First Gig (and last, with that band) Debacle

[StuartV]

Prelude to a Kiss of Death:

I played trombone from middle school all the way through college, including jazz band in high school and college. Then I didn't do anything musically for almost 20 years. 5 years ago, I started taking drum lessons. For the last 3 years, I've been working pretty regularly as a drummer, including the last 2 years as part of a cover band that formed when I joined and has been working a fair bit.

Last March, I started working on learning to play bass. In August, I responded to a CL ad and joined a new originals band that was formed by a singer/songwriter/guitard who had already written a bunch of original material. I like his material, his singing, and his playing. At the same time I joined, he recruited a female singer/songwriter/keys player and a drummer. The keys player/singer is a former Nashville recording artist that has some huge credentials. She is really great.

Within a couple of weeks of forming and starting to work on learning the first set worth of his material, he books us a gig, for Oct 22nd (last Friday). The gig was to play in the bar that is in the basement of a local seafood restaurant. He got another local band signed on to play 1 set before us, then we would play 1 set and that would be the whole show. He told us the bar had recently re-done their setup and had nice new PA gear and they would provide a sound guy to run it. The deal he agreed to with the bar was that the 2 bands would each get 100 tickets to sell in advance ($5 each). The bands would keep any money they got from advanced ticket sales. The bar would charge $5 at the door on the night of the show (for anybody that didn't already have a ticket), and the bar would keep all that. Basically, the ONLY thing the bands would get would be the advance sale money.

The keys player and I both thought the whole thing stunk to high heaven. But, it was a new band and he had just "hired" us, so we didn't feel like there was much we could do about it. So I said "fine, let's sell every ticket they give us. That'll make sure that, next time, they want to do the deal differently." And so we did. We actually sold 108 tickets in advance. Nice, right?! And I found out after selling all these tickets that the bar's Fire Marshal capacity is 97. But the Bar Manager told me, "it's okay. We've had 200 people in here before. If it gets too crowded down here, we'll open up the upstairs." The upstairs is not connected to the downstairs at all (except by going outside and around to the front), but they apparently think that still allows them to add the FM capacity of the upstairs to the downstairs and then let that many people into the downstairs.

In the meantime, we start asking the guitard questions like "how many monitor channels will they be able to give us?" And "will they be able to mic the guitar cab and take DI from my bass rig?" And "will I be able to have a feed from the board into my digital recorder so we can have a recording of the performance?" And "what time will the sound guy be there so we can know when we need to be done with load-in and ready to start a sound check?" And "how are we going to handle the changeover from the opening band to our band?" The guitard's response to all these questions progressed from "I don't know" and "trust me" and "they [the venue and their sound guy] know what they're doing" to being pissy about it and telling me the sound guy's name and that I should call him myself. These questions are all partly with the thought in mind that I have my own pretty kick-ass PA setup, that I use for my cover band, and that I could bring that, if we needed to. And the guitard knew that, too, as it's the same system we use at rehearsal.

About 2 weeks before the show I gave up and told the keys player that I was not going to worry about it any more. I was going to let the guitard have as much rope as he wanted and then just wait to see what happened.

[StuartV]

The Kiss of Death:


The guitard tells us at our last rehearsal before the gig that the sound guy will be there at 6. So, I show up on Friday just before 6, so I can load in. We get all loaded in. I have my rig and my backup amp setup, both my basses out and tuned and have verified that both my amps are working fine. And the sound guy finally shows up at 7. He mics up the drums and guitard's cab, we plug a DI line into my head, plug in the keys, and verify everything is working. No actual playing a sound check song, though. Just verifying that all the individual channels are actually working.


By now, the opening band (a 3-piece) has started coming in. I asked our drummer if he was okay with their drummer using his kit. "Yes." Good. I talk to their bandleader, who is their bass player, and offer to let him use my rig (I don't know him, but I know of him through others, and trust him well enough), and for their drummer to use our drummer's kit. He looks at my rig and says, "that's a really nice rig! Hell, yeah, I'll use it." He calls his drummer and confirms that, too. Great. Their guitar player uses his own rig. They setup and sound check and everything sounds good.


