Gig Report: REMnant debut gig tonight at Knomad Bar... disappointed in myself but overall a good show by the band! NOW WITH VIDEO... yes video!

smurfco

smurfco

Meatus McPrepuce
Soo the R.E.M. tribute I'm in had our first show tonight. Overall I think we did a good job but I'm mad at myself for a few rookie mistakes.

First off I was trying to get my phone set up to record some side-stage video to mix in with the front video I was recording. (Those cameras I ordered got stolen from the mail room :mad: so I wanted to at least have a second angle even if it was phone video). I set it up so all I had to do was hit record - taped it to a music stand and set it to the right angle. Then I forgot to hit record until halfway through the first song. Then I went to turn it on after the first song and my phone was locked and sideways and I couldn't get it to unlock, and I couldn't untape it from the music stand, and I din't want to just stand there futzing around since the guys were ready to start the second tune. So I abandoned the second camera angle. bummer!

Then my bass was sounding pretty bad... muddy and kind of dull. I was like what the hell is going on, and I messed with my preamp (was using the Return of the loop so I could just use my BASSRIG Fender Black Panel pre-amp and the head's power section) but nothing helped. Then about halfway through the set I realized my freakin' volume knobs were halfway down on my bass :facepalm: so I turned them up and now the bass sounds great but it's way too loud so I'm fumbling around trying to get the volume down during the next song

All of this combined to make me feel pretty frustrated and anxious on stage so I was making dumb mistakes on songs I have had down cold both in home rehearsal and at practice. At a certain point I had to force myself to relax and things got a little bit better after that but I'm pretty disappointed overall in how I did. I know nobody in the audience noticed much but I noticed it and it was just stupid stuff so I felt bad.

The good news is that the place was packed! and everyone really seemed to like it a lot. We got a lot of really nice compliments and there were a couple other people there from some of the bigger local tribute acts (Devo and B-52s) and they said they'd like to do a show with us. And the rest of the band did great. So overall a good night, but eughhh...

I video'd the whole show and I will post it up here when I get it uploaded in case anyone'd like to hear it.

:mad:
 
We've all had those type of first gigs. If the audience still enjoyed it, you did ok, and it can only get better from there.
 
Eh, all those little Spinal Tap moments just come with the territory. You just gotta let it go and move on.
 
The nice thing is that even if someone did notice that your bass sounded less than perfect until you fixed it, they would not know why it happened. A person in the audience would have just assumed a bad cable connection or some other equipment malfunction, not player error.

There are levels of mistakes you can make in a live band performance. There are mistakes you notice, but the band, and audience, do not. Then, there are mistakes you notice, the band notices, but the audience does not. But, the worst mistakes get noticed by you, the band and everyone in the audience.
 
I'm looking forward to listening to the gig. Personally, I enjoy it when the bass is turned up a little louder.
What song were you blasting it on?
 
Andrew Sak said:
I'm looking forward to listening to the gig. Personally, I enjoy it when the bass is turned up a little louder.
What song were you blasting it on?
Click to expand...
Apparently all of them, according to someone in the audience - but I'm looking at the video now (will share soon) and I think it sounds pretty balanced. I think it's brighter than people are used to hearing for bass (though accurate to Mike Mills' tone) so maybe that's why they thought it was too loud...
 
smurfco said:
Here's the full gig if anyone's interested:

Click to expand...

The guitar was too low on the first song. It was fine after.

The drums seemed a bit low in the mix overall. Maybe, that's because of the way it was recorded.

You guys need to work on improving lyrics. Some of them seem a bit nonsense.

Otherwise, I think it was pretty good. There may be a real market for your music. Maybe, try hitting up an independent label or college radio station.
 
You all sound great, I'd definitely enjoy watching you live. I think the bass-forward mix was in your favor. I really enjoyed hearing all those great Mills basslines clearly. Did you turn up the tone knob for Talk about the Passion?
 
jrockbridge said:
The guitar was too low on the first song. It was fine after.

The drums seemed a bit low in the mix overall. Maybe, that's because of the way it was recorded.

You guys need to work on improving lyrics. Some of them seem a bit nonsense.

Otherwise, I think it was pretty good. There may be a real market for your music. Maybe, try hitting up an independent label or college radio station.
Click to expand...

Maybe report them to the IRS?
 
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