Just Subbed a Gig With No Rehearsal

[Iconoclast]

And by some miracle it went well.

 

background: One of my too-many acts is backing up an Eric Clapton trib. The band leader of that show has an alter-ego blues band that he does with other musicians. He calls me to sub a couple of months ago and I agree because at the time I was out of work. He sends me the setlist and I realize I know very few of the songs. Yikes.

 

My real background is prog/classic rock and I play guitar a lot in the same genre. OK, it's blues, how hard can it be?

 

Then he calls me a couple weeks ago and says he's going to be out of town until gig day and we won't have a rehearsal. yikes again.

 

Then I get called back to work and like everyone else in the world I'm suddenly busier than hell with my day job the last month.

 

So I've spent every spare hour rehearsing songs, some with charts, some without, until my thumbs were sore. I mean really sore.

 

On gig day, everything went pretty smooth. I really only got lost a couple of times and it wasn't anywhere where I was out front or naked, so I could just lay back. I brought the Nord Stage so I could reprogram on the fly if my patches sounded crappy in the room. Most of my stuff sounded right except for the pianos which needed tweaking for the space. I was kind of shocked how well it went, having never actually subbed a gig that I didn't already know pretty much all the music.

 

After a couple of songs the BL kept nodding over to me to take solos...so I think that's a winning cue? Honestly took a bunch in places I didn't expect, which of course never happens in a classic/prog rock kind of show where everything is more composed.

 

One thing that really helped was the BL puts everything in pretty much the same keys for his vocals, so even though I had to transpose a lot to practice with the recordings, it put everything in the same modes and was really a great learning process to have all those songs in similar keys.

 

End of the night, tip jar full, some bar patron paid off our tabs, new date scheduled with venue.

 

Partial list of some of the non-standard stuff I learned for the show:

Still Got the Blues - Gary Moore

Prison of Love - Robben Ford

Black Velvet

Lie to Me - johnny Lang

I Feel Lucky-Mary Chapin Carpenter

Go the Distance - Walter Trout

Gotta Leave - Davey Knowles

Midnight Blues - Gary Moore

Too Tired - Gary Moore

Quitters Never Win - Johnny Lang

Sloe Gin - Joe Bonamassa

[ElmerJFudd]

Congratulations, good for you! Thanks for sharing.

What did you bring to play on?

[Bill H.]

Great job! There's some stuff in there that's not 12 bar blues or 1 - 4 - 5... Black Velvet sticks out in particular. It's cool that a blues band would step a little out of the box with material like that.

[Moonglow]

Black Velvet sticks out in particular. It's cool that a blues band would step a little out of the box with material like that.

+1...and the only song I recognize on that list, at least by name.

 

I have a couple of friends who love this sort of thing...just showing up to a gig, having never played with a band before, and not knowing all of the songs. They say they enjoy that level of arousal.

[stillearning]

I have a couple of friends who love this sort of thing...just showing up to a gig, having never played with a band before, and not knowing all of the songs. They say they enjoy that level of arousal.

I love filling in. And for the very reason you mentioned. I enjoy the rush! Especially last minute subbing!

[stillearning]

And by some miracle it went well.

 

 

â¦On gig day, everything went pretty smooth. I really only got lost a couple of times and it wasn't anywhere where I was out front or naked, so I could just lay back. I brought the Nord Stage so I could reprogram on the fly if my patches sounded crappy in the room. Most of my stuff sounded right except for the pianos which needed tweaking for the space. I was kind of shocked how well it went, having never actually subbed a gig that I didn't already know pretty much all the music.

 

After a couple of songs the BL kept nodding over to me to take solos...so I think that's a winning cue? Honestly took a bunch in places I didn't expect, which of course never happens in a classic/prog rock kind of show where everything is more composed.

 

One thing that really helped was the BL puts everything in pretty much the same keys for his vocals, so even though I had to transpose a lot to practice with the recordings, it put everything in the same modes and was really a great learning process to have all those songs in similar keys.