They start their show on schedule. Everything sounds good until about halfway through the first or second song. Then the vocals disappear. I can see the PA amp at the back of the "stage" and I can see that the lights on it have gone out. The sound guy (who is also the one and only bartender on duty) rushes over to his booth and does stuff and the amp comes back on. Consistently, through the rest of their show, the PA amp occasionally shuts off. It appears to be when things get louder and it starts drawing more current.


Also, during the first 2 or 3 songs, my whole rig (SVT 2 Pro) completely shut off (all lights, including rackmount tuner, would go off) and then come right back on, without anybody touching it. After that happened twice (I think), we shut it down, unplugged it from the ciruit where the PA's one and only amp was plugged in, and plugged it in to an outlet on a different circuit. I had contemplated that when I plugged in originally. My thought was that one 15 amp circuit should be plenty to run their one amp and my one amp and that I would safer plugging into a circuit that was known to be good enough for their PA amp, than some other circuit with who knows what "qualities".


My rig was okay for a little while after that. I stepped outside. About halfway through their set, my guitard came out and told me that my rig had cut off again, but they couldn't get it going this time. I went in and didn't even try to get my SVT going. I immediately unplugged the guy's instrument cable from the SVT and plugged it into my backup amp (Sansamp BDDI plus Ibanez Promethean head), which I had setup on top of my SVT rack. I unplugged the speaker cable from the SVT and plugged it into the Promethean, unmuted it, and their bassist went back to work. My rig (using the backup amp) worked flawlessly for the rest of the night. Their sound guy told me later, "yeah, we have trouble some times with tube amps. They just draw enough current that it trips our breaker or something." Whatever. I guess my 500W Promethean doesn't draw as much current as my 300W SVT. Or, more likely, it is just not as sensitive to voltage drops. But I digress.


The opening band finished and we go on. We're a 4-piece, so, in addition to the channels the opening band was using, we add 1 Shure wireless mic and one line in from the keyboard (a brand new Yamaha MM8). The guitard brought a Marshall half stack and the PA guy mic'ed his 4x12 cab. We start playing and my dad (40 years as a professional sound man doing huge rock and roll shows, festivals, etc) comes up and tells me (while I'm playing >:-( ) that my bass is drowning out EVERYBODY else. I turn down and then he tells me I'm balanced with the drums, but they can't hear the vocals, the keys or the guitar.


And it just went downhill from there. The whole PA went in and out, so some times the audience could hear the vocals, but mostly not. They never could really hear the guitar. After the 3rd song, I asked the guitard and he said his amp was turned all the way up. I could barely hear it myself. I don't know what kind of Marshall head he was using, but I still can't believe it wouldn't play loud enough to drown out the whole band when turned all the way up. With his cab mic'ed, the audience could hear the guitar sometimes, when the PA wasn't cut out. And then, even when the PA was "on" and seemingly working, it kept dropping the keys channel, so you couldn't hear them, even when you could the vocals. And the "sound guy" said that it had to be something wrong with the keyboard, because nothing had changed on his board. And then, 2 sentences later, he said that he was getting signal from the keyboard. FYI, was running all the inputs into Pro Tools on a PC, then out to the PA amp. And the female vocals kept dropping out, when the rest was still working. Again, the sound guy tells us it's the wireless mic receiver. "The signal it's putting out is too hot. It's clipping out the board and shutting down." Huh? And this claimed to have a Bachelor's degree in Sound Management and have owned his own studio.


And the final straw was getting to the last song of the set - finally. Our only cover. A blues standard called It Hurts Me Too. The final chance for our singer to really shine. Her keys were dead again, so she came out from behind them, brought a mic out front and prepared to give the audience her Hail Mary song. The drummer counts it off and.... the guitard starts playing in D (when I'm playing in C - the agreed upon key). And I can't really hear him, so I don't even realize what's happening. The singer let us roll for 12 or more bars, hoping the guitard would figure it out, but he didn't. She finally put on her best smile and stopped us, announced to the audience that this was our last song and we were going to get it right, told the guitard quietly what the correct key was, and we played it.


UGGHH!!


