Inspired by the interesting and fun gig stories of fellow tbers like @BassCliff, I thought it might be fun to tell one of my own.
This was my first gig on a stage taller than a beer bottle in over 20 years. Playing with my band "Bad Cake" and four other local original bands for a Halloween party/breast cancer fundraiser at the Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie, NY, USA.
Drove in from Massachusetts, and the foliage color was starting to pop. The weather was just fantastic.
Poughkeepsie has a lot of cool old architecture, and it's right on the Hudson River. Beautiful, this time of year. Sure, a lil stabby at night… but where isn't? Here's a sunrise photo from the hotel. I forgot to shut the blind so I was up at the crack of dawn.
We went to the club to decorate and set up the night before the show. The Chance is a historic old theater with a vintage art-deco vibe. Very unique and funky. Growing up in the area, I saw probably a hundred bands there, and had played there in the 90's a few times. It was neat to be back.
Show night! Yes, my band is proudly sponsored by purveyors of bongs and dildos. With two graphic designers in the band, we tried to outdo each other with what sorts of weird dumb shwag we could come up with. Note the "Classic Jorge Stage Lamp" bottom left. Jorge is our hype man. He looks like Moses. Nobody bought the lamp. It's ok, we wanted it for ourselves anyway.
It should be mentioned that I am the worst salesman in the world, favorite line being "your money is no good here". They banned me from the merch booth.
All the bands were great and very different. Everyone was super friendly. All the bass players were by far the coolest chillest and most talented and most handsome people in the room.
The rig for the gig was my spanking new Boogie D800+ and a less new pair of Genz Benz Neox12T 12" ported cabs
This was my first test of this rig pairing in the wild. It was a very large stage (by my standards), but I had no problem hearing myself, and there was plenty of juice on tap if more volume was needed. Gain and Volume were both at about 11:00. The DI tone out front was killer. I love how the GB cabs have tilt-back hardware on them. Left the bottom cab flat, and tilted the top one. Feel like it really helps the monitoring be more audible with less volume. I screwed a guitar hanger into the side of the top cab, and hung my backup bass there (ibanez mikro) in case of apocalyptic meltdown.
The pedalboard for the gig:
• Polytune Mini
• MarkBass MB Mini Distortion
• Wampler Ego Mini compressor
• JHS Panther Cub analog delay
• TC Ditto looper
• Bright switch
• one-spot daisy chain power
• Board itself is a piece of angled metal, repurposed from a small music stand
This was my first test of this pedalboard in the wild as well. Worked great, no issues. I was a little concerned how my distortion box (markbass mb mini distortion) would sound through FOH. But another bassist in the audience said "it's sounded as good as my Darkglass". He might have been just being kind, but hey, I'll take it!
The band after us used my rig, pedalboard and all. Sounded great to me out front. I found it very interesting that he got such a completely different tone than me, even though every setting was the same. He was using a Fender J with a pick, and it was nice and gritty, very ampegish to my ears.
That's me on the right. We were playing our homemade horror movies in the background.
Gig went great. No major meltdowns. My primary goals were achieved:
1) don't fall off the front of the stage
2) don't f*ck up so bad you run out of the building in tears
3) push every button on my board at least once
4) Try to sneak-in as much unnecessary pentatonic soling and bass wankery as possible. (I paid good money to be on this stage, damit. I'm not going to let this opportunity pass me by.)
The only critical thing that went wrong was when our guitarist decided to be a pirate after we had all agreed to be pigs. WTH guitarists?? Why you gotta be so difficult?
Lots of people showed up in costumes, and a lot of fun was had. Raised a bunch of cash for a good cause, and it was a fun reunion as lots of old friends showed up. All the band were great, and I met some really cool bass players. Everyone had a very different style, sound and vibe, and all were really fun to check out. Good times!
Here's me on the left, with some old friends who came out.
If you got this far, thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed this Halloween tale!
This was my first gig on a stage taller than a beer bottle in over 20 years. Playing with my band "Bad Cake" and four other local original bands for a Halloween party/breast cancer fundraiser at the Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie, NY, USA.
Drove in from Massachusetts, and the foliage color was starting to pop. The weather was just fantastic.
Poughkeepsie has a lot of cool old architecture, and it's right on the Hudson River. Beautiful, this time of year. Sure, a lil stabby at night… but where isn't? Here's a sunrise photo from the hotel. I forgot to shut the blind so I was up at the crack of dawn.
We went to the club to decorate and set up the night before the show. The Chance is a historic old theater with a vintage art-deco vibe. Very unique and funky. Growing up in the area, I saw probably a hundred bands there, and had played there in the 90's a few times. It was neat to be back.
Show night! Yes, my band is proudly sponsored by purveyors of bongs and dildos. With two graphic designers in the band, we tried to outdo each other with what sorts of weird dumb shwag we could come up with. Note the "Classic Jorge Stage Lamp" bottom left. Jorge is our hype man. He looks like Moses. Nobody bought the lamp. It's ok, we wanted it for ourselves anyway.
It should be mentioned that I am the worst salesman in the world, favorite line being "your money is no good here". They banned me from the merch booth.
All the bands were great and very different. Everyone was super friendly. All the bass players were by far the coolest chillest and most talented and most handsome people in the room.
The rig for the gig was my spanking new Boogie D800+ and a less new pair of Genz Benz Neox12T 12" ported cabs
This was my first test of this rig pairing in the wild. It was a very large stage (by my standards), but I had no problem hearing myself, and there was plenty of juice on tap if more volume was needed. Gain and Volume were both at about 11:00. The DI tone out front was killer. I love how the GB cabs have tilt-back hardware on them. Left the bottom cab flat, and tilted the top one. Feel like it really helps the monitoring be more audible with less volume. I screwed a guitar hanger into the side of the top cab, and hung my backup bass there (ibanez mikro) in case of apocalyptic meltdown.
The pedalboard for the gig:
• Polytune Mini
• MarkBass MB Mini Distortion
• Wampler Ego Mini compressor
• JHS Panther Cub analog delay
• TC Ditto looper
• Bright switch
• one-spot daisy chain power
• Board itself is a piece of angled metal, repurposed from a small music stand
This was my first test of this pedalboard in the wild as well. Worked great, no issues. I was a little concerned how my distortion box (markbass mb mini distortion) would sound through FOH. But another bassist in the audience said "it's sounded as good as my Darkglass". He might have been just being kind, but hey, I'll take it!
The band after us used my rig, pedalboard and all. Sounded great to me out front. I found it very interesting that he got such a completely different tone than me, even though every setting was the same. He was using a Fender J with a pick, and it was nice and gritty, very ampegish to my ears.
That's me on the right. We were playing our homemade horror movies in the background.
Gig went great. No major meltdowns. My primary goals were achieved:
1) don't fall off the front of the stage
2) don't f*ck up so bad you run out of the building in tears
3) push every button on my board at least once
4) Try to sneak-in as much unnecessary pentatonic soling and bass wankery as possible. (I paid good money to be on this stage, damit. I'm not going to let this opportunity pass me by.)
The only critical thing that went wrong was when our guitarist decided to be a pirate after we had all agreed to be pigs. WTH guitarists?? Why you gotta be so difficult?
Lots of people showed up in costumes, and a lot of fun was had. Raised a bunch of cash for a good cause, and it was a fun reunion as lots of old friends showed up. All the band were great, and I met some really cool bass players. Everyone had a very different style, sound and vibe, and all were really fun to check out. Good times!
Here's me on the left, with some old friends who came out.
If you got this far, thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed this Halloween tale!
