…anyone got one? …
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Well…yes. I am off tonight (Sat), played last night to a packed, drunken, lively club. Private party on New Years.
Sounds fun! I’d actually love to have a gig. I may look into getting in a covers band just for fun. Not a lot of gigs in our town though. I would dig doing an 80s band- Tears For Fears, Thomas Dolby, that stuff.
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I’m doing a lot of 80’s and 90’s lately. Many requests for it. We really had fun last night in a medium size club we play occasionally. Extremely lively crowd, wanting to dance. We called it drunken ladies night because there were many tables of just women raising hell.
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Me too. I was hoping Welsh Floyd was going to get going again, but it looks like that has gone cold for at least a while.
I did look at doing 70s/80s electronics covers a few years back, but sadly it fell through (it really was musical differences!). There is a lot of good stuff that has stood the test of time well. I was doing “Are Friends Electric?” - Tubeway Army, “Mad World” - Tears for Fears, “Fade to Gray” - Visage and “The Voice” - Ultravox (Vienna was too obvious!).
I had some nice crimbo toys mind, and it has fired me up again to get some of my solo electric stuff finished and I think I will seek a gig based on that.
The one thing I miss from the pub rock/functions band that I started in, was the pretty young things shaking their stuff in front of you and even their dancing on the tables. I hated 50% of the music mind! You don’t quite get the same audience reaction when doing the Floyd!
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We got one we call the Beta Fish Girl, 'cuz she’s always dancing in front of a mirror looking like she wants to murder the woman dancing in front of her . . . Why Yes, she Is on the keyboard side of the stage . . .
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Yep, working at a new place in the nearby berg, we do 60’s 70’s 80’s 90’s … well you get the idea, but we play ‘well’ mostly on the older Pop, R&B, Blues and Southern rock styles. The hard part now compared to the old days is turning down quiet enough to work in some of these new establishments here. All my local music contacts say the same thing … that they get told to turn down to where it has no balls anymore. I have been blessed that C3 has sliders for that a’plenty 
and am finding a way to get the job done. I still got to say though that you really have difficulty performing ‘21st Century Schizoid Man’ ala Emerson at low levels, it needs room to roar so I guess I’ll save it to play at home and stick with the ‘lounge lizard mix’ we have concocted to gig around here! I can remember partying at clubs like @Corky described in Calgary Alta. when I was a pup, the bars were like large barns with up to 500 seats and very loud music all the time, you had to turn up to be heard with the size and all the people in there!
Happy New Year Everyone! 
Dave
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There were probably 200 patrons at the Friday night gig, so they were as loud as we were. I had one couple dancing in front of me with very little room left on dance floor. They decided to do spins and such, and kept running into my rig. When they did, the female hit my mic stand. After 3 times getting poked in the mouth with the mic, I stopped playing and grabbed the mic out of the stand and finished the song. My upper lip has scabs from the cuts I recieved. Ahh what I do to perform!
Speaking of barns, I did a lot of those in the day. Big crowds having a good time. Couldn’t do that here anymore cause there would be some gun play involved for sure.
New Years Eve will probably bring more injury. 
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Hey Dave
I run into that occasionally here, but in two of the “ampless” bands I play in, we can control the club volume to whatever they deem appropriate while jamming our asses off in our in-ears. The PA is virtually the equivalent of turning the radio down…the sound is still great, but at lower volumes for the patrons. A virtual Marshall stack is still one of my go to sounds while jamming out on a well executed monster rock lead from my blazing Strat.
Just sayin’…
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I have a standing rule- minimum 2’ buffer zone between band and audience 
In 2003 to warm up for NEARFest Glass Hammer played a pizza joint in Nashville. I have utterly no idea why. The stage fit the drums. And Steve (bass) might have been up there next to him. The rest of us were on the floor and a table was right up against the keyboards- they put drinks on the Leslie. I would have yelled at them but what’s the point; everyone puts drinks on the Leslie.
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When the dance floor is full, buffer zones do not exist to drinkers.
Isn’t a Leslie a cup holder? I grew up thinking that. 
Now that my Leslie is in my laptop, I am dreading the day it becomes a drink holder.
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I think we have all played gaffs similar to that. I played a few dives in Swansea where the stage was only large enough for the drums (and he never brought a small kit out, despite knowing the places). I’ve had somebody try and rest a pint on my Yamaha EX5 whilst she tried to speak to the guitarist wedged up next to me. First and last time I ever swore loudly at a woman, whilst I was playing, so I had to yell over the PA. She had a bit of a shock…
But my worst story, which I’ll save for another day, was the bass player’s beer being dropped over my keyboards mid gig…
Isn’t that what the CD tray is for? 
Good point! I think that is all it is good for anymore. 
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When I started gigging in the 70s (in British Columbia) every guitar player had either a Marshall or Hiwatt stack and maybe a Roland JC120 for clean. Bass players carried an Ampeg SVT with at least 1 8x10 cabinet, though, many times 2 cabs. I had my Hammond and Leslie 145, Wurly and minimoog. We’re talking tonnage! No one seemed to complain about the volume (too much). And the sound was glorious!
Now, guitarists are wondering if a Fender Blues Junior might be a little over the top!
I was at NEARFest that year and saw you guys! 
Neil
Add all that to a horn section, and that is what we sounded like in the 60’s and 70’s. It was all loud and very uncontrollable. Lee Michaels with two Leslies, and a drummer was considered one of the loudest acts ever, beating out The Who.
What I am seeing in my part of this planet is Millennials are now running the clubs and venues. Many of them have not been exposed to live bands. I’ve also noticed that in those clubs, the background music is not particularly loud either. I am always amazed by younger people approaching us with surprise at the fact we are actually making live music.
Well, at least, they will have their hearing much longer than us,
Thank God for in-ears. Turns a lounge gig into a stadium show. We play private parties at a really big hall locally and the gig wouldn’t be complete without the manager requesting a volume reduction. His philosophy is it shouldn’t be so loud that people can’t carry on a conversation right outside the dance floor. Not too many bands (including us) want to be known as a band you can talk over.
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Yes, @RedSurfer it was glorious, there were some incredible bands out of BC back then and there still are (my brother still lives in Cowtown). One of my fondest Canuck band fan memories was when a young debut album band called Rush from BC opened for a great British rock band called Nazareth at a private party at Clearwater Beach Alta. outside of Calgary circa late summer 1974. It was owned and run by the Stu Hart family of Stampede Wrestling fame. Instead of any Clearwater there was an awful yellow colored lake that no one would go to close too, not even birds. Bikers from everywhere in Western Canada were there and the Nazareth band almost got into a brawl with some of them near the stage when they were getting too rowdy for comfort! Too rowdy for me too, I tried to stay back from folks like that when they’re all worked up. The Brits had stiff spines for sure standing up to that many rowdies at once and stood them down somehow without breaking any guitar necks (the bass player wielded his axe like a splitting maul!) Those were the days of ear melting rock sonics that you felt as much as heard and that concert was a great one, even with the wrinkles. Like Corky said, the younger folks will probably have their hearing longer than i will for sure (but I loved every minute of it ). And like @SteveK says thank God for in-ears at quiet establishments …
Dave
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