Saturday morning, I awoke to email from the singer/keys player that that was too embarassing for her. Her record producer from her Nashville days had come down from Nashville just to hear us and was in the audience for all this! It was all a result of "trusting" the guitard and letting him handle it all. She has realized that "there ain't no fixin' stupid" and resigned from the band. I have also resigned from the band. The guitard actually sent email and left me a voice mail that he thinks "it went great". I kid you not. That is a quote from a voice mail he left me.


The only bright spot is that the singer/keys player wants to continue to work with me and we're going to stick together and start working on selecting some of her originals and some others that she has access to from other writers, and writing some new stuff together, and then assemble our own band to record the material and start performing it.


Well, that and I got to rock my black holo-flake Peavey G-V (and my MPG Level 5) in public and should have some good pics of that.

[Red Rover]

Holy crappoli that was a wall of text... but I read it all and you have my sympathies. Looks like you made it out with a good contact in the end though. Good luck with your new singer.

[beggar98]

Not for nothin', but a $500 gig in a basement bar with max capacity of 97 isn't exactly the big time. Most places I've played at that level don't have sound checks (or even sound men). Why would you ever need to mic drums or cabs or DI bass in a room that size? You're not the Rolling Stones and it's not Madison Square Garden.

[StuartV]

Thanks, Red. The whole thing was just so depressing, I had to get the story off my chest to somebody who would have some appreciation for how much it sucked.

[kesslari]

That does indeed sound ugly...
good ending connecting with the singer/keys. Good luck!

[StuartV]

Well, when I play a gig on drums, pretty much anywhere, I mic the whole kit. Unless it's REALLY small and I don't care about recording it. Micing the kit lets me play the way I play (not extremely loud) and still give the audience a good sound, no matter how big or small the place is. I don't have to turn into a basher with bats, just because I'm playing a bigger venue. In this particular case, the only things on the drum kit that were mic'ed were the snare and the bass drum. And I absolutely think that the place was big enough and packed enough that the bass drum needed to be mic'ed. Otherwise, nobody past the first 3 rows of people in the crowd would have been able to hear it.

DI from the bass was really only so that there would be a signal to the board that would feed into my digital recorder. I generally run the 2 Track Out from whatever board is in use into my Olympus LS-10 any time I play. If all the instruments don't into the board, then the recording would be pretty useless. But, since the recorder actually gets the FOH mix, my plan was to only use my rig to be loud enough for me to hear over the drums, and let the FOH PA reproduce my sound for the audience - so the mix in the recording would sound good. With the drums, the two mics on the kit, plus the drum sound picked up by the vocal mics at the front of the stage would have produced a decent sounding mix in the recording. Decent enough for post-gig analysis, anyway.

As far as sound checks and sound men go, when I play a gig with my own PA (in my cover band), we always do a sound check when we're done with load-in. We play a song and record it from the board, then play it back through the PA and go stand where the audience would be to make sure it sounds okay. If it needs major adjustments, we adjust and to do it again. Usually we don't have to do that, though. We just make minor adjustments and we're good to go at show time.

[StuartV]

Oh, and further, regarding micing drums, when I gig on drums, with my PA, I run Beyerdynamic mics - one on every tom, plus one on the snare, one on the kick and 2 overheads. All Opus condenser mics except the kick mic which is a dynamic. I use 8 channels on my mixer just for my drums.

I have spent some quality time dialing in the compression on each of those channels and EQ'ing them. And, not to sound too much like I'm just tooting my own horn but, when I play with my setup, my drums sound GOOD - to the audience. You can clearly hear every tom and cymbal (and snare and kick). They sound WAY better than any other drummer's kit that I've heard playing around here. I'm not a great drummer, but other drummers that hear me almost always have compliments for how good my kit sounds.

[puddin tame]

you could have got the same message across without nearly as much text


edit: oh man and it's still coming!

[beggar98]

Originally Posted by StuartV

Oh, and further, regarding micing drums, when I gig on drums, with my PA, I run Beyerdynamic mics - one on every tom, plus one on the snare, one on the kick and 2 overheads. All Opus condenser mics except the kick mic which is a dynamic. I use 8 channels on my mixer just for my drums.

