How do you judge your gig?

[hotroad]

Nice playing there for sure. I think that most listeners would love hearing more of that.

[lweb10]

Originally Posted by Al Acuff

A commercial airline pilot once said to me as I exited his plane, "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing!"

You can finish the analogy...

Yes, there is that . . .

I think it takes a lot of experience to begin to accurately judge your own performance at (or right after) the performance. For one thing, doing that gives you one job too many. I can either play or judge and I'm getting paid to play.

Audiences are also an unreliable source of this information because their response will vary so widely for so many unrelated reasons besides your performance. That's why my consistent response to compliments from audience members is "I'm glad you enjoyed it", said with a smile even if I think I stunk up the place completely. I will never hear exactly what they heard and they had every right to enjoy what they perceived in my efforts. It was the best I could give them at the time.

Other factors can certainly play in to my perception of the gig - how comfortable was the environment, how was the sound, was the venue proprietor easy and fair to deal with? These factors I can have a fair opinion about.

[lodi_55]

Originally Posted by tadol

By whether we’re asked back -

Totally agree.. Whether it went "well" is totally subjective. But the manager/owner's opinion is not subjective...

[rokdog49]

Well we just "busked" at a local grocery store today and made $50 in tips for two hours worth. It went very well. We enjoyed it and so did everyone else.
In our town busking is unheard of so it's a novelty. We liked the transient atmosphere of people passing through and pausing to listen even if briefly.
As always we gave it our all but with no concerns about being perfect.
We received many nice compliments.
Pretty cool.

[RustyAxe]

By whether or not I get a repeat booking. How I felt about it doesn't matter.

[Gordon Currie]

Originally Posted by hotroad

I am wondering how you judge your gig.

1. By how you feel afterwards
2. By how you sounded
3. By the audience reaction
4. By what close friends tell you
5. By the lack of problems during the gig
6. By the amount you get paid, if so
7. By how you felt during the gig
8. Etc.

All of these have been top of the list at various times, but they tend to be unreliable for me. I am pretty self-critical in performance.

I am finding that taking video of my performance helps a lot to balance out my own biased perception. Many is the time when I thought a performance was lacking or even poor, and then I view it and see myself having fun and playing well, the audience reacting well and I realize my memory is inextricably colored with whatever random thoughts are passing by, and not in the least accurate.

[Captain Jim]

Top of the list: #3, audience reaction.

The other items on the list are a consideration, but, for me, it is all about connecting with your audience.

[Dave T]

Number 5 in the OP's list.

I played last night in front of 20 some people. They were polite, even though I went blank 2/3s of the way through my second song. For me it was not a good performance, no matter the crowd's kind reaction.

Dave

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by hotroad

How do you judge your gig?

I judge mine by how much I got paid, for sure.

The rest is gravy.

[semolinapilcher]

Ever since the first time it happened, for me a good gig is when someone dances. It's always so great to get there without a rhythm section.

[Jim_G]

2. By how you sounded
3. By the audience reaction

These two. I should place the audience's reaction first of course, but if I'm honest I can't.

We don't play out all the often, about 6 or 7 times a year as a group, maybe a couple more solo. The audience always seems to like it just fine, but I'm only happy about the sound about half the time. Thanks to my band mates I've finally learned to just play through the sound issues and go with the flow. Took a long time to get over it though.