Can you remember your first one?

[Jackroadkill]

A not-very-good original called "This Beast".  I was on guitar (never good) and my main job was to chug away in drop D for a bit before ripping out the most pretentious and unskilled lead break, which involved phaser, tremolo and delay pedals, and was "performed" with a bottleneck.  In order to complete the cringe-fest I wore a voluminous white shirt over a black sleeveless t-shirt, army boots, a cowboy hat and mirrored shades.  The guitar was a Goldtop, so I must have looked and sounded like Eric Sardinas's favourite stalker.  I was 23, properly old enough to know better.

[Hellzero]

Louie, Louie Motörhead version, on bass and lead vocals (for the first and last time), in 1983 for a birthday gig: utter disaster, it was kind of Motörhead meeting Meshuggah, but we didn't even know it, I was still 17 years for a few weeks. 🤦🤪

[Franticsmurf]

15th June 1989, first band, first gig, I was playing guitar and the first song of the set was an original called 'I Don't Fear The Night'. We then careered through an 80 minute set of originals and covers before finishing triumphantly only for the sound guy to tell me we needed to play for another 10-15 minutes. So we started again from the top! 🤣

[franzbassist]

For me it was "Since You've Been Gone" by Rainbow, at the school end of year assembly in 1980. I was 14, with Phillipa Grundon on vocals, Nic Ford on guitar and Ric Phillips on drums. We called ourselves Pegasus!

 

I'm sure it would have been awful, but at the time we felt amazing.

 

I played a P bass copy by Satellite with ash body with maple fingerboard, amplified by a Vox head and cab from the 60s that Ric's Dad owned.

Edited November 30 by franzbassist

[Shaggy]

1977, aged 16, a school rock opera production of "Far from the madding crowd" which we'd done as a class for English Lit. O level and had grown to heartily detest.   First song was "Brown sugar" (Stones) but re-titled "Bathsheba".

Though thinking about it now, I was also in the warm-up act, a motley Prog group created mainly from the weirder members of the school orchestra, so technically my ever first song on stage was "A trick of the tail" (Genesis).  Never played it since.

[diskwave]

1978, Deni Deni by Blondie in a dark and dingy basement night club on the Isle of Wight. Im 17 and incredibly nervous. Our girl lead singer didnt help either in stockings, heels, and wearing an unbuttoned blokes shirt. She really did think she was Debby Harry!

 

We'd gone straight from the guitarists bedroom to that mush pit and my abiding memory of that night is not being able to hear a thing as I was using the main acts pair of Orange bass bins and had never been on a stage before.  Guitarist was to low, vocals and drums to loud and the keys player and myself got horribly lost. What a car crash. Ive never seen a dance floor empty so fast! ...haha.

 

But I think back now of all the different musical experiences I've enjoyed since that first, crazy terrifying night and feel blessed to have a had a life playing bass....Still loving it now.

[StingRayBoy42]

21st March 1992, Xaverian College Band Night with No Fat on a Turkey.

We opened with Red Berry Joy Town by the Wonderstuff, we also did She Bangs the Drums (Roses), Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen) and three of our own.

There's video evidence which shall remain encased in lead, buried under a volcano for all time.

[Crusoe]

I think it may have been "Peggy Sue", with "All Day and All of the Night" also on the setlist.

[neepheid]

First song I played live was The Specials, "Nite Klub", 2008 (September, I think), The Tunnels, Aberdeen. It was a one-off band my wife put together for a birthday party. I played a Squier Bronco.

[Reggaebass]

Can’t remember exactly what song but it was a Bob Marley one, Exodus or waiting in vain in a pub in Leytonstone high road, they didn’t ask us back 😁

[musicbassman]

1968. 16 years old. First song I ever rehearsed with a band was Sunshine of Your Love. This was round at the drummers house, he had weird parents who were hoarders, they never opened the curtains and the whole place smelt of wee.

I was 'playing' a Watkins Rapier 33 guitar, we used to hire an AC30 from the local music shop on a Saturday morning, lug it down the High St and back to his house, and then plug in two guitars, bass, and three mikes.  Well, it had six input sockets, didn't it ?

One morning, an older guy from another local band came round to see us, and showed us how to play a 12 bar sequence. I was very impressed, and then realised that every single track on the John Mayalls Bluesbreakers album that I was playing constantly at home was simply yet another 12 bar.  😳

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Unusually (apparently, according to this thread anyway) my first song was in my first band which was an originals band and we didn't do any covers.

I'm struggling to remember the first gig venue, but I think it was Elm Park/Romford way.

I couldn't tell you the name of the song either. It would be one of about 10 we'd spent forever rehearsing.

