Tour Talk

I dont know bout you boys but My paternal Grandmother (God rest her)
was a Bohemian Chec / German mix and if she thought you sucked she would not hesitate to tell you as lovingly as possable that you suck.

Just trying to get a rise out of him.

My first gig was at the drummers house with about 50 friends over. The cops came at 11:00 because of the neighbor complaints and we started playing "Breaking the Law" by Judas Priest.

If you were anybody in music in the 70's (local) in Buffalo NY you got to play at McVans Nightclub, which is now a convenience store. But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I was the singer in a band called Phantom. We did a cover of Skynyrd, Whats Your Name, well this hot chick was sitting at one of the front tables and everytine I sang the chorus I would make eyes and flirt with her, she kept smiling at me so I thought I had a pretty good chance with her, well.................... towards the end of the song (last chorus) her BIG boyfriend sits down and was giving me dirty looks for the rest of the night. Later we did Gimme 3 Steps so I took the opportunity to kind of plead with him. He started laughing and I didn't get my ass kicked !!!!!!

Gimme Three Steps is exactly that situation haha
All bout the charisma, man.

My first gig was at a legion in a small town. We played southern rock and most of the people there were pissed because we didnt play country and too old to get on their feet so i ended up drinking my pay because i was scared it would always be like that. lol. It got a lot better, thank god.

Not a first gig, but when I was starting out, playing a Les Paul, got so pissed that I forgot to tuck the lead round the strap before plugging in, (As you know, Les Paul jacks in from below.)
Mid track I stood on the lead - jack pops out - no sound.
I crouch down and pop the jack back in, stand up, still stood on the lead - jack pops out again...

It was comedy, and didn't go un-noticed.

My first playing also was very horrible!
I joined my school band when i was 15 - i had to play the bass guitar and to sing some parts! I was very nervous, and so I forgot my part and I sang when another band member also sang .......... It sounded horrible!!! I was so embarrassed!

my first gig was when i was 13.i was with a big band and playing swing music
we were in lincoln rhode island and i was playing my ass off.i was a kidd but they allowed me in becauuse there was a thing..dont give him booze.hes good enough!
so wwe are playing and they had left a door open near where my drums were set up.if i wasnrt scared enough i noticed a hornet flying in.it was a very hot night.
i continued to play the song looking at the bug as it flew ever closer!
finally i said ok..its not gonna bother me.play the tunes.
we were doing 'take five"
suddenly i saw it and i got it right on ther top of my head.
the tension from the song as i was doing the solo part and the thing was too much.
next thing i remember is thr lead player slappin me and putting water on me face!
im like'what happened??
hes like what did you take?? you passed out!
the crowd was looking and i said'stung man..a wasp!
the leader went to the mic and said we had an issue with a hornet.our drummer is ok now and wed like to resume "take five"
it went well but i was looking all around all the rest of the nite and coudnt wait to get out of there!
it may not have been my very first gig but close enough.i have hated wasps since!
but to my great honor i was never gain chosen to be stung on the head again espceially during such a hard song!

My first gig was goin great. A talent show at a local high school to kinda get your name out there and such. Cash prize and such. We went on and rehearsed everything went fine. It was just me on rythm and vocals with a lead to my left and the drummer in the back. no bass at all. Our sound was on and we were ready to take home some cash and trophy plus get our faces on tv. We sat and waited for our set to come up watchn everyone else is not a good idea for the young at heart. We knew we had it and so did they everyone looked at us like damn..... We go out intro ourselves start playin. Waitin on the first verse and im singing but have no monitor... have no vocals at all coming from and speaker anywhere in the whole place. Needless to say the crowd of around 300 didn't know what to think. But we kept on playin anyway and never missed a beat. Come to find out one of the other a-hole bands moved my amp around and all the mic had was feedback. or so they said.. They wouldn't even let us play again after they fixed it.... It felt rigged, and we felt cheated. But what can you do ya know. Peace.

Things happen. Strings break. Amps blow up. Other players walk off-stage and quit, leaving you playing alone.
Once right in the middle of a bass solo 2 strings "slipped" in the cheap tuners (cheap instrument) and were WAY out of tune. I got lost and finally just quit. Eventually you learn to just play through those things, keep your concentration and hope tomorrow is better.

My first time was in a school stage.

We were only there for rehearsal and me and my friends were the only guitarists in that whole school..

Anyways, no drummers, it was just a winter special and we were all playing "feliz navidad", so we played there and i literally got the tablature for the song 1 day ago. (first year playing too), so when i got up at the stage some lady put my tab up in a stand, but it was windy so half way through playing the tab fell out and as soon as i made my clusterfuck of messes up, (and then the whole band messed up with me They closed the curtains on us.

So since we failed, we had to play in a lunchroom with kinder-gardeners.

Still i love playing. But i'm terribly shy of stage fright.