Your First Live "Gig"???

[BiC]

When was your first live gig? It doesn't matter how many people were there.

 

My first live gig would have to be during my brother's wedding in April of 88'. I knew the band. They let me play a song with them. You would know that song by the title of:

 

"Keep Your Hands To Yourself"

 

What fun that was!

 

Peace

[Marc_Lafrance]

My first gig was at my school about 2 months ago. The crowd seemed to really like it and there was about 150 people watching. It was a fun time and I did another one about a week ago.

[Guitar Geezer]

"Keep Your Hands To Yourself"

Georgia Satellites - great tune - we use that to warm up with sometimes

 

Mine was about 1968 - Candy's Flair in Oak Cliff Tx. Bass player broke his wrist so I stumbled thru the set as a last minute replacement (I was a neighbor who used to hang around)

[Nollykin]

My mates and I used to have a fake punk band doing some very peppers / grinspoon orientated stuff. I was lead singer - we had our first gig in 2002 for a battle of the school bands. We came second, but I think we could have came first. The guitarist wasnt allowed to bring his amp in (it was only a small show and such) and thus he didnt have a distortion pedal - and so he refused to play "otherside" by the peppers at the end, and we had to settle for an acoustic cover of "time of your life" - a song totally overdone and overplayed - Otherside was our best song - I certainly got right into it - I was really shitted with the guys for passing up that oppourtunity. Hell - I could have flicked the disto on for him.

 

lol.

 

Oh well.

 

Nolly

[Tedster]

BTW...heya Nolly, you can stray, but ya can't stray far Welcome back!

 

My first gig would have been probably in '74 or so. Junior High School dance. I was in high school. Some of the tunes we played...

 

Keep Playin' That Rock and Roll...Edgar Winter

American Band...Grand Funk

Rocky Mountain Way...Joe Walsh

Hold Back the Water...BTO

Choo Choo Boogie...Ten Years After

 

Among others. Good grief, haven't thought about that in a LONG time...

[Nollykin]

Originally posted by The Tedster From The Black Lagoon:

[QB]BTW...heya Nolly, you can stray, but ya can't stray far Welcome back!QB]

Heh - yeah, I'm a sucker for you guys

[Dave da Dude]

My first "gig" was for an audience of drunken, beer soaked friends in our off-campus apartment. BTW, our apartment was nick named "The Sty" for some reason. Our "Pop-Top Chain" was officially recognized (by letter) by Anhauser Busch as the ".. longest they were aware of .." This was when pop-tops first came out, and the pop-top came off of the can when opened. By putting the bent "tab" through the ring of the next pop-top, a chain could be created. Our chain circled the ceiling of three rather large rooms. Maybe the record still stands Oh yeah, and my playing seemed rather good to my friends, at least the ones I could wake up.

 

Seriously, the only thing I've ever done that could be called a "gig" was a function at work about 1983. Two of us layed down the rythm (and only musical instruments) for a rousing redition of "It's A Small World", gag ... puke, to a couple of hundred bored employees.

 

The 2nd, and freely selected music, "gig" was at our Methodist church a coupla years later. We did one or two contemporary christian songs and then ... the controversial one. It was somewhat in the vein of "Signs" by ELO and mentioned something about the (hypocritical) Methodist going to hell. We never were invited back. I wonder why?

 

I never have publicly done anything on electric though. I need to get a little better; or brazen; or maybe even better, drunk, for that.

 

Dave

[strat0124]

4H convention, I was in a band named Surge, after the dairy industry product. We played Helpless and The Thrill is Gone. We sucked, but damn we sucked GREAT! Probably 300 people there, trial by fire. I was 12 or 13.....uh....we didn't....get paid money. But it was a great experience. Loranger, Louisiana.

[Funk Jazz]

my first gig was back in high school, prob 1989. me and some friends opened for a skinhead punk band named "fist". but here's the catch, my band was covering hippy tunes. it was so funny. here we are playing the doors, grateful dead, jimi and such... and all these skin heads are ready to kill us at any minute. there was about fifty of 'em, they just stood there flipping us off, looking pissed, and insulting us the whole time.

 

somehow i got out alive. i'll never forget that night.

[Djinn1973]

I was fifteen or sixteen and it was either at the local Sr high, during some kind of anti drug thing for the freshmen, or at a kegger thrown for some ones birthday; both were with in days of each other but for some reason I can't remember which came first. One of my friends had put together a "grunge band" to play some covers and originals, and needed some one that could solo, and keep up with him when he decided to "Improvise" and for what ever reason he thought that was me. I didnt think I was ready to play infront of people yet, but he talked me in to it. I got out there and I was so nervous that I thought I was going to throw up. But in as much as I can remember it went really well (for a "first gig") yeah there were a few train wreck moments like when I was out of key, played too slow or too fast.

But when we finished our set people clapped,and a few complemented us when we packed up. So we couldn't have sucked that bad.

[Teahead]

We managed to sweet talk our way into a Monday night gig in an over-priced student haunt around two years ago, and brought around sixty folks alongs. Not aware of the fact that it was graduation day at the nearby University, we also found the place packed with formally dressed posh types.

