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First gig advice


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Well, we finally got a drummer, and we're about to play our first ever gig in a local bar (unpaid). We are two guitars, bass guitar, drummer and female lead singer. We do a variety of blues/r&b/soft rock covers and a couple of original tunes. My question:

 

Any practical advice on gear, stage procedures, or handling butterflies would be much appreciated!

 

Thanks

Dave

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* start on time

* keep the in-between songs banter to a minimum

* don't play too loud

* be nice to the staff (especially the sound person -- if there is one)

* don't act like rock stars

* make sure you have extra strings and drum sticks

* don't bring huge racks of gear -- unless your sound is absolutely dependent on it, the audience won;t know the difference, and it's just more things that cn go wrong

* have fun

* as far as buterflies go, I have no advice other than to suggest the technique Marcia Brady used: picture everyone in in the audience in their underwear.

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ah the first gig......well I recommend not drinking like a viking before or during, same goes with drugs...moderation is the key, or abstinance. And don't hesitate to rock, but don't blow your wad the first time you get a solo........leave some for later.
Down like a dollar comin up against a yen, doin pretty good for the shape I'm in
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Be tight on your endings, don't obsess on mistakes, keep going if one pops up. Don't mention that this is your first gig, act like you've been there before. When I see a band play I hate hearing excuses like, "ok we've never played this song before, I hope we do it right". No one knows if you're doing it right or not, don't point it out. Remember, the people are there to have a good time, be entertained and to drink. Just play your songs, look at the audience, communicate with the rest of the band and be very gracious. For the butterflies, take a deep breath and relax. I remember one time when I was playing a gig with a couple other bands, a member of one of the other bands asked me if I got nervous before gigs. He seemed surprised when I said "No." Afterall, I know the material we're playing, I know my parts, and I WANT TO BE ON STAGE!!! Performing music for other people is one of the reasons I do what I do, I want to entertain and try hard as I can to do so. If a musician doesn't want to entertain, then they should stay home and just record and post your music on the web for people to hear.

 

Good luck on your gig, keep a positive attitude and everything should go well. If you can, videotape your performance so you can get an idea how you come across on stage. It won't help the first gig, but it will help future ones. Then you can pull the tape years later and watch yourself and cringe in horror like I do when I watch the tape of my first gig!!!

 

 

 

------------------

KJ

-------------------

bari man low

KJ

-------------------

"50 million Elvis Presley fans can't be all wrong" - John Prine

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Originally posted by vopt:

Well, we finally got a drummer, and we're about to play our first ever gig in a local bar (unpaid). We are two guitars, bass guitar, drummer and female lead singer. We do a variety of blues/r&b/soft rock covers and a couple of original tunes. My question:

 

Any practical advice on gear, stage procedures, or handling butterflies would be much appreciated!

 

Thanks

Dave

 

As long as you have your music ready[lots of practice] get on stage and enjoy what you play get into it, feel it, get it out, butterflies? you will not even remember, I repeat enjoy yourself, don't worry about mistakes, record yourself video, audio or both is a very good improvment tool.

 

If something goes wrong[hopefully not] with your gear, don't worry about it just talk to audience while the problem gets fixed and keep on palying!

 

Good luck, have fun!!

 

ViLo

 

 

------------------

HE'S COMING, MAKE MUSIC, BE HAPPY! :)

 

Jesus Is Coming, Make Music, Get Ready!

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Rule Number One:

DON'T PANIC

 

Also...

 

- A GOOD sound check up at least a couple of hours before gig time

- Bring all necessary cables and power cords

- Bring a well calibrated guitar and Bass tuner

- Make sure the cover songs you are gonna play are adequate for the audience

- HAVE FUN !!!

- Do not fight onstage if someone makes a mistake. You could fix that later

- Do not drink before the gig... it is a ridiculous excuse and people could notice who of you are drunk

- Be nice persons with the Bar's owner and the sound technician. This is about good relations, guys.

- Enjoy the gig as if you were in the middle of a stadium full of people... I say this because ONE customer deserves the same respect than a million... so, do the full show for whatever the number of atendees is.

 

For the butterflies... Enjoy them !!! The most of us are in music because of that feeling... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

 

To get prepared do some aerobic movements backstage. Jump, move your arms, run a little, warm up your fingers...

 

After that, try relaxing with a stomach breathing technique... get as much air as you can with the lower part of your stomach; it has to grow more than your chest. Retain the air for about 5-6 seconds... then release it... do it about 10 times...

 

then... and a one - and a two - and ...

 

GusTraX

 

This message has been edited by GusTraX on 06-13-2001 at 04:31 PM

Músico, Productor, Ingeniero, Tecnólogo

Senior Product Manager, América Latina y Caribe - PreSonus

at Fender Musical Instruments Company

 

Instagram: guslozada

Facebook: Lozada - Música y Tecnología

 

www.guslozada.com

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1. Always face the audience

 

2. Remember to breathe - nervousness usually results in shortness of breath, which could wreak havoc on your concentration

 

3. Move around a little on stage - beginning players usually stand frozen in one spot. Even a little movement will relax you and get you into your playing

 

4. Keep your stage volume low. It'll help your singer (and sound engineer, if you're getting one) out tremendously.

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Expect the sound onstage to suck. It won't be like at your rehearsals and you'll probably think you're not loud enough. Tilt your amp so it's pointing at your ears that way you'll have to use less volume to hear yourself.

