Gig’s

Marlipins – 8th March 2019

I played at the marlipins pub on the 8th of march. This was a paid gig in shoreham in which I played a mixture of covers and originals. I took a couple of weeks preparing for this and the setlist was originally intended to look like this:

Lucky man – The Verve

Wonder – original

Waste of Time – original

She moves in her own way – The Kooks

Lost in Paradise – original

Whatever – Oasis

Come on to Me – original

Guitar solo

Beatles mashup – I Feel Fine, Hard days night, I am the walrus, Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Crazy little thing called love – Queen

Off by heart – original

Guitar solo interlude

Another brick in the wall – Pink Floyd

Naive eyes – original

Wave after wave – original

Live forever – Oasis

One of a kind – original

Mashup – it must be love – madness, Town called malice – the Jam, Lets dance – David Bowie, Tainted love – Soft cell

The place was quite small so setting up the PA was a bit of a challenge however we managed to move a few tables to make space. There was a member of the audience talking about how much he loved Queen so I decided to open with “crazy little thing called love” as I didn’t want him to leave early on. I also replaced “come on to me” with another original called “not today” as I thought it was too heavy. I also did not play “off by heart” as it was one of the weaker ones as it didn’t have a backing track. I also added in “since i’ve been loving you” by Led zeppelin as it was a chance to show off my guitar abilities. Overall the crowd reacted well especially to the mashup of songs that I did to end it as they were all well known songs.

The Waverley – 13th April 2019

I played at the Waverley in Bognor on the 13th of April Supporting a group called the Boy wonders. I got this gig as the lead singer of the band was my old primary school teacher. Unlike the gig before, my set was only 30 minutes at first, and then has to be cut down to 25 minutes as setting up the PA system took a lot longer than we expected.

This was the setlist including the song I cut out:

Lost in Paradise – Original

Come on to Me – Original

Waste of Time – Original

Wave after Wave – Original

Wonder – Original (cut due to lack of time)

One of a Kind – Original

Stay for the Night – Original

This gig allowed me to play all of my original stuff as everyone else was playing all originals. I used backing tracks for all of my songs except for “wave after wave” which is more of a slow acoustic song. I had more room this time so I was able to use my Marshall silver jubilee half stack which makes my guitar sound a lot better than the busking amp I was playing with at the Marlipins. There were a lot of people watching and my confidence between songs improved drastically from the last gig. I mentioned my songs on spotify and a few people said they had followed me on social media and on spotify after the gig.

Bar 42 – 18th April 2019

I played at bar 42 on the 18th April as the opening act for Pangalactic festival. unfortunately there were very few people there so it was more of a rehearsal than an actual gig. I used the same setlist as the week before and from this gig I learnt that I need to improve my advertising and get more people to come to my gigs. It did however give me a chance to run through my set in an actual venue which made it more realistic.

Preparation

I prepare for all my gigs in my own home as I am a solo artist. This does make it a lot easier and affordable as I have all the equipment I need in my own home. I have a behringer PA system which I use for backing tracks, vocals and acoustic guitar as well as a looper for some of songs during the set depending on the gig. I use a marshall silver jubilee half stack, a Gibson les Paul and my pedal board in order to achieve my electric guitar tone.Before I started as a solo artist I didn’t need to use backing tracks but now its the only way to get the sound of a full band without paying for session musicians. I create the backing tracks by muting the vocal and lead guitar parts on recorded songs and adding a click when necessary. Whilst preparing for the gig at the marlins I had to download backing tracks of covers as it was a paid pub gig and I wanted to get a good response from the crowd. This took a lot longer than my usual set preparation as I had to play for an hour and a half instead of half an hour.