Anyone Else Keep Lists of Gigs and Memorabilia From The Bands They've Been In?

[Linus27]

I've played bass for 37 years now and pretty much been in 9 serious bands and a few smaller projects. I tend to keep a list of all the gigs I've played, press cuttings, set lists, posters and more recently over the last 7 years, I've even been writing down what bass I played on each gig. I also keep memorabilia of the bands I've played in like t-shirts, press photo's, magazines, interviews etc. as well as every release, recording, radio sessions, demo's and rehearsals. I've also gathered all the photo's I can from each band and put together a photo book which looks pretty cool. 

 

I kind of done it more for my kids to have for when I'm long gone and maybe show there kids. I have very little to no information on what my grand-parents did or even know what they looked like as I never met them. It would be great to have seen photos or know a bit more about them and their lives. I also have very few photo's of my dad or many stories about him so I thought it might be nice to be able to pass stuff on to my kids and even grand-kids in case any of them are interested or end up being musicians.

 

Anyone else collect or keep stuff or a bit sad like me 🤣

[Cat Burrito]

I keep the old cuttings from the big magazines (Melody Maker, Kerrang!, The Big Issue, Making Music etc) but all the old flyers / posters are long gone. I have framed all my old CDs that I played on and they are above my stereo. Bizarrely I do have a few fanzines from the early to mid 90s but maybe 10% of what we appeared in. 

[casapete]

I still have every diary from when I first started playing in bands in the mid 1970’s. Didn’t keep a list 

of which gear I used on them, but just the venue played and how much I earned. It was invaluable when

I got investigated by HMRC and enabled me to give them all the info they needed, which resulted

in them eventually dropping their case. 

Still have some stuff from local papers that featured articles on my bands, along with recordings

from both gigs and studios. These are mostly on cassette though, so need to get them transferred to

digital in the near future. During Covid lockdown I went through all my old photos and transferred

them to my PC so have some great memories there now. Most are excruciatingly embarrassing of

course, so will give my grand/great grandkids a laugh one day. Having been in my current band for

12 + years now, I have probably thousands of pictures which I’ve kept in date order and nice to

keep for when I’ve retired.

Edited September 18, 2023 by casapete

[ped]

Not really but I think it’s a great idea. When I started playing it was in the period where we transitioned from

proper cameras to digital, and that combined with a regimented backup system and multiple life changes meant that many of the pictures taken have disappeared, but those that remain could be sorted into an album of their own so maybe that’s a job for a rainy day. 

[Linus27]

22 minutes ago, casapete said:

I still have every diary from when I first started playing in bands in the mid 1970’s. Didn’t keep a list 

of which gear I used on them, but just the venue played and how much I earned. It was invaluable when

I got investigated by HMRC and enabled me to give them all the info they needed, which resulted

in them eventually dropping their case. 

Still have some stuff from local papers that featured articles on my bands, along with recordings

from both gigs and studios. These are mostly on cassette though, so need to get them transferred to

digital in the near future. During Covid lockdown I went through all my old photos and transferred

them to my PC so have some great memories there now. Most are excruciatingly embarrassing of

course, so will give my grand/great grandkids a laugh one day. Having been in my current band for

12 + years now, I have probably thousands of pictures which I’ve kept in date order and nice to

keep for when I’ve retired.

 

That is super impressive dating it back to the mid 70's and as you say, luckily you did  I do love looking back at some of the venue's to see if I can remember them, if they have closed or if anything funny or interesting happened at that gig.

[BigRedX]

I used to try a keep everything, posters, flyers, stage passes, reviews etc. but every time I moved or had a bit of clear out some of it would get inadvertently lost or chucked.

 

I have managed to keep copies of all the physical releases for all my bands over the past 45 years. That's 13 compact cassettes, two 7" singles, one album on 12" vinyl, and 17 CDs.

 

The best archive I have is for my 80s synth pop/rock band where we kept a scrap book, although it's at least one third record company rejection letters. Some of them are quite amusing like the cassette cover sent to ZTT returned with a "message" from FGTH scrawled on to it and an apologetic note from the label! Also we recorded nearly all our gigs, plus we had a friend who was a professional photographer who would shoot a roll of film (remember actual film?) each time we played. It still have a box full of contact sheets and negatives that I need to digitise. Unfortunately the best gig we played - on the main stage at Rock City - where he shot a whole roll of colour transparency film has disappeared. 

 

Even digital media has its disadvantages. I never bothered keeping physical copies of any of the posters and flyers I produced in the 90s because I had the original Quark XPress files for them. Of course I haven't used XPress for over 15 years now and can no longer access any of these. On the other hand thanks to Facebook and other social media I have almost 100GB saved of photos, radio broadcasts and on-line reviews for The Terrortones.

[nilorius]

I do, because my best bass guitarist steps were 15 years ago.🤪

[2pods]

Lost everything from early seventies up to the last band 17 years ago in a flood

 

[LeftyJ]

I kept some posters from old gigs and had them laminated. One (of the release party of an album) is on the wall in our rehearsal room, where I still regularly rehearse with 2 other members of said band in a new group. I've still got some old merchandise too, and some test prints of business cards, magnets, stickers and t-shirts. Most notably, I've kept a CD from a faulty batch that had our artwork, but was accidentally pressed with the music of a children's group on it. We were supposed to send the whole batch back, but I just HAD to keep one for sh*ts and giggles. I'm the only one in the band that still has them, the others were destroyed.

