Musicians at gigs with £150 haircuts wanting the borrow everything?

CHRISB50

bingefeller said:

What is landfill indie?

ICBM

digitalscream said:

Even if I'm sharing somebody else's cab, I'll usually take my own anyway. I know it seems a bit redundant, but I had one instance where we arranged to share the headliner's cabs, and it turned out on the night that one of their guitarists only had a Line6 Spider III 1x12" combo.

"What's the problem? Stop being awkward, just plug your amp into it. It'll be fine."

It would be interesting to know where he thought you could plug your amp in, since a Spider III doesn't have an accessible speaker connection.

Or maybe you should just have plugged the speaker out of your amp into the input of his and waited for the inevitable "my amp isn't working now"… to which the answer is "so? You told me it would be fine."

digitalscream

ICBM said:

It would be interesting to know where he thought you could plug your amp in, since a Spider III doesn't have an accessible speaker connection.

Answered by...

ICBM said:

Or maybe you should just have plugged the speaker out of your amp into the input of his and waited for the inevitable "my amp isn't working now"… to which the answer is "so? You told me it would be fine."

Really. In all honesty, I wasn't remotely concerned about his amp - just the idea that it could end up with a short or an open circuit on the speaker output of my Soldano

english_bob

PVO_Dave said:

After setting up once at a venue, me and the rest of the band went out for food as we had some time to kill before we played, the promoter gave my number to one of the other bands guitarists, he called me up to tell me he was going to use my amp! I had to tell him in no uncertain terms that this wouldn't end well for him. 

What a dick. As if turning up to the gig with no amp and no plan doesn't make him look like enough of a plum, he decides to prove that he's an ignorant prick with no manners either. I've been lucky enough not to have to deal with assclowns like that on a gig in a long time. Hoping to keep it that way.

lloyd

I borrow and lend amps on multi band lineups. I always organise it well before and am happy to bring my amp if people want it or people don't want to let me use theirs.

Turning up without it and expecting to use gear is a bit much, especially a guitar-It's hardly an effort to sling one over your back on the bus or even walking for a few miles.

I've let people grab my guitar and use it when theirs has gone down or bust a string, but only if they're not knob heads and aren't thrashing the strings.

welshboyo

True Story this..

My Dad played in a band in the 60's, was on the same bill as Screaming Lord Sutch one evening and a certain guitarist by the name of Mr Blackmore needed an amp to plug into as his amp had gone down....my Dad loaned him his AC30...

There was some sort of revolving stage at the venue and Sutch made his stage entry on this revolving thing in a coffin, burst out of the coffin and smashed an axe straight through my Dads' AC30..he never got paid for the damage/loss

So Mr Blackmore, if you happen to read this forum, where's me f'in money?

vasselmeyer

ICBM said:

It's almost worth taking a really horrible backup guitar with a cheesegrater action and partly-working electrics just to return the favour… and making sure it isn't in tune.

It would be amusing to offer someone my slide guitar. I'd tune it to standard but the action would stay high and I'd leave the 13s on it. Might make them think twice about asking the next time.

57Deluxe

/\ take 3 strings off of it whilst you're at it....

IanSavage

BenSirAmos said:

I don't often feel anything for drummers. But I do feel sorry for them when they are expected to let total tossers hit their expensive kit with all their strength. And smashing the drum pedal down like they are urgently pumping up a tyre.

Wisdom for this; I've played with drummers who had single cymbals that were worth more than my bass / guitar / car and support bands and/or pissed-up audience members wanting to give their kit a beating.

Saw a gig once where I knew the drummer of the headline band - I turned up early for soundcheck, had a natter with him about how good his new (very expensive) kit was sounding, watched the drummer from the support band knock over the stand-mounted toms in a 'rock 'n' roll abandon' ending. And nearly wet myself laughing as my mate full-on launched himself at the twat and gave him a beating

hugbot

My last bands tour we brought guitar cabs and bass heads and hired a van to carry them in on the basis that while we'd like to just borrow that stuff, you cant just turn up and assume.

Annoyingly, every gig the venue or other bands insisted "oh no just use ours to save time".  We could have done the tour in a standard  car.

Teetonetal

the really, really mean thing to do of course is say, sure you can borrow my amp and hand over an EHX Caliber 22..

impmann

I had this - so I politely said "sorry mate, I don't lend my gear to anyone."

