Most of you probably don't get this way, but it happens to me from time to time.

I just REALLY don't want to play this gig tonight! Given the choice of playing this gig, spending the day at the DMV or going in for a root canal, I can't decide which would be worse.

- It's one of those gigs that feels extremely uncoordinated, where we might show up and the owners of the place will say, "What band?"

- We're playing with a sub bassist who, while great, isn't comfortable with at least half of our stuff.

- The gig is 40 miles north of here, and we don't end until 1:00am, which means we leave there at 2:00 if we're lucky and get home at 3:00... on a Sunday, when I have to be up four hours later, at 7:00 tomorrow.

All in all, I'd prefer not plaing this, but I also believe that when I've made a committment, I have to keep it. So, complainingly and begrudgingly, I'm getting ready to go.

But, like Terrell Owens says, I won't like it!

- Jeff

So Jeff gets there and it's a "Girls Gone Wild" convention...

Some guys have all the luck.

So how'd it go? Lots of times these types of gigs can pleasantly surprise you.

It was... alright. Most of my worst fears did not come true.

- They actually were expecting a band. (insert sigh of relief)

- The sub bassist only destroyed one song in a 15-song set. Not bad at all.

- We were able to end at midnight (yay!) since the private party petered out earlier than expected. I was in bed by 2:00.

Now, the ugly...

- Our "stage" (an area cleared out by removing two tables from the restaurant area) was the smallest I've ever played. I was basically standing on the kick drum, and bumped into my singer five times.

- I was told there would be "hundreds" of people there. Somehow that translated to about 30 people.

- When we first arrived, customers were still eating in the restaurant, and we had to wait around for two hours before loading in.

But all in all, I've had worse gigs. Much worse.

- Jeff

I've played quite a few gigs like that in my area as well. We'd get there early to set up and have to wait for the people eating at the tables where we were to play to be moved.
Sometimes if we didn't move the tables right away, other customers would sit down and we'd have to wait longer. All of these places are restaurants first and considered a bar second. It's always fun trying to stand in place for 3 or 4 sets as not to bang into each other. Luckily myself and the guitar player both play right handed or we'd have been banging the necks as we were so close together.
We used to rent a loft to practice in and would, after loading from there, unloading in the bar, loading in the vehicles climb back up to the second floor to put the gear back, usually home by 3:00am was a good night.
I'll likely be getting back into gigs like that with the new project I'm working on with 2 singers and me on acoustic guitar. We'll be playing the same bars as with the other band.

A number of years ago I was in a house band at a place in Harare, Zimbabwe. I was the only American in any of the bands locally, and we were a classic rock/pseudo-top 40's band called "The Proof". The name of the venue was "The Hangar", owned by another musician, and all around good guy named Bud. Anyway, to make an excrutiatingly long story less than publishable length, the entertainment area of the venue was on the second floor with a balcony behind the stage that went straight to the pavement below. The stage was an actual stage, except it was 8x12 feet, and there were 5 of us. I was the keys player, and part of my gear sat on the leading edge of the stage, and one of my stands was actually off the stage, to the right of me. Fortunately it was high enough that I could reach OK. Anyway, we had a really tight band, and 2 great guitar players. Unfortunately, our leader was a prima donna named Nigel. He had a Les Paul that he could play like nobody's business. Nigel was located RIGHT next to me, and he was right handed. That meant that the body of this anchor he called a guitar was continually bumping into my brand new DX7. The stand I had was locally made, and less than reliable. After getting bumped into a few times with this battle axe I gave him a rather stern warning about damaging my $2000 keyboard that he didn't have a snowballs chance of replacing if it went over. Needless to say, in his enthusiasm (he was a killer front man), he bumped it once too hard, once too often, and it went crashing to the ground. Before the noise came to a halt I had Nigel off the ground and was ready to throw him off the balcony. The drummer (and my best friend) Paul came to his rescue, and I put him down. Needless to say I was done for the night, and after a few hours of moaning and complaining I got a few broken keys fixed, and was back the next night (we played Friday and Saturday). Things were never quite the same after that. Gee, I wonder if it was something I said ...

Jay