Post some fun/cool gig stories here...

[Bill L]

Oh, I quite like Robert Cray. Was he good?

He was fantastic. Great voice and the sound guy had a perfect mix. The only thing I didn't like is he played for less than 2 hours. On the plus side, we had the stage packed up and the trailer loaded in about an hour and a half. We would have done it in half the time if the previously mentioned clown would just let us do our job. The most tedious part was he was talking to his girlfriend on a cell phone and took his time telling which cases get loaded when. And the bus was on its way by about 1015 and we were in a bar down the street drinking beer by 1030.

[JD01]

Cool. I really like his playing, there's something about it that sounds really cool.

[einstein magoo]

Nice Hammond chop and a real leslie! That always makes for some great sounds. Probably could have gotten a decent Hammond sound out of that Nord, but nothing like the real deal!

[Bill L]

Nice Hammond chop and a real leslie! That always makes for some great sounds. Probably could have gotten a decent Hammond sound out of that Nord, but nothing like the real deal!

Most of the touring bands I help stage use cut down Hammonds and Leslie's. And most will use a Nord for piano, clavinet, Rhodes type sounds. The smaller bands that don't travel with keyboard rigs usually use a Nord (or they might travel with a Hammond XK5 or similar unless a full Hammond is provided.

And you are correct, nothing sounds as good as a real Hammond through a Leslie cab. The difference in person is astounding.

[WhiskeyJack]

Found this one while digging thru boxes of memories while home in N.S.

This was a fun one. 2002. Our little area of the world's summer wrap up concert. Was a battle of the bands put on by some big corporate assholes. Big time prizes. Big crowd. On a baseball diamond. The infield was shoulder to shoulder, outfield was concessions and sound guys and some crowd. If I recall the seating areas were mostly filled. It was big enough to leave me feeling intimidated rather than stoked.

Before we played the radio disc jockey / host of the event knew our stuff and told us prior to playing he knew we cussed and acted like idiots, had horrible stage antics and told us to censor our selves for the young and elderly. Play the songs make the crowd feel like kings and then get out of there.

Ok whatever. No big deal.

Sadly we didn't think 'hell' was a cuss. But they did and they came out after the 2nd song that contained the offending word and said we were disqualified from the battle but could finish our set. It was met with a bit cheering and booing. I was kinda ticked.

I don't really remember what all I said but, this photo was snapped by a local journo while I strung together a colorful tapestry of really awesome vulgarities and cuss words and other such delights before kicking Into our last song.

I wasn't humble and was quite the asshole.

We had our set cut after that song and a few oldies and angry parents gave us an earful but more importantly we sold out of all our merch and got a whole bunch of new fans from new to us towns asking us to come play for them there. that was cool.

The local journo lady loved our tirade so much she took shitloads of more pro quality black and whites for the last song and personally delivered them to us at a gig in her town.

I have more memories of these bands but ill save em for another day.

[Armistice]

Straight to hell for you, heathen!

[JD01]

Cool guitar, what is it?

[Greg_L]

Found this one while digging thru boxes of memories while home in N.S.

This was a fun one. 2002. Our little area of the world's summer wrap up concert. Was a battle of the bands put on by some big corporate assholes. Big time prizes. Big crowd. On a baseball diamond. The infield was shoulder to shoulder, outfield was concessions and sound guys and some crowd. If I recall the seating areas were mostly filled. It was big enough to leave me feeling intimidated rather than stoked.

Before we played the radio disc jockey / host of the event knew our stuff and told us prior to playing he knew we cussed and acted like idiots, had horrible stage antics and told us to censor our selves for the young and elderly. Play the songs make the crowd feel like kings and then get out of there.

Ok whatever. No big deal.

Sadly we didn't think 'hell' was a cuss. But they did and they came out after the 2nd song that contained the offending word and said we were disqualified from the battle but could finish our set. It was met with a bit cheering and booing. I was kinda ticked.

I don't really remember what all I said but, this photo was snapped by a local journo while I strung together a colorful tapestry of really awesome vulgarities and cuss words and other such delights before kicking Into our last song.

I wasn't humble and was quite the asshole.

We had our set cut after that song and a few oldies and angry parents gave us an earful but more importantly we sold out of all our merch and got a whole bunch of new fans from new to us towns asking us to come play for them there. that was cool.

The local journo lady loved our tirade so much she took shitloads of more pro quality black and whites for the last song and personally delivered them to us at a gig in her town.

I have more memories of these bands but ill save em for another day.

[WhiskeyJack]

Cool guitar, what is it?

This.



Only not exactly that. The name plate on mine read "Dana" instead of "Zenta". Was still a Japanese made plywood body tele knock off that came from the sears catalog in the late 60's early 70's. I still had this up till about a few years ago. My father had it in storage or so i was told but the story goes when he was getting ready to transfer it to Edmonton via his job the forklift containing the pallet had a malfunction and it lost it's entire load over the edge of the loading dock and my guitar was toast. Not even worth salvaging. I'd argue the pick ups could have been saved but whatever. I doubt very much my model had the pick ups, tone snobs were trying to chase down. There was one of those tele knock off models Zenta / Dana /Tiesco that had pick ups that some tele nerds were hot after. I think it was the Tiesco branded ones.

It was in horrible shape before he packaged it to ship though. I wasn't very kind to that guitar.