We had threats, we had petty sabotage and then the venue refused to pay us because we had ruined *their* evening.

When I played the toilet circuit back in the 90s, playing support to all sorts of "up and coming" bands, we brought our own gear and it was a problem if we couldn't use it. I can't imagine not taking my own gear to a gig...

Teetonetal

IanSavage said:

BenSirAmos said:

I don't often feel anything for drummers. But I do feel sorry for them when they are expected to let total tossers hit their expensive kit with all their strength. And smashing the drum pedal down like they are urgently pumping up a tyre.

Wisdom for this; I've played with drummers who had single cymbals that were worth more than my bass / guitar / car and support bands and/or pissed-up audience members wanting to give their kit a beating.

Saw a gig once where I knew the drummer of the headline band - I turned up early for soundcheck, had a natter with him about how good his new (very expensive) kit was sounding, watched the drummer from the support band knock over the stand-mounted toms in a 'rock 'n' roll abandon' ending. And nearly wet myself laughing as my mate full-on launched himself at the twat and gave him a beating

extra wisdom.

I love playing drums, but will for ever stick to my DT Express IV as the thought of the cost of all those cymbals is frightening, then there is the cost of re-skinning the thing.. not to mention the pack up / pack down..

Rox

A Cautionary Tale.

Once, a guitarist at a gig was allowed to play another guitarists guitar.  He loved playing it very very much, and the owner of the guitar - likely under the influence of drugs and/or drink - agreed to give the young lad the guitar for nothing.

Poor Peter Green. 

Sassafras

I'm like Blanche Dubois, I've always relied on the kindness of strangers.

That is until someone lent me his guitar and it was covered in blood from where he'd been strumming it very enthusiastically. I only had about 20 seconds to wipe it down as best I could. I'm not generally squeamish but I draw the line at mixing blood and other bodily fluids unless I know the person very well.

Philly_Q

I'm just wondering who charges £150 for a haircut.

Does it look like this?

english_bob

Pete24v said:

Guy no.1 - two guitars, only one was electro, so he 'needed' a mic and stand for the other. He complained about MY lack of DI box for HIS electro acoustic. And he pretty much gave my vocal mic a BJ. 

Guy no.2 One guitar and a lead this time, all be it 2m of it. Needed big reverb in and out during various points of his songs. Kept referring to me as Mr.Soundguy whilst on stage.

 

I have slightly more sympathy for these guys than the no-amp, no-guitar crowd. I've never been a solo acoustic performer but I'd consider a DI box part of the PA system and be rather surprised if the house system anywhere I played didn't have one. That said, in this instance with the PA not being provided by a hire company or installed in-house to cope with every eventuality I'd say it's the promoter's fault that he didn't know he'd need one.

Sometimes these things are a clash of two people's idea of "the way we've always done it", and IMO it should be part of a promoter's job to make sure everybody's singing from the same hymn sheet.

Other parts of the story I have less sympathy with. No leads? That's not on. I'm probably guilty of the "Mr Soundguy" thing, but only because I'm terrible at remembering people's names. I do ask, and I do try to remember... If I needed that big reverb though I'd almost certainly find some way to do it myself. It's not a good idea to leave something that's essential to your song up to somebody who's never heard you before and probably, understandably, isn't that bothered.

Loobs

Wtf, no guitar?

I have no problem backline (re cabs) sharing with nice people. It saves a lot of work and what's the harm of sharing a fucking cab or drum kit? There's absolutely no point in loading in two drum kits and several 4x12s for a bar gig.

Breakables, amp heads, generally not. Guitar, no way.

To friends bands, I'd have no problem lending a guitar head (we often have, or vice versa).

It's all very well to be sanctamonious but doing a tour and trying to get everything to run smoothly often forces you into situations like this. I hate people who are tight c*nts just for the sake of it.

IanSavage

english_bob said:

I'm probably guilty of the "Mr Soundguy" thing, but only because I'm terrible at remembering people's names. I do ask, and I do try to remember...

I once did the sound at a show where Ian Siegal and Ainsley Lister were sharing a stage, it got slightly confusing whenever Ainsley wanted anything changing I think we did give up and just label me 'soundman' for the night...

joeyowen

Cirrus said:

joeyowen said:

Imagine a pilot turns up and asks to borrow a plane?

Absolutely, I can't imagine getting into a Jumbo Jet that wasn't owned and brought from home by the pilot. :P

HA! point taken