Gig with a difference - mini report

Andy

Honorary Member
A new venue opened up locally a couple of months back. A craft brewery - industrial building in an industrial park out of town. I suppose it's appeal is it's fairly rough industrial aesthetic. It's a working brewery during the week, but Saturday night, they wheel in a bar & get live music in.

Sound wise, it's a challenging space. Fine for duos or near acoustic acts. Fine too for a bit of thrash, but for an act like ours, it requires some thinking through. In highly reflective spaces, the trick is to keep stage volumes low, & let FOH handle the room. From there, the less SPL you can push into the space, the better. Just keep enough low end to retain a full & satisfying vibe. We mostly achieved this.

They usually have acts setting up at the opposite end of the space, but we chose to set up right in the middle of the beer vessels - even electing to forsake our usual stage banner & illuminate behind the performance area instead. No stage, but I bought my lightweight riser.

It was really cold. We suffered a big drop in temperature over the last few days, & the venue hadn't sorted heating out - that was a mistake. I think the inside temperature was 4C (about 40F). This was difficult to play in, & uncomfortable for the audience. Despite this, we had a good evening, losing perhaps 20% of the audience at half time due to temperature. We still had by far the biggest audience in this venue to date.

Anyhow, here's a picture during setup, & a very short video clip. Sound is 50% camera mic, 50% desk feed https://youtu.be/mOYtEVqlAPs

Please forgive the obvious bass drum reso head fail. I had to change head at the last minute before hailing out, & somehow had a brain fart. Anyhow, the venue is called the Wobbly Brewery, so somehow, the head orientation was appropriate.
 

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Cold gigs are so horrible for everyone involved. One has to ask oneself if the audience is really enjoying it or just sticking it out due to band loyalty, venue loyalty, or because I paid ten quid at the door, I'm gonna stay and have a good time dammit!

But you guys sound great (as usual) and I'm sure you made it worth their while for staying in the icebox.
 
Well thats too bad about the temperature.... 4C ?! And I thought the Brits like their beer rather warmer than that.
I do like the tilted reso head. Definitely has the industrial aesthetic but the sound must have been a tin can.
 
I'm sure you made it worth their while for staying in the icebox.
They had a great time, & although we had a recorder fail, I'll hopefully get a drumcam up with some slightly more "drummy" stuff in the your playing section.

Here's a shot taken by the venue during setup. Temperature fairly apparent by the clothing choice :(

For those interested, PA FOH is 5K. 2 x QSC KW 315, 2 x Logic System 5th order bypass 18's,
 

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Definitely has the industrial aesthetic but the sound must have been a tin can.
actually, the room sound was better than I anticipated, but still chalLenging. Last minute change of reso head was due the need to move from non ported to ported.

Sound on the video is pretty tight. Admittedly, without the desk feed added, it's more like you'd expect, but still fairly detailed considering.
 
Interesting venue. I like to imagine them pouring beer directly from one of those giant cans...

I deliberately tilt the name on the front head of one of my kits, I too did it in a hurry, but like the slightly quirky effect for that particular band.

I once played in a warehouse 3/4 full of wine barrels stacked floor to ceiling. Really diffused natural reverb - acoustic snare sounded huge! Tricky to get a clear mix though.

As for 4 degrees - that's pretty cold. We sometimes do gigs in 40 degrees - that's horrible too.
 
I once played in a warehouse 3/4 full of wine barrels stacked floor to ceiling. Really diffused natural reverb - acoustic snare sounded huge! Tricky to get a clear mix though.
This venue was very reflective - stainless steel vessels everywhere, & a steel building, so a bit of a handful.

I just put up this drum cam https://youtu.be/NHUSo3mMMXQ gives you some idea of the sound from the seat, but the camera is also picking up my monitor.
 
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