 

Edit: now that I think of it, we stlil keep our old website in the air just for this purpose. We just switched hosts last year because the cost went up considerably. I guess we're a nostalgic bunch 

Edited September 20, 2023 by LeftyJ

[Franticsmurf]

I've got quite a bit from the first few years and I've digitised most of the photos and posters. I have some press cuttings from the local rag that are cringeworthy now, early set lists with the takings from the gig (my first gig in 1989 took £29.50 on the door at 50p per punter) and some plans for stage sets and song running orders for a project we were going to do in conjunction with a local dance troupe (it never came to anything). I have several live recordings which, when I listened to them again for the first time in many years, reminded me why we never made it. Enthusiastic we were, gifted we were not. 😃 I have most of the recordings we did in the local college studio (we had access as the keyboard player was a student there). I do enjoy looking at them now and again, just to relive some good memories (we may have been rubbish but we enjoyed being rubbish) and to remember my best mate, our drummer, who is no longer with us.

 

 

[MacDaddy]

I've got a scrap book of pics, flyers, print articles and reviews 😊

[dmccombe7]

I have pics of bands and gigs i've done over the years and occasional poster and one backdrop my wife designed for a Deep Purple tribute band that hangs in my garage.

Recent bands i find most memorabilia is on FB these days from pics vids and even reviews so i just leave it there.

Dave

[ahpook]

I haven't. I've a few odd pictures of playing live, but no concerted effort to keep anything else.

 

Mind you, a drummer in possibly the best band I played in did graphic design for Warp Records and I've kept the odd poster he designed.

 

Phenomenal drummer as well

[NHM]

I've got a small box of photos, reviews, business cards etc., and some posters framed in my study. It gives me a lot of pleasure to look through it all every now and again.

[jazzyvee]

Yeah shed loads of digital photos plus tour schedules, venues, posters stickers lanyards backstage passes.  At some point i will make a montage from some of them and mount it in a large picture frame.

[police squad]

I had all my diaries from when I started gigging. All the venues, how much we got paid etc. 1986 to 2000.

They got lost in a house move which turned into a divorce. We still got on but it was a long time before I discovered they had gone to her and in the end I didn't aske her for them.

I still have everything from 2000 onwards though

[meterman]

I’m not especially nostalgic and so I never used to bother keeping stuff, just because I moved house so often and would declutter each time. But after 40 years I’ve still got a load of AAA festival lanyards and venue wristbands in a bag somewhere. The odd gig poster or flyer or ticket stub in a box, maybe some photos (definitely some Polaroids) etc. Some handwritten crib sheets with percussion charts on them too. 
 

I don’t even have physical copies of everything I’ve played on but I’ll buy them if I see them cheap.

 

But the only set list I have kept is this one from a gig in Bulgaria in 2015. I was on a session gig and sneakily took a pair of scissors to everyone’s set lists and placed them onstage, so the first time they saw them by their monitors, they’d see this:

 

 

When we got onstage everyone couldn’t stop laughing throughout the gig. It’s not big or clever or even particularly funny, it was just the unexpected factor that made the other players laugh. 

[spongebob]

I don't keep gig lists any more, but I keep any memorabilia, wristbands, and the like.

 

Setlists as well....I'd have kept last weekends, but 2 got stolen! 

[Old Horse Murphy]

I'm really very unsentimental and hate too much clutter so I generally don't keep anything. I wish I did (had) but it's not in my nature sadly. I never kept any of my rugby memorabilia either and gave away all my shirts etc. to friends. 
 

I still have the memories though, although they seem to be dimming daily! 

[Barking Spiders]

Unfortunately, eggs and tomatoes have a limited shelf life

[Lozz196]

I never bothered with any of this until my last band, I have  a piece of each bit of merch we did, plus a copy of the gig listings. I also have a tattoo of the bands logo, all the names of the countries we played (9) and the logo of the Rebellion Festival with the years we played it.

[12stringbassist]

I keep any recordings and any actual releases going back to 1977. Some of the old band recordings are quite quaint.
I only listen to my own recordings these days when I'm doing them. Afterwards they are 'done' and not that interesting to me.
I used to have loads of posters for old bands but threw them all out in a house move, along with old diaries.
I have a good digital photo archive.
 

[diskwave]

Apart from a couple of grainy and totally embarrassing photos, Ive got one single set list on a tatty sheet of coffee stained note paper from a summer hotel residency in 1987. Fascinating to look at the tunes now...Pointer Sisters, Sting, Crusaders, Tina, all the old disco classics. Me, a Fender Rhodes, drums and a bird who was older than us and who could really belt it out....Dance floor packed every night....ahh the good ole days.

[MacDaddy]

We're going to have to start a thread where we can post some of this stuff 😆

[Bassassin]

Not much from pre-internet 80s & 90s bands, but my last gigging band (2000-2014) I have pretty much everything - helps that I did the all the art & web design so it's all stashed in a folder on a backup drive.