 

End of the night, tip jar full, some bar patron paid off our tabs, new date scheduled with venue.

 

Good for you! It sounds like you had fun and did great! Fun, isn"t it? Nord Stage is a good board for subbing in like that.

[MAJUSCULE]

Nice, that sounds like fun material and a great gig! Playing with new folks is such a great feeling, especially when it goes well!

[allan_evett]

I have a couple of friends who love this sort of thing...just showing up to a gig, having never played with a band before, and not knowing all of the songs. They say they enjoy that level of arousal.

 

I did that with a country band in the Denver area. The bandleader lived in the far SE suburbs, and we were in Fort Collins at the time; so attempting a rehearsal was a geographic challenge. That happened in 2008 and I stayed with the band, for the most part, til 2013. Actually never rehearsed in person after that, but to learn new material we all did our homework. Would not have ever attempted that with my current semi-prog/classic rock, etc. band. While there is quite a bit of rock/pop/country I could've gotten through for a walk-in, the semi-prog keys stuff would've been a mess. There's no way to fake Styx, or Toto well. Think I've rerun the Rosanna solo about fifteen times this morning..

[cphollis]

Congratulations! I've done the "too few rehearsals" thing many times, but never a "no rehearsal". Well, not really. Like you, I had an emergency-try-and-learn-a bunch-of-new-songs-quickly fire drill. I put the effort in, felt confident -- and then had a covid cancellation. Which was frustrating. But I found it a great "workout", so not all bad.

[Jazz+]

Nice story. Did you say same key, which key? Were they almost all 12 bar blues?

[area51recording]

If I was gonna walk into a gig with no prep, blues or country would probably be the least stressful situations....even if the changes strayed from a straight 12 bar, there probably won't be much exotic stuff going on in the way of changes, ie. nothing you couldn't hear and play....as keyboard players we have a big leg up, in that many times we can let the change happen and then play what we hear. Bass players are on the other end of the spectrum with regards to that, because if they're not on the ONE with the right note it screws the whole band.....

[mate stubb]

I played a private party gig a few years ago going in cold. The guitar player called an entire set of his originals, without a care about us clueless others onstage. Turns out after the first verse, there were rarely any surprises.

 

He called a bunch of cover tunes later on that I had heard on the radio back in the day but never played. On me toes, I was.

[Iconoclast]

Congratulations, good for you! Thanks for sharing.

What did you bring to play on?

For gigs like this, where there's a lot of unknowns, I think a Nord Stage is a great keyboard. Much easier to program on the fly than just about anything else I've owned.

 

I have DBS-1 drawbars on the Nord so it makes the organ even easier to dial in on the fly.

[Iconoclast]

Nice story. Did you say same key, which key? Were they almost all 12 bar blues?

A surprising number of non-12 bar songs although there were several.

 

The BL has no problem changing key to fit his voice so there were a lot of them in G, A or B. That made it a lot easier.

[Chris Link]

Did a (almost) big band gig a few years back with no rehearsal.

 

The bandleader tried to fax me some charts (he"s an old-fashioned sort) but didn"t put my name on the header and the folks at work didn"t get them to me. He said 'I"m sure you"ll be fine'.

 

Lots of 'horn' keys that I hadn"t played much with blues and rock players. The musicians were mostly U of Nebraska music faculty. I only got lost a couple of times, managed a couple of short solos and he did call me back for another gig.

 

As Moe said 'on my toes' all night!

[David R]

Nice work, Iconoclast. It's a real skill to show up on a gig with no rehearsal and slide in with the band so they don't notice.

 

I once subbed an entire tour (six shows) with no rehearsal, no set list, no audio sent to me â I went poking around on YouTube and did my homework. Needless to say, that was the most nervous I've ever been... made the tour work and those guys are all still good friends, so I didn't flame out too badly I guess.