) trying to find a spot on a miniature 'stage'. The nightmare got worse when it turned out the drummer forgot to bring some cables from the rehearsal room, so the piano player and bassist where left without electricity. So off he went in his car, as the pub wasn't really well-supplied with music equipment, to get that stuff, which took him half an hour or something. After having set it all up we decided to do a little soundcheck. Things seemed to go pretty well, with the keybord and bass going straight into the PA (bass using a Bass V-amp), the drum being un-amplified and my guitar being plugged through some pedals into my Vox AD30. Volume-wise there were no issues, it was a small place so there was little need for bone-shattering volumes.
Unfortunately things went not that well as I broke a string of my guitar. Now this is the cheapest and worst guitar (caliber strat clone) I've ever seen, with insane action and tons of dead notes above the 12th fret. I borrowed it from a girlfriend who bought it for $10 and somehow I instantly digged how it played and sounded. It's quite stupid considering my own guitars are technically way better and more expensive but that cheapo strat just has something that's pretty hard to resist. Now we were planning on playing around fifteen minutes, which is such a mini performance I didn;t bother to bring spare strings with me. Luckily I brought my RG550 with me but that's tonally such a different guitar that I had to change the settings of my stuff and pray that I wont snap a string on that one.
After we were pleased with the final sound we went for a beer and mixed in with the people that started to show up. Since the place was quite a bit out of the city center the only guests were a mix of friends, familiy and some locals we didn't knew, all adding up to the grand total of about thirty people, a miniscule ammount of persons that did a great job filling the equally miniscule bar. The atmosphere was pretty great, everyone was friendly and kind and I got a chance to meet some people. (and talk some football ;)) After that it was time to get onstage.
Now as you might have figured out from our line-up, we don't have a vocalist at all and we play nothing but instrumental songs, mostly originals. The first song we started was ironically a cover of Elvis' 'fever'. But without the vocals, and with an organ and guitar. We kinda changed it into a reggae song which is, IMHO, an interesting take on the song. Our performance was relatively flawless, which doesn't mean much as none of the parts are that hard for any of us. My part consists mostly of rhythm guitar based around an Am [x x x 5 5 5] voicing, with some little decorations added. Unlike our previous gig, where the public was largely uninterested, the people were all paying attention and kinda dancin' to the music. That helped a lot with our bass player who appeared rather nervous initially but got through that without a single problem. I was pretty impressed with that: she has been playing bass for just a year or so, never had a gig before and was now playing in front of her friends and family that she invited to her own party.
Anyway, after that song we had a 'funk' song, I guess. The song was based around a nice bass-riff, again around an Am chord. This riff goes basically on and on and on throughout the entire song, and the keys and guitar have to layer something over it. My job was mostly rhythm guitar again, using my behringer wah and the same chord voicing again I cloned the rhythm of the drums with muted and unmuted strikes, while the keys were adding a minor-scale solo over it. Again this song went fairly well, with the exception that the piano was a bit too busy from the start diminishing the dynamic progression of the song a bit. For the rest there were no problems and the 'crowd' responded pretty well again.
The third song is a song based on a riff around a D11-Am7-Cmaj7-G6 progression I wrote. We've been working a lot on this song but I never quite liked how it sounded so eventually I passed the riff to the piano player and added a second guitar riff over it. It's a fairly mellow song and I'm still not sure if I liked it, but people were still moving and seemed happy enough.
After that one it was time for the fourth and final song, a super slow Gm blues that slowly builds up in speed and moves from shuffle into a straight-eight rock'n roll song. This is my favourite song by far to play as my role is mostly to play lead guitar for as long as I care, and when I get tired the piano takes over. Initially the sound of my guitar was a bit too soft but since I didn't rely on the PA I could turn myself up easily while playing. The crowd really liked this one a fair bit, even more so when we went to the R&R part. The drummer missed the rhythm change but noone seemed to notice in the crowd, we just did another round and made a succesfull move from blues to RnR. We hadn't really decided how long we would play so we played for quite some minutes until the drummer indicated the end, after which our gig was basically over.