I have spent some quality time dialing in the compression on each of those channels and EQ'ing them. And, not to sound too much like I'm just tooting my own horn but, when I play with my setup, my drums sound GOOD - to the audience. You can clearly hear every tom and cymbal (and snare and kick). They sound WAY better than any other drummer's kit that I've heard playing around here. I'm not a great drummer, but other drummers that hear me almost always have compliments for how good my kit sounds.

All of which is completely unnecessary- especially if you're playing similar-size rooms as in your original post. In a room for 97 people there is simply no reason for it, I don't care how much quality time you've spent dialing in compression and EQ'ing all eight channels of drums. Eight channels of drums...

[BritPicker]

Yeah, after reading your posts, I couldn't help thinking that you were getting too complicated from the start.

The venue was not huge, yet you had radio mics, DI's all miked up drums and guitars yet the guitar was maxing his amp out and you got really stressed out on the lead-up AND you wanted to get a recording out of it too.

Really, for these small venues with a band changeover and unknown sound man you just need to be reliable and simple.

I think you tried to do too much and lost sight of the important things like making sure the singer is really happy and you put the songs across well and have fun doing it.

If it were me, next gig, I'd cut out all the non-essentials, get into the musicians controlling their own space in the 'mix' - that is, controlling their own volume at source, not relying on the sound guy. Then, all the sound guy has to do is make it louder. Perhaps for this gig it might have been best to run a vocals (maybe keys too) only PA. Some of the best gigs I've done have been like this!

[puddin tame]

i'll add that that's an awful lot of text about minute technical details and not any text at all about the actual music!

[StuartV]

Originally Posted by BritPicker

Yeah, after reading your posts, I couldn't help thinking that you were getting too complicated from the start.

The venue was not huge, yet you had radio mics, DI's all miked up drums and guitars yet the guitar was maxing his amp out and you got really stressed out on the lead-up AND you wanted to get a recording out of it too.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Or maybe I bored you to death and you slept through some of the details.

I brought my SVT, a 210 cab, a 115 cab, and a backup amp (which proved to be a good thing). And I brought a handheld digital recorder and cable to run off the board. Doesn't sound overly complicated to me. And, as it worked out, we gave up on running the recorder during the opening band's set. By the end of the opening band's set, the sound guy had taken the bass guitar and the kick drum out of the FOH PA because the extra current draw from having the PA try to reproduce those instruments was making it cut out even more often. So, for our part, the bass and kick weren't in the PA and the attempt to get a recording wasn't a factor.

The singer brought her wireless mic that she's been using for years because she wanted to. And because she's the kind of performer that gets up and moves around the stage and even out into the audience. That wasn't anything I had anything to do with, really.

The sound guy mic'ed the drums the way he always does. I didn't have anything to do with that.

The sound guy mic'ed the guitar cab and I don't know whether the guitard requested that or the sound guy did it on his own. Either way, it obviously needed to be done, since it couldn't be heard at all without PA support, even when it was turned all the way up.

My posts about micing up all the drums, etc, was referring to when I play drums with my cover band and we use my PA. And, for the record, I have never had any significant problems whatsoever when running my own PA - even with the guitar and bass both runnning DI through the board and no amplifiers in use beyond the 3 PA amps in my rack. And I record all those shows using my digital recorder coming from the board. And I manage all that by myself.

How did I make this gig (with my now former originals band) too complicated?

[StuartV]

Originally Posted by beggar98

In a room for 97 people there is simply no reason for it, I don't care how much quality time you've spent dialing in compression and EQ'ing all eight channels of drums. Eight channels of drums...

And I suppose you play a Squier Affinity bass through a GK MB150 for your gigs in a 100-person room? And scoff at guys that bring pedals and 500 watt amps and pay $80 for certain kinds of strings because there's simply no reason for it?

Drums are musical instruments, too. Even if the majority of drummers don't play them that way.

[SMILEYSIXX]

If I was you, the night wouldn't have ended wiithout someone's blood on my hands.

At least it might start working with the keys player.