After a brief soundcheck we were approached by the guy in charge that night, he said, "Ok so that's you guys finished right? I need that stuff out of here a.s.a.p" I almost sh1t myself, "No, wait we've got a half hour set from 9pm! It's been arranged with the BarManager!" "We've brought people!" He looked around him and considered just how many of the crowd looked like they were out for rock and roll, and whilst they were in the minority, they obviously looked threatening enough He consented to let us play the half hour! From there it was plain sailing, I even saw him nodding his head in front of the stage for a few tunes.

[Dak Lander]

Daaaaaamn, that was eons ago. Back in, I don't know, '66/'67?, I was vocalist in a non-blues playing band called Blues Incorporated .

I do remember Hanky Panky as one of the tunes.

[NMcGuitar]

Halloween night, 1980.

A friend of mine was part of a church teen club, and asked my friend Dan & I if we knew where he could find a band to play at their Halloween party/dance. We looked at each other and said we'd do it.

We put the band together in 3 weeks. Unfortunately the teen club didn't advertise this thing at all, so for a big chunk of the evening there were at least as many people on stage as in the audience - and the audience was mostly our friends.

 

It was a lot of fun, though.

[Mike Gug]

At a Senior rally, during high school, our jazz band played. I wasn't in that. However, our punk band, the People's Front of Judiah (you may have known just as The People's Front) want to play, but DENIED! No can do!

 

Well, Once the jazz band started, the band leader/teacher always just let them play by themselves. After he took off, the jazz band finished and no teacher was to be seen, just as we hoped. Only a couple of cool teachers in the back of the auditorium.

 

So, Mickey Dead grabs the mic, I grab the 335-copy bass guitar and out comes one more guitar. We played Wipe Out, God Save the Queen and one more Sex Pistols tune before we got booted off the stage by the band teacher. The crowd loved us. A bunch of hyped up Seniors with one week of school before graduation... we could have farted Yankee Doodle and gotten cheers... Ahhhh... good times...

 

Good first gig

[gtrpir8]

Senior year in high school (1975), in a Sha Na NA type band. We played our high school Homecoming dance to about 100 people. I sang bass vocals, and made my debut on guitar playing rhythm to the Monkees song "Valerie". I didn't even play during the verse - just the chorus, four chords, while our real guitarist played the solos.

[Gato]

My first gig was in 1986. I used to play a Hondo guitar strat copy until 1987, what a piece of junk ¡¡¡¡

[Psychotronic]

1977. I was 9 years old, and I played Stairway to Heaven in front of my entire student body (somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 kids). I probably skipped the solo section, though. I don't recall being nervous either, I didn't realize I should have been.

[NMcGuitar]

Originally posted by NMcGhoul-tar:

Halloween night, 1980.

Twenty-three years ago tonight.

Damn... can it really be that long ago???

[mchen]

I had to start counting back the years on this one. The very first band I was ever in, "The Rebels", played 2 nights in a row in about 1967. I was around 14 and we played a wedding reception and then a teen dance at a church.

 

We made $5.00 each at the wedding and got free soda at the church.

 

I remember playing Land of 1000 Dances and Twist and Shout.

 

I had a Kay solidbody from Montgomery Wards and a Gibson Skylark amp. We were very loud.

 

I'll never forget it!

 

Someone should have stopped me.........

[tahitijack]

My first gig was at my annual summer beach house party for friends, family and neighbors. I asked my guitar teacher if he would like to play solo for the party. He said why don't you and I play? So we began working on some songs and a couple of weeks later he said "A bass player I know asked me to play a gig the night of your party. I told him about your party and he asked if he could join us." I said yes and now we were a trio. The next week my teacher said "When the bass player called the drummer, that had arranged the gig, to tell him he was not going the play the gig, the drummer asked if he could play my party." I said yes and now we were four. A few days before the party my guitar teacher called to say that the drummer had asked him if a keyboard player could join the band. I said yes and we were five. I ran into my previous guitar teacher at the local guitar shop the day of the party. He asked how I was doing. I said if your not doing anything tonight bring your guitar and an amp to my party and join my band. He showed up and said it was the first time he played a gig where the dance floor got mowed. We set-up on my deck which overlooks the ocean on one side and the lawn where my guests were on the other. I had a blast. The night went too fast. Songs ended too soon. My best friend got most of it on video and at the end of the night my wife became my first groupie. Happy sunsets.

[MartinC]

1975 in a school yard. we played some Zep and some robin trower tunes. Got a chicken dinner as payment.

[DanielT]

My first live gig was in 1971 when I was in 9th grade. We played at the Jr. High School for the Hot Pants Dance as an audition for the 8th grade dance, which was a semi-formal affair. I played lead guitar on a Crestwood 335 copy (sort of) through a 5 watt LectroLab amp (all tube). The other guitar player had a Vox pumpkin seed shaped guitar, remember those?, and the organ player had a Vox Jaguar and matching amp. No bass player. We even did a couple of original tunes, but we lost out on the audition to a band called The Heavy Electric (T.H.E.). Man, those were the days....