[Bill L]

Back at the beginning of July I left the restaurant I worked mornings at to start working with my buddy that runs a production company. He's the guy that kept hiring me as a stage hand. Well, he needed more help in his shop as well as an engineer for shows and I thought it'd be a great way to learn how to be a real sound guy and also learn how to fix my own stuff. Last week, we provided sound and backline for 3 stages at a good size outdoor event. That meant 3 drum sets, a bunch of amps, stands, wireless, etc plus all the cables including power. It was pretty crazy. But part of the process was making sure everything works. So I had to play through all of the amps. A couple of Twins, Deluxes. But I also had to try out these to make sure they worked.

PXL_20220811_145237606.jpg

That's 2 Ampeg SVT 8x10 bass cabs and an SVT head. These things are loud! And I must admit, the hype is real. Nothing sounds like an Ampeg SVT.

Here's the drum sets, which I just put in cases and labeled for future gigs.
Furthest away is a Yamaha Stage Custom, then a DW kit, then a Pearl Masters Studio (which we split into 2 kits), a Ludwig and finally a Gretsch Broadcaster Bop kit. There's also a bunch of snares.

PXL_20220714_160021985.jpg

Here's one of the sound boards I'll be using at gigs. He currently runs the in house for 3 venues plus whatever special events we get called for.

PXL_20220713_173906112.jpg

On top of all of that, he wants me to be the forward guy for the acts coming to the venues. That means contacting the road/tour managers to make sure everything has been covered for when they arrive. That could get a little sticky as some of these guys are on power trips but I'm hoping for more laughs than pains. But I guess we'll see.

And on a side note, a guy that comes to one of the jams I'm involved in recently bought a shit load of vintage guitars and has been bringing them to the jam. An early 60s Les Paul Custom (the SG Les Paul), a late 50s Les and some other great stuff. I didn't get pictures of some of them but I did a pic of this early to mid 60s Strat.

PXL_20220805_024021716.jpg

[WhiskeyJack]

Holy Frig @Bill L That is pretty awesome dude!!! Looks like a lot of very cool stuff to tinker with for a day job!! That board looks fairly modern and flashy does it have any games on it ?

[Bill L]

Holy Frig @Bill L That is pretty awesome dude!!! Looks like a lot of very cool stuff to tinker with for a day job!! That board looks fairly modern and flashy does it have any games on it ?

Alas, no games. And it's been great so far. Learning a lot and getting better at things I need to get better at.

[Greg_L]

Yeah those SVTs can pump out some sound. Cool stuff man!

[Greg_L]

Our singer/rhythm guitarist has been in and out of the hospital for three weeks now. He hurt his wrist at his job, and being a raging diabetic that does nothing to treat or control his diabetes, or his injuries, he developed complications. He went to the hospital to have his wrist checked. When they saw his blood sugar numbers they freaked out and admitted him for a hospital stay. They found a staph infection inside of his wrist that needed emergency surgery to clean out. That went well, they sent him home, but his recovery has been slow and he still was having intense pain and swelling in his hand. So he went back to the docs for a checkup and now they won't let him out until he's healed. We had to cancel two very nice gigs because of it. Canceling is not a big deal. His health is important to us. Everyone involved understands our predicament and is supportive. The disappointment is real though. In between hospital visits the plan was for him to at least sing for us at the gigs and I'll do all the guitars. We can play without his guitar, we can't play without his vocals. But he couldn't make that happen.

So this past weekend was another gig in danger of us having to cancel. It was a big birthday bash for a very popular friend of the local punk rock scene. It was out of town at an icehouse style bar. The place has live music but it's very informal - no miking anything except vocals. It's basically like a big garage party with a bar. We didn't want to cancel another gig, and especially not for this guy who personally invited us to go play his big birthday party. We've kept this guy in the loop with our medical situation so he suggested we come do it as an instrumental unit. I balked at first, like no way I'm hauling my ass out of town to half-ass it. But then we thought about it some more and said fuck it, let's go. So we went and played our songs as instrumentals, and it went super duper good. Way better than we expected. It was a lot of fun all stripped down to the basic essentials, and it sounded great. Pure raw power. Guitar bass and drums. All you need. The people seemed to really enjoy it. I know I did.

[rayc]

Excellent resolution.
Pity you hadn't prepared your current cover for the show...that'd have been fun/funny.
I hope your singer learns to take care of himself.

[Greg_L]

Excellent resolution.
Pity you hadn't prepared your current cover for the show...that'd have been fun/funny.
I hope your singer learns to take care of himself.

Lol we don't do any covers. We play around halfassedly with some at practices but never do any live.

[Bill L]

My buddy had some guitars shipped to us for the tour he's going out with. We open up the cases and one of them looked like this:

PXL_20221024_170837136.jpg

[WhiskeyJack]

My buddy had some guitars shipped to us for the tour he's going out with. We open up the cases and one of them looked like this:

PXL_20221024_170837136.jpg

Is it just the strings that are broken or is there something more nefarious i am not seeing?

Nevermind i see it now!

[Bill L]

My buddy had some guitars shipped to us for the tour he's going out with. We open up the cases and one of them looked like this:

PXL_20221024_170837136.jpg

Is it just the strings that are broken or is there something more nefarious i am not seeing?

The neck is separated from the body. Totally smashed.

[WhiskeyJack]

Is it just the strings that are broken or is there something more nefarious i am not seeing?

The neck is separated from the body. Totally smashed.

I saw it immdiaitely after i hit my reply and went back to thread.