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[mosley_666]

As a drummer in a band (Shigai) I can't believe that I'd be the one to complain about lack of organisation. This being the first festival stage we've ever played we were amped to play for the best part of a month since we were confirmed and we were expecting to have the most thorough soundcheck we've ever had... About a week beforehand we receieved a message telling us to be there at 4.30 sharp to load in and soundcheck asap and they wanted a detailed description of our stage line up so they could prepare and plan out early. By 5pm all 4 bands have arrived but they were still faffing on with the lights and we wern't given permission to start setting up the drums until 7, by the time they got set up we were told only the headliners were getting a soundcheck which seemed pointless as the first 3 bands were using completely different equipment...
After lots of arguing we finally got permission to do a line check, and then they got the shock of their lives when we had a keyboarder and smaller guitar amps despite the fact that we gave them every detail of our gear a week before. Then during the soundcheck what we heard on stage was way off, no guitars and only keyboard but according to our friends what was coming outfront was spot on and the sound tech said he'd sort out our monitor issues during the set, they only got worse and the sound coming out was replaced by a rather loud hum which lasted for the most part of the set.
Funnily enough the 2 bands who had the best quality sound by far were the 2 bands who didnt get soundchecked at all (Fortune Favours the Brave and A Thousand Lies).
Anyway after our set finished we heard a mixture of opinions, "Shigai are a joke" and "was there actually a sound technician working tonight?" thankfully a lot of people appreciated the fact that the band can't do their job if the sound techs dont do their's and it really is that simple. You may argue our singer was anihilated, we take that on board and try to make the music cancel that out but last night we wer'nt given that chance.
p.s no disrepect to the people who run the burn night on a regular basis, I think of Mal as a good friend to the band and Maria does a fantastic job of keeping the place going

[Alick]

if you're on about the friday night in the G, which is the one that clashes with sumo it doesnt do  bands, or at least not when i've been there. mal's the best DJ ever, the only reason the club mightn't be doing so well is cos people

1-like shit music and wanna listen to screamo and assorted wank in sumo
2-don't want the trek to stockton

i woudln't say it's going to the dogs anyway. maybe not a lot of people are regulars but mal's always said to me if there were 200 people requesting my chemical romance he'd prefer to stick to playing the requests more with the night like the stuff we'd request even if it's only me and jamie spazzing out on the floor as per usual

but yeah the actual festival gig bit does sound pretty dodgy, but i'm not in a band so can't really comment on that

[Cyanic]

To be quite honest, I had assumed that you had BADLY pissed off the sound technician, to the point where he was making you sound shit.

It didn't help either that your lead singer was blatently wrecked!

But it was an allright show overall, from the crowds point of view, though I am slightly confused why 99% of the crowd was stood at the back?

-
I loved your cover of The Trooper by the way. You should really use the spare slot on your myspace to upload it!

[kes]

shigai were used as the soundcheck thats what happens when a band goes first i guess in those circumstances..., turning up the bass turning off lead guitar in the middle of a maiden solo - FUCKING TIT sound people .. giving backing vocals much more volume compared to lead ..... i dont even want to start talking about the drum level set up ...
id like to say however 2 hours before the doors were supposed to open i asked the sound engineer ..who should seriously think about a new profession .... if he knew about our set up of 2 keyboards , 3 vocals 2 leadguits  and two double bass drums......He replied were waiting for the headliners drummer to get here who was bringing a different kit , even though we'd been asked to donate ours for all 4 bands........ It doesnt bother me as such cos those who have listened to our music and seen us play gigs weve put on ourseves know how tight we are and how serious the music is ...pretty much everything that could of gone wrong lastnight did go wrong for us , though it was so good to see athousand lies raise the roof!

[BGF]

Just out of interest - did you consider emailing the organisers? Or even speaking to the venue manager on the night to air your frustrations?

I'm not really sure posting all this on a public forum will do you the world of good.