After that a fair ammount of people walked up to us and complemented us on the music, all of them seemed to like the last song best which didn't surprise me much as it's the most danceable and recognizable song. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to such comments so I thanked them for the kind words and made my way out for some fresh air. Based on the feedback we decided to do it all again a few hours later (minus Fever) which went without any noteworthy errors. Some folks had left between our first and second set so we had a few different people watching now, and their response was about the same as the first set. After we were done a friend of the bass player (who studies at the local pop acadamy) walked up and played some of his 'accoustic Jack Johnson/surf' kinda music. Sounded really nice and everyone in the audience seemed to agree with it.
By now we were approaching 02:30 so we packed up, dumped our stuff at the bass players house (or boat, rather) and went 'downtown Groningen'. :D At the end I had to walk home (as that's my only form of transportation) and arrived tired but content at my house around 06:00. It was a fun experience in the end, but I can't say it changed my opinion on playing live much. But in the end I didn't mind that much and the rest had a great time, so I'm happy we did went through with it.
[pictures were taken, not sure who's got them but if I find them I'll post them]
Congratulations, sir!
Playing live isn't for everyone, but I'm glad that you had a good experience and hopefully a good time yourself.
I think you've been taking notes from Dennis and Wes on how to take notes on a gig! :wink:
Quick question - is this the band that's on your CD project or is all the music solo (via overdubs)?
Looking forward to more reports and you should feel free to report on your studio work here as well. After all, that's a "gig."
Peace
Thanks. I've sure been taking a close look at Wes' and Dennis' reports, why be creative if there are perfectly fine reports I can 'borrow' from. :D My cd-project is basically all over-dubbed, although I have used some vocals of people around me. But it's in no way related to the band at all. Making it all the more embarrasing if it turns out that there isn't a single interesting bit of music. ;)
And I think I will write something about it when it's all finished and done, with some luck that could motivate people to try the same but without making the silly time-consuming errors I've made. But that's for a later date.
Great report Arjen. Sounded like it was alot of fun once it started.
Geoo
“The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn” - David Russell (Scottish classical Guitarist. b.1942)
Nice report Arjen!
Seeing as you are from Groningen as well, might I ask which pub you played?
Nice report Arjen.
I like these gig reports because they bring up all the problems.
And one problem is that some musicians do not like to gig. I have a friend who plays keyboards, he has been with the same band over 10 years. They are excellent musicians who could play anywhere, but the guitarist refuses to play in clubs. So for the last several years they have played at a few outdoor parties strictly for friends, this is the only place this guy will agree to play. But they don't want to get rid of him because he is an old friend.
But the rest of the band is pretty frustrated.
Sounds like you guys did real good. Now you know to carry extra strings. Carry a little tool box too, sometimes you need wirecutters, a screwdriver, wrench, etc...
If you bring this stuff you won't need it, if you don't bring it you will. :D
Can't wait to see those pics. Once again, thanks for the great report.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
argen,
glad it went well
wes,
i can't live with out gigging, is that possible ? lol 8)
even god loves rock-n-roll
Good for you, Arjen! :D I'm happy that things went well for you despite the broken string! Congratulations! :D
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-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´ -:¦:- Elecktrablue -:¦:-
"Don't wanna ride no shootin' star. Just wanna play on the rhythm guitar." Emmylou Harris, "Rhythm Guitar" from "The Ballad of Sally Rose"
zaiga: I can't remember the name, but it was somewhere south of Oosterpoort, southwest of the CS. The guy running the place seemed fairly positive about bands playing his place so if you're interested I can ask the bassplayer (she organised it all) for some contact info? BTW: I see you've been around here for almost half a year and I hadn't noticed that before. :oops: Would you care to write a little introduction about yourself, we don't have that many folks from Groningen around. ;)
Wes: Yeah, I should have known to bring all that stuff around, even if we were only to play a handfull of songs. Learned something new. :) And about performing: while I don't really appreciate it I doubt I'll ever refuse to play anywhere if the entire rest of the bands wants to do so. Besides, this was a 'special' gig as it might very well be our last, due to all kinds of circumstances. So while I technically could have blown it all of it would be somewhat uncool of me, I guess.