I often wonder what happened to the drummer Nik. I'd be surprised if he was still alive. The candles that burn brightest don't often last longest.

[SimonK]

On bass it was in a pit orchestra for my school doing the musical Grease around '95ish. I'd played classical guitar since I was 9 and did all the termly/annual school concerts up until then, but do remember playing Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" in a school assembly accompanying the choir, and also vaguely remember playing the Shadow's "Apache" in a school assembly possibly before that.

[Leonard Smalls]

First gig on an actual bass was with Dredd and the Badass Weeds, as we were known then, must have been early 1985 at a party in Chestnut Avenue, Leeds... I borrowed a short scale Gibson off Jez Utah (I didn't own one, taught myself to play on an acoustic guitar!). We had 4 actual "songs" - a punk thing called "Thatcher's Britain", a bit of metalishness ("Loud and Proud" with the chorus Heavy Metal Music, Loud and Proud! Mysterious goblins, Dressed in shrouds), a funky ditty called "That ain't a thing (it's a thang)" and a reggae thing called "Sex Feeling" (it had inadvertently laugh-out-loud lyrics which I won't repeat 😄). But we played for probably 2.5 hours, having rehearsed at most twice and basically improvised some vaguely funky rocky and occasionally reggae stuff.

And weirdly we got a gig at the University Tartan Bar a couple of weeks later, then at the Warehouse despite a lack of actual coherence and rehearsal.

And in early spring next year, to celebrate 40 years we're releasing our first EP!

[BlueMoon]

Godspell - in the local theatre pit.

 

I like to scare myself - I don’t think!

[Lozz196]

1 hour ago, Leonard Smalls said:

First gig on an actual bass was with Dredd and the Badass Weeds, as we were known then, must have been early 1985 at a party in Chestnut Avenue, Leeds... I borrowed a short scale Gibson off Jez Utah (I didn't own one, taught myself to play on an acoustic guitar!). We had 4 actual "songs" - a punk thing called "Thatcher's Britain", a bit of metalishness ("Loud and Proud" with the chorus Heavy Metal Music, Loud and Proud! Mysterious goblins, Dressed in shrouds), a funky ditty called "That ain't a thing (it's a thang)" and a reggae thing called "Sex Feeling" (it had inadvertently laugh-out-loud lyrics which I won't repeat 😄). But we played for probably 2.5 hours, having rehearsed at most twice and basically improvised some vaguely funky rocky and occasionally reggae stuff.

And weirdly we got a gig at the University Tartan Bar a couple of weeks later, then at the Warehouse despite a lack of actual coherence and rehearsal.

And in early spring next year, to celebrate 40 years we're releasing our first EP!

Well there’s no point in rushing these things……..

[MacDaddy]

I'd done classical guitar recitals and played with orchestras and choirs, but the first 'band' gig on bass was an originals band, with 3 Pink Floyd covers in the set.

I seem to remember the opening song being Floyd's Breathe.

[Bassman Sam]

Just to fess up, the first gig I played  Badge  and various Beatles songs was at my School disco,1969. We played during the DJ's break and everyone there were shouting " Band Off, Disco On".

[Jackroadkill]

22 minutes ago, Bassman Sam said:

Just to fess up, the first gig I played  Badge  and various Beatles songs was at my School disco,1969. We played during the DJ's break and everyone there were shouting " Band Off, Disco On".

 

Bastards!!!

[Bassman Sam]

4 minutes ago, Jackroadkill said:

 

Bastards!!!

No. We deserved it. 

[Dan Dare]

It was 55 years ago, when I was 16. I struggle to remember what I played last week 🫤

[mep]

It was 1980 and I was 14 and in a school band. At our first gig we played Smoke on the Water, Babylons Burning and You shook Me All Night Long, but I don't remember the exact order.

[bassbiscuits]

December 1988, in a school common room where my older brother was a sixth former, with a band without a name. 
 

I just rang my bro and he can’t remember the first song either.
 

The set definitely featured some Poison, Def Leppard and er, Wild Thing.  
 

VHS does exist of it somewhere, interrupted by someone announcing she was serving cake. 
 

Added info: gear was my white Westone Spectrum ST bass into a borrowed Carlsbro bass combo of some sort. 
 

Edited December 1 by bassbiscuits
Gear added

[Stub Mandrel]

I know my mate's first song was probably Spirit of the Age.

 

For me something off this list (which was after we'd done a fair few gigs) but probably c 'mon everybody.

 

The photo is the actual first gig.

 

 

[russ.c]

Paint it black at a jam night. I was playing guitar, had no idea what we were doing, borrowed a drummer because ours didn't show. He didn't know the beat. It was a complete car crash. We stopped after a few bars, packed up and disappeared. It was after that I decided bass was for me.