Your First Gig

[EdwardHimself]

[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1324139940' post='1471234']
My first gig was at a party at a mate's house. Local boy Steve Lillywhite was there and bought along Gerry Cott of the Boomtown Rats.
P
[/quote]

We did a "gig" at my house once, 2 people came lol.

[Slipperydick]

My first was Upper Gornal Conservative Club, new years eve, sometime in the mid 70s. We only had about half an hours covers, plus some terrible composiyons of our own. I had never even met the drummer before. But the club had been let down by another band and were desperate.

We went down well, even though we did most numbers at least twice " We've had another request for Johnny B Goode" has been a bit of a standing joke with the members of that band that I'm still in touch with ever since.

We made about £70 each, Although I had to persuade the guy that we needed cash and sending us a cheque next week wasnt an option...

i found the cassette of it a couple of years ago, its really really awful. Especiall my attempt a 'Something'

[Blademan_98]

My first gig was in 1979 at a mates birthday party. We played the first song (a Beatles track) and the lads mother told the DJ to start....

We sloped off and I didn't gig again for a very long time!

[rOB]

First gig was upstairs at the Cardigan Arms in Leeds. Still very good friends with the front man.

I was really nervous but I think it went ok. Was gutted to leave that band

[KevG]

Headington Conservative Club, Oxford, sometime in the early 70's (1972?) I was 12, playing 3rd trombone in a big band full of very old guys, well they were to me at the time, a few who had been in the Ted Heath band. My dad, rest him, bought me my first pint and said that as I'd played like a man I deserved to drink like one!! Never really progressed to bigger venues!! Still love it though, played an outside Christmas fair in our small town a couple of weeks ago with the worship band and as I explained to our guitarist who hasn't played live much before it's still the most fun you can have with your clothes on!

[LiamPodmore]

St James' Primary School, Daisy Hill, summer family festival thing, some dancers and choirs and crap like that on from the school. We did 4 songs, 2 hours rehearsal time, i screwed up 2 of the songs, ended up rolling my volume knob off at the start of a song, and discovered that a 150w 1x12 Combo is crap outdoors.

Liam

Edited December 17, 2011 by LiamPodmore

[ROConnell]

Earlier this year. 8th January. 4 days earlier my school mates had made me and another mate learn "Sunshine Of Your Love" and would pick who was better to be the bassist. The other was better but he apparently "Couldn't be bothered".
So a hasty 2 rehearsals in the drummer and guitarists garage, 4 hours of playing as a band and 4 days later, we performed in a competition playing All Of The Day And All Of The Night and Buck Rogers. Loved it.

[ern500evo]

[quote name='blind pilot' timestamp='1324112758' post='1470874']
That will be on Ebay soon then!

[/quote]
I don't think he'd know what EBay is! When i first started gigging i used to borrow his Peavey MK3 and 2x15, which meant tracking him down in one of the local pubs. when i found him the conversation was the same every time:
Me: "John, can i use your amp tonight please?"
Him: "Yea if you buy me a pint"
Me: "Yea ok, no probs"
Him: "And if you throw in a whiskey chaser you can take the Fender as well"
Me: "ok, cheers"
Him: "It's all in the shed, go help yourself, and if the neighbour comes out tell him to f**k off, nosey c**t"!!

Ah, fond memories!

[dmccombe7]

[quote name='EdwardHimself' timestamp='1324140615' post='1471243']
We did a "gig" at my house once, 2 people came lol.
[/quote]

Groupies ????

[seashell]

It was in June this year, 5 months after I first started learning to play.
My mate Diki Guru does comedy songs with acoustic guitar and asked me if I wanted to play bass with him for a charity gig at a local pub. He had 2 other mates joining in on banjo and jews harp.
All I had to do was stand there and play root/fifths or sometimes just root notes when I occasionally froze with fear. Plus had to shout out carefully rehearsed obscenities at various points in the songs (they are all fairly offensive).

it went really well and the punters loved it, but I think that's becuase they weren't paying any attention to me. It's all in the lyrics with Dik.
But afterwards he send me a text saying 'Bloody well done last night, how does it feel to be a musician?' I felt dead chuffed as he can be quite critical and we had lost patience with me a couple of times during rehearsals!