[Jason P Bass]

Well since you posted this all on the internet, I'll toss in my two cents...

WOW that was a lot of equipment and PA channels for a small room.

WOW that is a very passionate response to one bad show.

WOW that is a lot of moaning about a sold out show.

The female singer resigned while the guitar player thought it went great - sounds like a real mismatch in skill / experience / prestige. That's never going to last long.

I read the first two posts (not the follow ups) and if that's your worst night as a performer, you have a lot to be thankful for. It sounds like no equipment was destroyed, nothing was stolen, nobody was bleeding, nobody was robbed, nobody was arrested, nobody was stranded with a bad vehicle, and nobody caught a STD.

Take a deep breath. Exactly how bad was it, really?

[StuartV]

LOL, SmileySixx!

It's funny (sort of) because that afternoon, the keys player updated her Facebook status to say something like "... is on her way to load-in and sound check for tonight's gig. Dear God, please let me sing well and put on a good show" or something like that. She posted it and then emailed me that she had done that.

In response, I updated mine and copied her first part, then put "Dear god, please let me not play any clams or have to kill anybody tonight. Amen."

Maybe my little pre-gig prayer is what actually kept me out of jail....

LMAO!

[plangentmusic]

Bottom line. You're an amateur and you're squawking about a paid gig when top class guys are struggling.

Bad things happen when you gig. You learn to anticipate most, circumvent some and to flat out deal with others. It's called professionalism.

[beggar98]

Originally Posted by StuartV

And I suppose you play a Squier Affinity bass through a GK MB150 for your gigs in a 100-person room? And scoff at guys that bring pedals and 500 watt amps and pay $80 for certain kinds of strings because there's simply no reason for it?

Drums are musical instruments, too. Even if the majority of drummers don't play them that way.

Actually, no. I spend money on my gear. My gigging basses are an old Warwick Corvette that I've modded and an NS NXT EUB. My amp is an EA Micro 300 which I run through an Avatar 210 Neo. And my pedal board is worth more than either of my basses.

My point was that if you had taken the time to balance everything at the gig without worrying about feeding everything through an obviously crappy PA run by a bartender you might have a) not overloaded the PA; b) realized the guitar player was having some issues with his amp; c) played a decent show.

I've played some pretty good sized gigs, including a few outdoor multi-act festivals. Can you guess how many times I've wondered if the venue would have enough channels of PA for a 5 piece rock band?

[StuartV]

Jason P Bass,

Man, you are right. And I appreciate the way you put it in perspective. Nobody died. And we did make money. So, right, how bad was it, really?

And I understand how I caused some confusion, but when we played, we were using 2 vocal channels in the PA, 1 for the keys, and 1 for the guitar. That's all. All the talk about 8 drum channels, etc. was not referring to the gig in question. It was talking about gigs I play on drums with a different band.

That said, the nail in the coffin (for me, anyway) is that the keys player and I agree that it was a terrible show. And the guitard STILL thinks it went great. We know that it was the biggest show he's ever played and the most money he ever made for playing a show. That difference in values and knowing that the guitard is never going to get it is why we're both quitting the band.

If he came to us afterwards and said, "man, you guys were right. That was terrible. I should listened to you when you tried to get us to book [another venue which we could have played] and when you asked all those questions about their PA and sound guy." If he had said something like that, we would feel like we had some common ground to make changes and move forward together. Instead, he thinks it went great! And thus, we feel like there's just no common ground. Irreconcilable differences, as they say. Life lessons don't get any more slap-you-in-the-face than that gig and he got NOTHING out of it.

The guitard is so clueless, he had a conversation with the keys player on Sat afternoon where she laid down the law and he agreed the all he would do in the future is play, sing, and write, and he would leave all the sales, marketing, promotions, and business stuff to me and the keys player. Later that night, he took the recording he made using his own Zoom handheld recorder, which he placed right next to his guitar amp (which had the input sensitivity set to High and thus is incredibly distorted), and posted it on our Facebook page with Buy Now links next to each track. Including the recording of the one cover/blues standard we did (It Hurts Me Too). Trying to sell a recording of us doing somebody else's song, which we don't have rights to! Pure genius!