Do you remember your first gig?

[rllink]

Yep, a coffee shop gig. Me and one other guy. A real Simon and Garfunkle gig. But I thought that I was just getting together with this fellow to jam in the corner on a Saturday night. Instead I realized when I got there that there were forty or so people there to listen. The first thing he said when I arrived was, "I wish we could have had time to get together and practice first," then he threw a pile of music in front of me and asked me if I was familiar with it and if I could play it. I almost turned around and left, but the guy seemed happy to have me there. I told him that with enough beer I could strum chords and maybe even sing on some of them. He said that was all he needed and bought me two Fat Tires. Somehow I faked my way through two sets. It just totally blew me away at how well we did when I had no idea what I was doing. When I hear people say that they think they aren't good enough to perform I just think, you gotta be kidding me, you don't have to be good to perform. Anyway, I was immediately hooked. I did several two man gigs like that with him and we actually practiced before them.

[jim1960]

It was a coffee house on Long Island. I was essentially background music while people sat at tables having conversations. Nothing about it was enjoyable and it turned me off to performing for a long time.

[1neeto]

Like it was yesterday, but it wasn’t that long ago. Late summer 2013, and I was about a year and a half into my playing. I wasn’t perfect but it was a rush like I’ve never felt before. I thought the lights and all that would give me stage fright, but it actually helped because I couldn’t see a thing past the edge of the stage. [emoji23]

[Laughingboy68]

Fall of 1985, I guess I would have been 17. I had auditioned as a rhythm guitar player for a metal band in my neck of the woods. We almost literally lived in the middle of nowhere; it's amazing and lucky for me that there were guys close to my age who wanted to play music. They weren't impressed with my guitar playing, but thought I had a pretty good voice, so after some rehearsal, we booked my first gig. The other three had been playing for pay for a few years.

I can still remember my heart beating like it was going to bust out of my chest.
I think about halfway through the first set, I realized that I couldn't stay nervous forever and settled in. It was my first and last experience with stage fright. Truthfully, there should have been lots of nights when I was afraid - the crowds could be pretty rough. I learned quite a bit about how to win over a bar audience that usually felt at best ambivalent and at worst actively hostile.

Ever since then, if I don't have a gig on the calendar I feel a little lost. It's a high that I crave.

Covid has been brutal.

[Cabrio330]

I have never performed for others and at age 58 I doubt I ever will. But I enjoy reading everyone's recollections!

Originally Posted by Cecil6243

Although I played some guitar I was the lead singer primarily because no one else could sing other than the drummer who ended up being lead back up singer for Conway Twitty later on. He must have been a better singer than me.

Cecil, my uncle Tommy "Porkchop" Markham played drums for Conway Twitty for most of the 60s through the 80s!

[leew3]

Yep. Small bar downtown in a nearby town. Got paid scale for a four hour gig: $64.00. We decided on the way to use the name "Mother's Hands" for our acoustic duo. Shortly thereafter renamed ourselves 'J.D.' after our favorite whiskey, which accounts for my not remembering many subsequent gigs

[CASD57]

Originally Posted by Cecil6243

Nothing to write home about but I was in a garage rock band with some friends in college in northeastern Michigan. Our first first gig was in front of about 500 people in a large dance hall. We played warm up for another more established band. The place didn't have the capacity for all the lights etc. and the power went out twice as we hit a crescendo of a song that started out slow. We finally cut some of the lights.

Although I played some guitar I was the lead singer primarily because no one else could sing other than the drummer who ended up being lead back up singer for Conway Twitty later on. He must have been a better singer than me.

I remember thinking thank God I over memorized the lyrics as it was a little unnerving seeing that many people out there.

At least I looked the part.



How about you?

Late bloomer for me,. First time on stage I sang "Don't Rock The Juke Box" and then Achy Breakup Heart lol

[H165]

To me (and obviously others above) "gig" means paid.

The first time was unintentional - a ridiculously large tip for performing Paul Simon's "America" on request.

