First gig next week

I've been learning guitar for just over two years now, taking many lessons from this site. About two months ago I put together a band with four other guys from our office and we'll be playing our first gig at a friendly bar next week. It would have been impossible to imagine just a couple of years ago that I'd be doing this as I've had no musical education since I was a kid (now 55, although still a kid!).

I don't know if we'll be any good, but I'm pretty sure the beer will be cold and everyone will have a good time. My wife will also be very happy that for at least a moment we will have most of the gear out of our living room where we've been practicing!

Just thought I'd drop this note of thanks to Guitar Tricks for all the help. In addition to learning the guitar, I've discovered how much there is to learn about getting the sound out there with mics, mixers, PAs, amps, etc. That's a whole 'nuther bunch of stuff to figure out!

Hey Bruce J,
That's great, and I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun. You'll be hooked after this one, just wait and see, lol.

Let us know how it goes, and thanks for sharing this with us.

There are difinitely several learning curves that kick in with all the associated gear. Congrats on your gig and good luck!

Good luck with the gig, I remember the first time I played live....... shudders hehe

Yep, once you start, it's almost like an addiction. Lots of people can only dream about playing music for others or even WITH others.

Did you ever get your issues with the open G tuning thing sorted out?

Thanks, guys. We'll have some fun and I'm sure we'll make some mistakes and do some learning while we're at it. Fortunately we have the highly coveted time slot of about 5:30-7pm on a Tuesday evening, so there won't be many locals to disappoint. We'll have the place packed with friends and family.

I haven't sorted out my Open G tuning issue any further, but haven't tried either. I'll have the Les Paul with me in standard tuning as a back up to my Strat. I'll save the Open G stuff for when I have some more time to mess with it. I like learning the Stones stuff in both standard and Open G anyway so I can play it either way.

My bigger concern for this one is getting the sound sorted/balanced right. We'll have the vocals and keyboard and my Blues Jr mic'd and through a mixer to two powered JBL PA speakers. We'll play the bass, lead guitar and drums un-mic'd but the guitar and bass will have bigger amps. I'm sure we'll get it sorted out properly but just won't know for sure till game time. Part of the fun, I guess!

Dude, that's awesome. I'm about to get back into soon now too! I'm basically a solo artist, but I have experience. It's awesome, you will love it! Play one of your hardest songs first or second.

It sounds counter-intuitive but it serves many purposes. there won't be any second-wave of anxiety about playing "The hard stuff" and your band will be more confident after nailing that song.

Once you get past the first couple songs and people are clapping and cheering, it's completely amazing! Don't be nervous, if you are you'll probably speed up the tempo haha. Well, that's what I do if i let myself get too nervous, I play the song way faster than normal! So just relax :P

Thanks, Marcus. It's funny you said that about speeding up because we did that in practice last week. Folsom Prison Blues is our first song and we had that train roaring down the track. I have the solo part in there, which isn't much for most people, but it's my first gig, first solo, and on the first song. I don't need us rolling quite that fast down the track when we get there! So we slowed it down a bit and I'll probably need to remind everyone to do it again at the show. Either way though, we'll get it done and we'll keep on a rockin!

I've got a few other solos later in the set which are tougher, but for some reason I'm more consistent on them and am not quite as worried.

Good luck B stay in the zone and have fun with it. Where are you from? Maybe some one on this site could catch the show.

Houston. We're playing at The Junction on W. Gray between downtown and Taft. We'll probably be starting now about 8:30, trying to accommodate our drummer whose little league team had the "misfortune" of surviving in the playoffs too long!

Thats really a great news Bruce.. thank you for sharing this with us. Let us know how it goes, i m sure everybody here is curious. Well have fun mate!

Oooohhhhh, that was a lot of fun!! Just got back home after our first gig. Given all the things that could have gone wrong, almost nothing did. We had a blast and the audience seemed to have a ball. The bar owner wants us back and even said he'd invest in a PA system and hire a sound guy to make it easier for us.

We had the cops circling the block by about the end of our first set, as we expected (per the the owner). We had to turn down the guitar amps for the second set, and without monitors it was a little hard to hear what was going on. But, all in all, we had a great time. The bar owner said business was up 40%, so he's our new best friend.

I'm tired but very happy. Have a truck full of gear to unload still. When do we qualify automatically for roadies?!

Thanks for all the support on the board.

Bruce

Great to hear it went well!

Originally Posted by: Bruce JWhen do we qualify automatically for roadies?!

Oh how many times I've wished for roadies to take care of the boring side of gigging...

Ya loading and unloading is a drag. After a our set, we would like to just put down the instruments, head to the bar and have a drink/talk with everyone. Most of the time its a quit tear down of gear to make room for the other band. Rushing after our set is done.

We went ahead and packed and loaded it all back in the truck while we still had some energy from the set, and I think that was a good call. Some of the guys took off and a few of us found our way to the bar and got to really relax and bask in our tiny bit of fame before heading back to real life.

Hey Bruce J,
I knew you would really enjoy it, and you'll enjoy the next one too.

This is where acoustic gigs come in :)

Play an acoustic gig every now and all you need to do after the show is put your guitar behind the bar and you're done!

We're on a roll now. We did our second gig on Saturday at our company picnic. Had about 200 people there in the park on a beautiful afternoon. This was a tricky one because we had to run off generators. Did some research on the net which mainly helped me barely understand the 100 or so things that could go wrong, including things we really wanted to avoid, like electrocution.

We had really good sound and no feedback issues at all for the nearly two hours we played, until the very last song. For some reason it decided to go nuts then. Fortunately we were shutting down anyway so we just pulled the plugs, literally, a little early. No idea why it would be fine for so long and then feedback like that, but since that was the only thing that went wrong, we all counted our blessings.

We had a blast again and really felt more comfortable this time.

Hi Bruce,

first of all congratulations for everything and I am really happy for you.
Actually, since you have been so successful I was thinking to ask you an advice on how should I use this website at the best. In other words, what do you think one should practice more? Just focusing on the songs or try to complete all the lessons at the intermediate level? What do you think should come first? I know maybe this is a stupid question, but thanks. :)

Davide

I am 52 years old and started taking an interest in guitar again. I say again because I played a little bit in high school. I am looking forward to learning and someday would love to play in a band. I have friends in bands around here so maybe I can jump in some day. Keep up the good work and reading this has helped me realize that my dream can come true. I live down in South Texas. Take care.