How old were you when you did your first gig?

[BlueMoon]

14 minutes ago, BlueMoon said:

If I recall correctly, the Moot Hall, Maldon in 1973.

 

Here is a pic of a rehearsal around that time. I was playing a 1964 Burns Jazz!

And the winner is………I was 17!

[chris_b]

I was 17.

 

The gig was a local youth club, in Ruislip, and we were a blues band. The first song was Howlin Wolf's Spoonful.

[snorkie635]

49 minutes ago, tony_m said:

First public performance (with a couple of mates at an open-mic) = 54

 

First proper gig with a band = 61

 

12th gig coming up this evening!

Have a good one.

[ezbass]

13 I think, may have been 14 (it was for was some old folks). Me on guitar, my buddy on drums and another performer also playing guitar (as I recall he had prosthetic legs). I can't imaging that it was any good or that the audience enjoyed it particularly.

[Rich]

Excluding the obligatory school gig, I was 21. The Red Lion in Brentford (RIP), supporting Philip Jap's band 'Secret Society'. I used my Wal and a Roland SH-09 synth, through my Laney Pro Bass 4x10 combo. 

[odysseus]

Respect to all those who did their first gigs later in life. I remember being nervous enough as a teenager, when I was full of testosterone and rash decisions. Taking the plunge in my 40s or so would've been a bigger ask for me personally! 

[thodrik]

12. Entered a local battle of the bands where the prize was the chance to open for Shed Seven or the Levellers or something like that (can’t remember exactly, but it was someone vaguely relevant in 1999). We won but couldn’t play the resulting gig because of our age.

 

Started playing in pubs doing 3 hour sessions of classic rock covers shortly after that. Probably wasn’t legal but I was getting paid and it was a decent earner until after I left school. I actually made more money doing that than when I was in a ‘signed’ band in my twenties. 

Edited April 30, 2023 by thodrik

[casapete]

I was 15, and played at our school youth club with a band of school mates.

PA and backline ( Marshall stacks!)  loaned to us free of charge by local legend

and music shop owner Lyn Blakeston (Blakey), and we rocked!
I later found out that our drummer had arranged to get the gear

delivered back to Blakey the next day, and it had been left overnight in a truck with faulty

locks on a housing estate in Hull! Fortunately for us it all got returned unscathed.

50 years later I’m still playing music for a living and Blakey remains one of my best mates.

[MacDaddy]

Many years ago aged 16. Can't remember the pub name but it was in Castleford. We did originals with some Pink Floyd covers. IIRC, and I may not, I think I was using a Westone Thunder 1, which belonged to the college.

[Roger2611]

I think I was 17 or 18, it was at High Hall at Birmingham university in front of a 1000 people or so, nervous, not half! 

[miles'tone]

21. 2 years after I first started learning.

The Magnificent Flying Sorcerers - original band playing Welsh flamenco cocktail jazz with a reggae twist. Dressed as little grey aliens in boiler suits. Except we were all tall and painted blue. With halved ping pong ball eyes held on with elastic that slowly tried to suck out our eyeballs as the set progressed.

 

I still can't fathom why we didn't make it.

[Cato]

16 years old. A group of six formers at school had a sudden explosive falling out with their bass player about 2 weeks before they were due to play a local village hall.

 

Someone told them I owned a bass and an amp which immediately made me the most qualified person they could find to fill in at short notice.

 

Learnt all the songs off a C90 before a single full rehearsal the day before the gig. It was an eclectic setlist of stuff the guitarist/band leader liked from Pink Floyd's Run Like Hell to Birdhouse in your Soul and Walk This Way.

 

I was playing my Axe Bass through a Hartke 350 watt head (which I still own)  and a Carlsboro 4x10.

 

Ended up staying with them until they all left for Uni about 18 months later, long after they'd resumed their friendship with the original bass player who went on to form his own band who we regularly played gigs with.

Edited April 29, 2023 by Cato

[Shaggy]

16, in a pub in Cambridge I can’t recall the name of.  It was 1977 and I think we were the only gigging punk band in Cambridge at the time....

Kalamazoo KB1 through Carlsboro Stingray 100 and homemade 4x12 cab

[obbm]

I was 17 in 1963. We formed a band for a school dance. Now 77 and still gig occasionally.

[Johncee]

Started doing the north eastern WMC's at 14. Rest of the band in their early to late 20s. Was always the baby of various bands for many years. Now I'm the old fart. 😀

[fretmeister]

13 on alto sax.

13 on bass.

16 on guitar.

[diskwave]

I'm 18 in 1978 @ Prince Consort night club Isle of Wight,  ...in a very dark basement full of older teen "females" who looked on us with utter contemp. Its that awful moment when the Disco stops and you start and sound awful and everyone walks away....haha, dont think I have ever experienced fear like it since and I think Deni Deni was the first tune we played. 

Edited April 30, 2023 by greavesbass

[Norris]

Excluding school band gigs, my first paid gig was around March 1985 and I'd have been 19. After a couple of months with that band we went off and did a summer season at Butlin's playing 6 nights a week. A right baptism of fire!

 

Edit to say I'm still playing with the same guitarist now!

Edited April 29, 2023 by Norris

[AndyTravis]

I’ve actually just seen on a local news feed that the Lancastrian Hall (mentioned above) is currently on fire.

 

Odd how I posted a pic of it today.

[snorkie635]

2 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

I’ve actually just seen on a local news feed that the Lancastrian Hall (mentioned above) is currently on fire.

 

Odd how I posted a pic of it today.

You're a witch! Burnin' down the house

Edited April 29, 2023 by snorkie635

[Waddo Soqable]

2 hours ago, miles'tone said:

21. 2 years after I first started learning.

The Magnificent Flying Sorcerers - original band playing Welsh flamenco cocktail jazz with a reggae twist. Dressed as little grey aliens in boiler suits. Except we were all tall and painted blue. With halved ping pong ball eyes held on with elastic that slowly tried to suck out our eyeballs as the set progressed.

 

I still can't fathom why we didn't make it.

Now that I'd like to see pics / footage of... 

[lidl e]

17 i'd reckon

[Waddo Soqable]

4 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

I’ve actually just seen on a local news feed that the Lancastrian Hall (mentioned above) is currently on fire.

 

Odd how I posted a pic of it today.

Obviously they couldn't get it demolished the legit. way...

[Leonard Smalls]

7 hours ago, lurksalot said:

assemblies at school

Was it Mr Quigley's doing?

He was attempting to sway our budding new-wavism towards 70s cheese!

[Jackroadkill]

It was 2003 and I was 24 and playing guitar; the band was called Holocene and the venue was The Bell Hotel in Newtown, Powys.  We played second on the bill, between Fatwax (I think) and Little Miss Mental.  The band was.... not great.  I wanted to be a post-Goth cowpunk band, the other guitarist wanted us to be Mushroomhead and the singer/bass player and drummer wanted us to be the Foo Fighters.  I played what I thought was slide guitar, drenched in delay and phaser over one-finger drop-d powerchords.  We went down well, as I recall, and I threw my lovely Epiphone Goldtop into the crowd at the end of the set.

 

What a bloody whankyrr.