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 unique 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 news/blog page, where we’re posting weekly results from our brand-new home studio. With all live music cancelled due to a new national lockdown in the Netherlands, we’re using this alternative means of getting our music to you. After our initial two Christmas numbers to fit the festive season, we’ve started posting recordings from our extensive Sixties (and occasionally Fifties) repertoire. Check out our YouTube channel for a complete overview, and hit subscribe if you want to be notified every time a new video gets published. Our channel is purely for sharing our enjoyment of playing and performing, so there are no hidden costs or requests for support or donations. All you would do by subscribing is encourage others to watch and help keep us focused when we know there’s an audience waiting for the next number!
In the meantime our repertoire page provides an extensive and detailed overview of the 100+ numbers we most often perform, where we explain our inspiration and thinking behind each of our arrangements and instrument choices. Links to studio recordings will be added as they become available.
We had some socially distanced summer bookings trickling in after our agenda was wiped clean as a result of last spring’s Covid measures, but in light of the new total lockdown over December and January 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’s giving us time to focus on recording more of our favourite numbers, as mentioned above.
We do still have our selection of live stage audio from less complicated times, as well as 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!
Read on down below 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 live stereo recording, so what you hear is what you get on these numbers.
Above is a screenshot of the 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 currently up total 1 hour and 40 minutes of our live music, with our trademark variety of instruments and styles. They’re currently displayed alongside this page (or below if you’re on a vertical screen). 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!