General Music Chat

describe it for me

It ws good, 10.000 ppl in the audience, big PA and stuff, not bad

I was a cpl yrs older than you, & had started up a band. Me & the lead guitarist were at odds over format, so we compromised. I wanted to play rock & he wanted to play country, so we ended up doing a very odd blend of both. It was back in '72.

Our 1st gig was for The Anne Arundel County Coonhunters' Association, at Pumphrey's Pnd, in Millersville, MD. We played from 10 AM ro about 19 PM, for $25. We were a 4 piece band, & we passed the hat at the end & more than doubled our money. We also got to eat some very good pig (it was my 1st pig roast).

We had ppl dancing off & on all day long. They kept telling us how good we were (they were very very kind), & we got a cpl more gigs out of it.

wow sounds nice my first gig is coming up soon, i hope it is as good as yours

1st gig ever was a Battle of the Bands I did with a few people I met at work.

Short and to the point, it sucked.

The show was 2 weeks away and they JUST asked me to join them, thus I felt unprepared and nervous.

It was a few original tunes and it was a mess.

1 week later, they picked up a vocalist who would later just writhe on stage like he was in pain. (after listening to him, WE were in pain, not him)

The other guitarist bought a new Reverb unit THE NIGHT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO PERFORM and proceeded to drown me out even though I was using a crate 150W head and (2) 4x12's. Oh and my DeArmond Volume pedal broke as I was using it. (I still cringe every time I see one)

The bass player was a novice. She started to do her "bass solo" and flubbed it. Instead of going on, she started from the beginning. Seeing as we were already 4-5 bars into it, it sounded off to say the least.

I was so mortified, after it was done I loaded gear into the van with the rest of them and left my amp stack in Alex's garage for 2 weeks before I even remembered it was there.

(Like the Phoenix, we all rise from ashes.. lol)

played at age 15 at the county fair.

female singer got stage fright and refused to go on.

Other guitarist fortunately could sing

It was september, and the temp plunged that night - was like 38 degrees outside, my hands were numb.

My guitar went WAY out of tune before the first song, I had to turn down and fake it

One of our friends (well, school acquaintances) thought it was funny to heckle "YOU SUCK" at the top of his lungs from the center of the crowd throughout the entire show.

lucky for us, it was only ONE 45-minute set.

thts why ill never invite my annoying freinds to my first gig too bad some of them will be onstage with me LOL

Just make sure you know your part inside and out, up and down, backwards and in a foreign language.

Pretend the worst thing in the world has happened and PLAY through it.

That's how you become prepared for the show and not prepared for dinner.

Artists, when you suck, YOU are for dinner.

My first gig was at our hometown festival's talent (or lack thereof) show. We played knockin' on Heaven's Door, Sunshine of Your Love, A real jammy version of Planet Caravan, and an original. It actually didn't go too badly, considering our inexperience, dropping temps and a lot of stagefright. The original was supposed to be the shining moment, and it went off horribly. We had two guitarists, and the lesser talented one had insisted of having a lead part...which he pulled off pretty well in practice. On stage, however, it lasted about 5 seconds-none of us even knew it was over! In between the first solo and the second, our "singer" forgot the words. So, he laughed, put his hands in his pockets, lit up a cigarette, and stood there, just out of my reach (I was trying to get my hands around his throat!)
We also had a mosh pit going during "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". Somewhere, there's a video of me shoving some kid off the stage with my foot...
On a side note, before the show, I found out that the drummer from another band was talking smack about the other performers, including us. Being the badass I am (pause for laughter), I decided to confront him. I spotted him standing at the other end of a parking lot. I rushed over in his direction-not realizing that there was a knee-high chain across the parking lot! I went down hard on my knees (lucky not my face, I guess). Anyway, I spoke my piece to the guy and waited for him to walk away before nearly collapsing in pain...(pause for laughter).
BTW, that drummer is nowadays the drummer for Twelve Stones...maybe you've heard of them.
I guess he could have known what he was talking about, after all.

Just me n Ray. The two of us playing guitar and Ray singing.
We were doing a birthday party for a bunch of teens at a community center. We played some covers and some originals including the first song I ever wrote. The first set was scary as hell, I think I polished off three cigars at the break as I stood outside wondering just what the hell I was doing there. Second set the kids and even some of the moms were dancing to our music one of the most amazing feelings of my life.
I truth we probly sucked real bad, but man, it was AWSOME

I got blown up. Seriously. I think I related the story on here somewhere.

It was ...like...somtime back in the mid 60's.

My first gig was at the Warren Public Library. They had music presentations the 3 Thursday of the month. I went in and spoke with the person responsible for booking the events. She asked me how much money I wanted. Firstly, I was clueless that a musician could actually be paid, so I had no idea how much money to ask for. She offered me $75.00 to play for 30 minutes. I was stunned The performance went quite well although I don't even remember what I did.

I forget the year, maybe 1981?, at Pappy's Roadhouse in Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey. When an old college friend, Bill Miller, talked to me while I was living in Knoxville, Tenn., about him getting a band together I told him I was moving back to New Jersey. I started out playing harmonica and singing. Bill was playing bass at first. He had gotten together a few times with another guitarist and they decided Bill would play bass. That first year practicing over and over again was ROUGH. We were TERRIBLE. But we kept at it. Later in the year the guitarist quit so Bill started playing guitar, we got another drummer, Scot Clark, who many years later became quite a blues guitarist and now lives in Alabama. We had troiuble finding bass players. I always had an interest in bass but kept at the harmonica. Then we got wind that Kent Miller (no relation to Bill) was looking for a band. Kent is one of the great harmonica players in the world. At that time there were few people playing blues anywhere in New Jersey. I told Bill to give me a few lessons in bass and after just a few months we called Kent. Within six months we were gigging. The first gig at Pappy's was awesome with a few glitches of course. We didn't have our own PA so a friend of mine who had a band brought his PA and ran sound. Too bad he didn't know what he was doing. We had numerous stops and starts trying to figure everything out. But the place was packed and I think we ended up playing there a few more times. I wonder if Pappy's even exists today. I'll bet they closed it down many years ago. Many friends of mine who didn't know I was a musician came out and were stunned. It was a great time. Leaving New Jersey in 1987 was a very tough decision mainly for the friends I made in music there. I've been talking to Bill Miller about moving to K.C. That would be a trip playing in a band with him again...

Late 60's, I was about 10 or 12 at the time. My uncles had a band and played at a local country music hall here in north louisiana. We worked up a couple of songs and I went onstage, around 200 people there and it went well. Everyone liked it, although they might have been just being nice to the little kid that probably actually sucked out loud...Can't remember all the songs, but it seems Ebony Eyes (old Everly Brothers tune, I did harmony vocals and guitar) and Guitarzan were on the list. I did lead vocals on Guitarzan..