We did another one in September (without the banjo and jews harp). And he's asked me to do another one at end of January. Hopefully the nerves won't paralyse me so much this time.

[Shawman]

oh yeah, i was apparently complimented by someone quite famous after my first gig

if i remember who, i'll update mine (i don't think i even knew who he was when my dad introduced me)

[seashell]

[quote name='Johnston' timestamp='1324300558' post='1472692']
anyways we went down well. Asked to do an Encore but had ran out of suitable songs so ended up doing Enter sandman and wrecking some of the dish ware as it fell of the shelves.


[/quote]

Brilliant choice for a Church outreach thing! It's even got a prayer in it and everything

[urb]

My first gig was playing drums at a freind's birthday party in a terrible covers band - that kind of says it all really - it was pretty poor....

[EdwardHimself]

[quote name='dmccombe7' timestamp='1324288315' post='1472476']
Groupies ????
[/quote]

You can laugh, but one of them was the bassist's girfriend! (It was EH on drums and singing, make of that what you will).

Edited December 19, 2011 by EdwardHimself

[matski]

Mine was back in 1984 - when I was a mere 16 years old - at 'Doughnuts' in Tunbridge Wells.

We had a 3 piece originals band playing electropop: yours truly on bass, 'Lavender' Gavin Earthrowl on vocals and Richard 'Uncle Fester' Smith on guitar - the drum machine and keyboards were recorded onto a PortaStudio and played back through an amp generating almighty amounts of hiss between songs.

We were all nervous as hell, the place was packed, the only illumination seemed to come from red spotlights and there was serious overkill on the smoke machine front - but it went down pretty well. In fact the sound guy asked us to support his band (the local 'hero' band) at their next gig.

[BottomE]

1981, Harewood Youth Club, Bournemouth. We were an aspiring heavy rock band (what else do you play when you are 15?) and our set included Ace of Spades, some AC/DC, Sabbath and other rock classics. I was soooooooooo nervous that i remember shaking like a leaf to the point that it was difficult to hit the strings. We'd all tanked up on cider for a bit of courage and carried our guitars on foot to the gig through a graveyard and across a park. As we got going we noticed that the drummer (my brother) and his kit were sliding towards the front of the stage so a mate jumped up and held the kit whilst my bro bashed it about. The gig went by in a flash. The bug had bitten.

[razze06]

First "gig" was playing poor rock n roll covers over and over for about 3 hours at the opening day of a 50's rock n roll-inspired clothes shop. We were all cooped up in the attic, so one could see us. We couldn't stand up, so we had to sit on upturned paint buckets. It was something like 1989 and I was about 14...

Another good early gig was maybe the year after, when we somehow got asked to play at some rich guy's garden party. We had to hump all of our kit up a series of steep hills and narrow outdoors stairs, and were perched on a grassy ledge above the main grounds. No singer, so played 12 bar blues and a simple swing in Am for about 3 hours, but they loved us, and got us a hat full of money at the end. I remember we were utterly amazed at the amount of money we made (like £600 or, we were about 16 at the time). We ended up investing it all in some truly ancient PA system with powered speakers and built in tape echo in the mixer. I wonder who has it still...

[EmmettC]

My first gig was in '94, when I was 16, mostly pearl jam and nirvana covers, but we also did Suck My Kiss by RHCP. I remember thinking I nailed it on the night, glad it wasn't filmed though, I imagine my bass playing was as lame as my goatee.

[dmccombe7]

[quote name='matski' timestamp='1324305949' post='1472802']
serious overkill on the smoke machine front - [/quote]


memories just flooding back now.

I remember doing a gig where a lot of celeb footballers gathered. Was a 3 piece rock covers band doing everything from Pinball Wizard to Floyd. We had Simmons drumkit and Synth guitar. We used our own PA, lighting and smoke machine.
When we started we set off the smoke machine just prior to start of first song however the DJ in the club decided he would add some smoke too. From what I'm told you couldn't see the band for the first 2 songs. All good fun though and turned out to be a good night.

Dave

Edited December 20, 2011 by dmccombe7