 

Don't discuss techniqualities of how the show went until the next day. You'll be more objective and not as biased by the adrenaline, etc. And that way you can focus on just living that great moment while it's still fresh. For the same reason don't blame anyone in the band for their wrong doing during the evening because everybody will be either stressed or too emotionnal to grasp any negative input without freaking out.

 

Bring condoms. Who knows...

 

Mark all your gear and wires with the same color tape to avoid mixing them with the place's and other's gear. I use yellow.

 

Oh yeah, about the butterflies: dig them, it means you're alive and doing something out of the ordinary. It usually goes away as soon as you play the first note.

 

And most importantly: try to look like your having fun and listen to the others in the playing.

 

Also, make sure the band plays during the following week of the gig. Too often bands just slack off after a gig and sometimes just dismantles.

 

Emile

 

Emile

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Originally posted by spigots:

Bring the lead singer there yourself. They're always fucking late.

 

LMFAO!!!!

 

After the first song, if the reaction isn't up to par, buy the house a round of drinks! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

 

But seriously, take care in deciding on the set list.

In all my bands, I always broke down the list into 3 song 'mini sets'. It usually worked out as 1 fast, 1 slow, 1 fast. You get the point. Start fast-end fast.

Also, everything Mr. Hughes said.

Steve

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When someone hits the wrong note, whatever you do: do NEVER turn around and stare at the offender! Just pretend that all is fine and happening and the crowd will probably never notice any problems. True professionals even make mistakes with style & attitude! The visual impressions tells the brain that the show is great no matter what it sounds!

 

Tune your instruments before you enter the stage. Nothing is as boring as a band entering the stage and then starts tuning before the first song. If you need to tune between songs, do it silently with a stage tuner.

 

Bring at least 1 extra cable and put where any bandmember can easily pick it up, you never know...

 

Stick to your plans, do NOT turn up the amps after sound check. If you have problem hearing an instrument, then something else is too loud!

 

Bring a camera, ask someone to take plenty of snaps! You are making history tonite!

 

Have fun, enjoy the situation and support each other.

 

/Mats

http://www.lexam.net/peter/carnut/man.gif

What do we want? Procrastination!

When do we want it? Later!

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Great advice from all so far. My advice...have fun...enjoy yourself...and to help with that, bring as many of your friends who are fans of your band as possible. It's great to play for familiar and friendly faces. The bar owner will appreciate it, too. Here's a sneaky trick...and well worth a couple of bucks...have a couple (guy and girl) of your friends as a "plant"...so they get out on the dance floor and party. It's infectious...other people are more likely to have fun and party if they see another couple (or two or three) out there already. Playing is really easy, and all butterflies go away, if the crowd is partying. Having them stare at you is when the butterflies come...and too many butterflies screw up your playing.

 

My main source of butterflies (and I still get 'em big time) is "Will all the equipment work properly?" This makes me a hell of a lot more nervous than my performance. Make sure your equipment is ready, and you've got a backup for anything that's maybe a bit shaky...

 

Remember, no matter HOW much you rehearse a song in the basement...it'll all go out the window onstage. If someone screws up, be fluid enough so that if the lead guitarist goes into a solo when a verse should come in, you all can cover for him. Don't even sweat the little mistakes. The big ones, either...just use some good visual cues.

 

OH...another thing...there's a tendency for the "BIG ENDING"...drummer flailing away...lead player playing every lick he knows at warp speed building to a crescendo and BOP (this is after the rhythm has stopped...) Don't do that! It gives people a chance to leave the dance floor. Keep your endings short and tight and head right into the next song. Once they leave...it's hard to get 'em back. If they're not nibbling on the fast stuff, give 'em a slow tune.

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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All great advice - thank you all so much!

 

By the way, I will be driving the lead singer to the gig. She's my wife, and she is always late :-) For the same reason, I should probably disregard that tip about condoms though...

 

Dave

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Make the sure the first three tunes are ones you can nail in your sleep!

 

After that, for each of your sets...open with a couple of well reheased kickers and then make sure you close each set with a couple of kickers...they'll forget the fuck-ups if they are buried in the middle.

 

But if most of the audience knows this is your debute...they will be receptive and understanding...don't let one or two hecklers get to you.

 

Oh...a shot of Hennessy Cognac with a Coke chaser (choose you own poison), at the start of the night, always worked for my nerves!!!

miroslav - miroslavmusic.com

 

"Just because it happened to you, it doesn't mean it's important."

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Do your soundcheck and put gaffa tape over the amplifiers pots.

Use three or four layers over the lead guitarists volume knob. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

 

Seriously. Have the guitars and bass tuned before the gig and leave them onstage.