Geoo, Rocker & Electrablue: Thanks. :D
Awesome! :D I'm so glad you got to play a bar. I was laughing so hard when you described the size of the place. I liked the details you put into the summary. Glad to hear you got some people groovin' and having fun.
Oh, that has to kill you to break a string and not have a replacement. You probably had a horrified look on your face when you realized you didn't have another string. That's cool you wrote a song, too. Neat chords. That's crazy you got home so late.
Does your band want to play out again?
"Nothing...can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts."
Sorry for the late response, somehow slipped through the radar.
Well, the band is kinda on the brink of dying out. Our bass-player will either move to Indonesia, or she'll go to Amsterdam for a while and moves to India after that. The drummer only wants to play covers from now on and I only want to play originals. Guess we'll have plenty of talking to do. :D But if the band manages to live on playing live is high on their priority lists, they all liked it a great deal. And while it still isn't my greatest joy to play in bars refusing to play would be a pretty arseholian thing to do I think.
Oh, that has to kill you to break a string and not have a replacement. You probably had a horrified look on your face when you realized you didn't have another string.
Thank god the bar wasn't crowded at the time: my first response in such situations is 'massive burst of insane rage'. I think I insulted more objects then Wikipedia has in it's database. ;)
And slowly I've started to spot parts of pictures in people's MSN profiles, so I'll be hunting to get the complete ones.
And thanks for the kind words. :)
zaiga: I can't remember the name, but it was somewhere south of Oosterpoort, southwest of the CS. The guy running the place seemed fairly positive about bands playing his place so if you're interested I can ask the bassplayer (she organised it all) for some contact info? BTW: I see you've been around here for almost half a year and I hadn't noticed that before. :oops: Would you care to write a little introduction about yourself, we don't have that many folks from Groningen around. ;)
Sorry for the late reply, I just got back from holiday!
Yes, I'm from Groningen too. It's a small world, isn't it? My name is René Wiersma, 27 years, and I play in a band. Actually, I'm not the guitar player, I'm the singer of the band! I can play rhythm guitar, but not good enough to play in a band. Actually, I can't sing good enough for a band too, but they let me get away with it! :) I consider myself a songwriter first and foremost, so my main interests on this site are the songwriting sections and the music theory sections.
My band is a rockband, although we play many styles, from punk to blues and anythign in between. We have two guitar players, a bass player, a drummer and a singer. It's a starting band, we formed earlier this year. We play a few covers, but mostly originals (as in songs we have written ourselves). We haven't performed live yet, we are still trying to write and rehearse more songs. It's a slow process, but fun.
So, what about you?
Argen, sorry to hear about the band situation. But you're still young and will likely be in a dozen more bands by the time you're 30.
Pardon my American ignorance, but what's the difference between Holland and Netherlands?
"Nothing...can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts."
Pardon my American ignorance, but what's the difference between Holland and Netherlands?
Technically, Holland is a part of the Netherlands. It's the part with big cities Amsterdam, Rotterdam en Den Haag. The official name for the country is the Netherlands. However, in informal speach people often say Holland when they mean the whole of the Netherlands.
Hi René, my situation is kinda the opposite of yours in a way: I've signed up for vocal lessons since my singing is just too awefull, and while I'm not the greatest guitar player I'm accepted into a band as the guitarist. :D I also play a bit of bass, keys (synth and piano) but my main interest lies in songwriting/composing as well.
Does your band have a site I can check? Let me know if you're about to play live, always cool to see bands put out original songs. :)
Dennis: I guess so. I'm not going to think too much about it, things happen the way they happen. :)
