Thanks for visiting our website! We’re THE TICKETS, a multi-instrumental and multi-tasking acoustic duo consisting of Dave Hardy on vocals, guitar and some rather unusual foot percussion, and Nigel Hubée combining his vocals with bass, mandolin, dobro, ukulele, guitar and harmonicas.
If you’ve inadvertently landed on our original “Not secure” version please feel free to click here for the exact same with the reassuring padlock in the address bar. (Liever in het Nederlands? – Klik Hier)
We’d love you to start by taking a look at our brand-new updated repertoire page, where we now provide an extensive and detailed overview of the 100+ numbers we most often perform, with links to live or studio recordings when available. We’re currently working on expanding these recordings with material from our newly built home studio, where we’ve been putting in the hours over the last month to optimise and tie together the six audio and five video channels that we hope will cover all aspects of what we do.
We had some socially distanced summer bookings trickling in after our agenda was wiped clean as a result of the Covid measures, but new autumn restrictions mean we’re not expecting it to be business as usual for the foreseeable future. It’s so fantastic to play for live audiences and we look forward to the time when we’ll be able to do that again without the current concerns. On a positive note, it is giving us time to focus on recording more of our favourite numbers, as mentioned above (check our news/blog page for updates).
If you haven’t already listened on our repertoire page, we’d love to entertain you in the meantime with our selection of live stage audio from less complicated times (33 numbers so far), as well as with the videos below, which we were very fortunate to record in a local studio just before the first lockdown struck. All videos play inside their windows within the website, so feel free to click away without leaving! If you would also like to subscribe to our YouTube channel you’ll be the first to be notified when the new videos we’re planning for become available (won’t be long now…).
Read on further down if you want to know more about our surprisingly simple process for live stage recording. Stay safe and hopefully see you all sooner rather than later!
We start many of our performances off with this Beatles classic
We’ve enjoyed creating our own uke and harmonica arrangement for this great John Sebastian number
Our classic blues numbers are often performed using the dobro and the harmonica
Guitar instrumentals are popular with our audiences, and this Ventures number is always part of our performances
No Sixties set would be complete without a spot of folk, which usually involves the mandolin
Hopefully this Roy Orbison song will remind you of less complicated times, when the only thing that worried you was getting the attention of an out-of-your-league partner
If you’ve watched them all and are still looking for more, have a peek at this compilation from one of our live performances a couple of years back
Have you enjoyed listening to our large collection of stage audio? It was recorded on the little Tascam digital audio recorder seen standing on the GorillaPod in between us on the last video. We normally only use these recordings as a personal quality control tool, but in their simplicity of “take of the day”, together with the audience and restaurant ambience that the mikes pick up in addition to the stage sound, we think they’re quite fun. Apart from some overall tone and volume tweaking, very little editing is possible on a simple stereo recording, so what you hear is what you get on these numbers.
Above is a screenshot of the selection process, showing part of our first set at an end of year party at a local golf club. Each set usually features somewhere between 12-15 numbers. We routinely play four such sets during a full evening or afternoon’s booking. Listen to all, select what is suitable, trim to the section required, balance volume and tone, and repeat for each set and performance recorded. Now you get some idea of the scale of the task involved, and why the enforced pause in our busy performance schedule also had some benefits in providing us with the time to grow this part of our website.
The 33 numbers that are already up total 1 hour and 40 minutes of our live music, with our trademark variety of instruments and styles, and there are still more from our many performances and large repertoire that we’d like to add. They’re currently displayed alongside this page (or below if you’re on a vertical screen), but we’re also planning to add audio players to our repertoire page where we can provide more info. Click play on any or all of these numbers to enjoy some Tickets live vibe. We recommend using headphones or earpods for the full effect as it’ll give you a sense of being in the audience on the day.
Finally, check out what our audiences think as they share their opinion in reviews and see if you still recognise us in our (life)long joint and individual musical history.
Let us know if you enjoyed our music!