Don't have them tuned in the room and bring them to the stage just before you're about to start. Guitars are sensitive to changes in temperature and lights turn the heat up.

 

If you have lights turned on the same time as you start you will probably need to tune them again after one or two songs.

If you do, have someone talk to the audience, introduce the bandmembers or make a joke, when the guitars are being tuned so there aren't any long annoying delays.

 

Do a checklist with all that has been recommended in this thread and go through them before you start.

 

------------------

--Smedis,--

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We played the gig, and everybody had a great time. The butterflies did go away as soon as we started playing, and the lead singer was late. Looking at the video, I can see where we can improve, and some of the things you folks warned about happened. But they want us back (we work for free...), and we can only get better from here!

 

Thanks again - I'm keeping this thread for reference.

Dave

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Good that they want you back...and to start, it's okay to work for free. But, if you start developing a following, time to $tart talking $$...small bucks, until your following gets better. The fact that they want you back is an indication that you'll be able to fetch some bucks soon. If you were bad, they wouldn't want you back at all...as it's not even worth it to have entertainment that'd chase their customers off...even for free.

 

I would make sure that if you're playing for free, you're getting some sort of something to make it worth your while. Free pop, maybe a couple free drink tickets, dinner on the house (if they serve food), something.

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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Kudos, Dave!!

 

I'm glad everything worked out o.k.

 

So what happened? Did somebody screw up? Did a cord go south on ya?

I thought YOU were driving the lead singer. That means you were late too, huh!!!

 

Ready to replace the drummer already??!!! (gives sheepish grin to Lee!)

 

Give us the dirt, man!

Steve

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Ricknbokker,

 

What went wrong:

 

My wife was last to be ready, but we left lots of time so it wasn't really an issue. Just thought it was funny given the previous post.

 

We all screwed up at different times, but we played through almost all of the gaffs and I don't think the audience noticed much. They were into the energy more than the music I think.

 

My buddy's tuner wasn't working very well, so he plugged into mine. That'll get fixed for next time.

 

There's nothing like playing live to shine a light on areas you need to practice.

 

We need to work on the sound balance in the audience. We used a combination of the house PA for vocals and our amps for guitars, and tried to balance things by ear before we started. My friend's guitar patches varied in volume quite a bit from patch to patch, so he had to guess how much to compensate by with his amp volume control.

 

I didn't use a pedal except for the distortion channel on my amp, and I balanced the level of those before we started. I was trying to keep my gear to a minimum, as suggested here. I think a couple of the songs would have been better with some effects though, so I'll probably use my DG Stomp next time.

 

My voice didn't sound too good through the PA - too "burbly", but we didn't have time to try to fix it before the set.

 

Next time I think we'll try to mic everything and have everything go through the PA. If we do that though, we could really use a sound man to run the board. The board in this place is beside the stage, which isn't too useful.

 

We shot some video, and looking at it reveals that we could have less banter time in between songs, and we can stand some more work on our beginnings and endings. You guys predicted that too... oh well.

 

What went right:

 

We all had fun and will be much more confident next time out. We know better what to practice. I think the audience enjoyed it, warts and all.

 

We had practiced some songs where we take turns singing vocals, and take turns playing lead. That was fun and added some variety.

 

At one point cook, who is also a drummer, joined us and played drums and sang some ad-lib blues with my wife. Musically it wasn't inspired, but it was entertaining, people loved it! "Go with the flow" is an important lesson. We went with a set list, which was good to have, but modified it for the moment.

 

I found myself playing some things and singing things I had never done in practice. That was really interesting. Inspiration I guess.

 

Dave

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Dave...

 

Mixing from the stage isn't all bad. A LOT of club bands do just that. Of course it's nice to have a soundman, but then you've got to run a snake, make sure you've got it where no one will be stumbling over it (yards of duct tape). And...the most important thing...make sure you've got a GOOD sound man. I miss some of the guys I used to work with...not only sound guys but good El Techs too...have solder gun will travel.

 

But, like I said...it can be pretty good mixing from stage as well. Have someone out front, some competent person, to give you an idea of the balance with hand signals. I keep the board on my right, (I'm right handed) so I can whap a chord and make adjustments while the chord is ringing. A long guitar cable or a wireless can get you out front so you can hear the mix. Of course, this helps mainly if you're not the main vocal person...which I believe you said your wife is...

 

At any rate...consider (can I say this here?) yourself duly "deflowered"...(I was going to use another more coarse euphemism having to do with a kind of fruit found in certain pies, but decided not to).

"Cisco Kid, was a friend of mine"
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Sorry I'm late to this thread, but you've gotten all the

good advice already. So here's an anecdote/allegory. One

group I was in, the singer would announce on the mic after

several songs, "What a train wreck that was!" Knowing him,

I think he was usually expressing criticism of his own

performance. Didn't matter why. It just really bummed out

the audience and didn't do a lot for band morale. I didn't

hang on with them very long.

 

Talked to the singer again recently. They're still playing

freebies in neighborhood barfly dives when they can get them.

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