First real gig - Griswold's restaurant in Claremont, CA 1966-67. A Kingston Klone trio; lasted about 8 weeks.

[rule18]

Originally Posted by jim1960

It was a coffee house on Long Island. I was essentially background music while people sat at tables having conversations. Nothing about it was enjoyable and it turned me off to performing for a long time.

Mine was on LI as well, in the mid-eighties. Not a coffee house, but a wine & cheese place (anyone remember those?). Two acoustics, one 6 and one 12 (I was the 12) and both of us on vocals. Wow, typing this brought back some crazy memories of those days.

[hatamoto]

It wasn't a gig or anything but my university professor asked us to have a presentation on a certain subject...can't really remember what the topic was about but it had to be creative and no more than 90 seconds. I knew most of my classmates would probably do skits or poems or somewhere along that line, so I decided to play a cover of a portion from a modern fingerstyle acoustic guitarist that had taps, slap harmonics and all that flashy stuff. I was very into that kind of music back then and I thought it would be cool.

It was probably in front of 30-40 people. I was a bit nervous but it turned out pretty well.

That was my very first performance and I haven't performed since.

When we can all go out again, and have somewhat normal lives, I would like to play with people once more.

[Methos1979]

Tough question (surprisingly) for us since we've only really been doing it for a few years now. The reason is because we started at open mics and did that for a few years and then slowly transitioned over to gigging. It was very gradual. The first thing we did was to get a dedicated short slot in the middle of another bands standing gig. They would go on break and we'd fill in for maybe 45 minutes to an hour. Not paid. Then we started playing a dedicated Sunday morning brunch show at the same venue, not paid but tips plus breakfast.

So I guess that was compensation (though we never made squat in tips!) and therefore could be considered our first gig? But an actual gig where we got hired and paid to play would probably be a local restaurant at a golf club. We'd played an open mic there and the owners were there and they LOVED us and said any time we wanted a full gig there we were hired. So we started playing there regularly and it was our favorite spot to play until the 'rona hit. We're hoping to start back up maybe this year. We miss it.

[Ralph124C41]

My first paid gig was not until I was in my '40s. My job required me to work every other Saturday night and so I just wasn't attractive material for the few bands in my small town. Finally I quit my job and as a side benefit I was "on the market." So I landed with one of the better bands in the area and did my first gig playing bass. However right after the gig ended the band split ... the lead guitarist (the best in the county) and the singer wanted to do more hard rock. The other three, including the leader, wanted to concentrate on classic country. The trio, moreover, decided to just end or suspend the band completely. I was the "newbie" and was not picked up by either group.

[rllink]

Originally Posted by H165

To me (and obviously others above) "gig" means paid.

The first time was unintentional - a ridiculously large tip for performing Paul Simon's "America" on request.

First real gig - Griswold's restaurant in Claremont, CA 1966-67. A Kingston Klone trio; lasted about 8 weeks.

I don't think that a "gig" is defined by money. I know a lot of people who play for nothing more than for the sake of sharing their music with others. My definition of a gig is playing for an audience.

[nightchef]

Community center, circa 1974. I would have been 16-ish. I was playing bass, which I had barely ever picked up (and certainly never played in a band context) before that night. I was scared out of my wits, and no doubt noodling mindlessly. I remember it was a basement room with the fluorescent lights all the way on — just right for rock & roll. The lead guitarist who booked the gig was a Zappa fan, and I recall that the “highlight” of the set was a 10- or 15-minute version of “Dog Breath.” The crowd loved it. Small-town teenagers weren’t terribly hard to please in those days.

[CASD57]

Originally Posted by rllink

I don't think that a "gig" is defined by money. I know a lot of people who play for nothing more than for the sake of sharing their music with others. My definition of a gig is playing for an audience.

We defined it like this,. Just a gig no money but being paid made you ProMusician lol.
But a gig is a gig no matter what [emoji6]