Having said that, the sound in the Georgian is notoriously poor on stage; I was hoping with the refurb might have come a new set of monitors!

And the more gigs you do, the more you'll get used to things not running on time and things not sounding as you think they should.

You've just got to get used to it sadly!

And if you're worried what the inhouse sound guy will be like, take your own sound engineer.

[kes]

Henry , fella ..i think its quite clear it wasnt us who were unorganised , were mainly pissed off cos its our last few gigs , as the band are disbanding for university so us doing LOTS more gigs is out of the question ,  not only that but the last time we played there they hired in a diff sound guy and the sound was immense....im not pointing my finger at anyone i think it was very badly unorganised ..i mean my first ever gig i put on ..fair enuff it was a small venue .(the sun inn) but i did an all dayer with 10 bands all of which i got the contact numbers for a month before the gig , all of which i had pretty much a portfolio worth of promo/set lists/ back lines .....and may i add it went very smoothly .... the p.a mics that we hired from green dragon  studio were the only things that messed up ...  may i include that all dayer featured bands such as A thousand lies from Blythe , Atlantis Knight a hand ful of hartlepool bands , and UK METAL HAMMER tourers Beyond The Grave ....If a guy for his first ever organised gig can sort that with no hickups....a Really top class venue! Can sort 4 bands out within however long the place has been closed for refurb .... and considering all of the bands were there for pretty much half 4 like we were told ....i think you should have been there mate , it was hell lol!  

[mosley_666]

and to the comment about the georgian as a night out, i have nothing against Mal or Maria for that matter and on the dj side of things they can't be beaten I was trying to put as much emphasis on the fact that the whole thing was so badly organised

however on the ultimate bright side the fringe organisers still recognise that metal still has a voice and gave 4 great bands the chance to play and I want to see turnouts that size more often, potential fantasticness if it could become consistent

[kes]

just seems pretty pretentious to say the very least that the sound engineeer laughed and didnt apologise considering our thorough organisation......And we do expect an apology , seems ironic for every good metal band round here atleast 5 shitty metalcore/deathcore bands are formed its all promoters fault ... and if people are sick of it like me they will do something about it like i intend to as of October!

[JJ]

oh well ey!  

[Tainted Luke]

There's no denying that there were problems with the stage monitors on friday night, however the situation wasn't down to incompetence but circumstance.  The Georgian Renovation has been a huge task run to a very tight deadline to make sure that it was ready for the festival.  Only two days before the Burn night, the place was still very much a building site.  

Even though the sound system hasn't been changed during the renovation, the whole thing was stripped out and then reinstalled when the building work was complete.  There simply wasn't time to thoroughly test everything out with a full band (Thursday night was an acoustic night - simple to set up).  Slight changes to the routing from the desk to the monitors caused feedback problems that only became apparent during the sound check.

Its unfortunate and regrettable but sometimes these things happen and complaining about it in internet forums doesn't do anyone any good.

[kes]

yeh we know , its  a week away now fuck it ey lol ..

[benmFFTB]

hey its ben m here from FFTB. we played after shigai and personally i thought the sound was ok. we didn't get a sound check, but as we're used to not getting one we told the sound engineer what we wanted in terms of sound on stage and out. from monitor arrangements to lights, to vocal volume.

as far as organisation goes its the usual thing that happens at most gigs, half the time we usually get a quick line check and take it from there. I agree with henry that its maybe not the best idea having a go over haxed, let the management know and hopefully this will help organise an event next time.

[F-Diddy]

Henry , fella ..
 

aaaargh!!
I hate that expression "fella"!!

ok, carry on

[kes]

he is a fella" isnt he ?

[F-Diddy]

he is yes, its such a patronising expression though. as in "listen fella, I'm gonna tell ya how it is...." akin to I'm not being funny, but...


anyways, ignore me, I'm just using my newly acquired freedom of the internet to air my opinion