I wonder if anyone can remember this...

[OmniAxiS]

I know that alot of the people on this forum are a little older than i and im just wondering, what age and where were u at when u first performed? what style of music where u playing and what gear did you use? this next school year im gonna be playing like a maddog, showing off my skillz to my classmates so they can all talk about me cuz im so bad. u ever get that feeling? http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/redface.gif

[ghodaddyyo]

My first time playing out was in 1990 at a high school music festival. There were three bands, the 1st being a sort of Christian rock band, then us, then a highly established, art/rock/goth/wierdo band.

I actually felt sorry for the 1st band. Their only audience was their parents. It was quite obvious who the crowd was there to see. The crowd was composed of the Gothic, wierdo art crowd, and they literally left the room when the 1st band took the stage. They played many obscure christian rock songs, and actually took a chance to rock out on Journey's Seperate Ways(those madmen!).

My drummer had a big brother who played in an established rock/metal band and thier crowd came to support us and help run our soundboard and lights. We played a mix of rock, and progressive. It was sort of like this: We'd play a (don't laugh) Poison song, and the Goth crowd would run out and smoke a ciggerette. Then we'd play a Cure song, and they'd all run back and dance like pogo sticks. We'd then play a Black Crowes song, and they would split again, only to come back and hear a Ramones song. It was frustrating, but we came away 1/2 and 1/2 success/failure.

The last band, Stranger Than Fiction was an established band that I described earlier. The younger brother of the lead singer/guitarist went to our school and convinced his brother to play this event. They brought tons of lights and even had a movie projector in the background showing various scenes of amoebas, blood streams, and flashes of A Clockwork Orange. The band definitely looked their part as well. Definitely entertaining to look at, but the music came off as strange as well.

We were too busy celebrating and congratulating ourselves for our 1st performance to watch these guys very much, but they congratulated us and offered us gigs as openers for them.

We continued in our progressive rock vein, all the time staying true to our Rock foundation, which worked out well with the coming of Nirvana and the whole Seattle grunge thing.

Sorry for the long post, sort of got nostalgic there.

[StoneDragon]

It's ok man.... wanna borrow my hanky?

My first gig?

I was in 8th grade... must have been 13 or 14 at the time. I don't remember what I had for a guitar... I think it was made by Encore or something.

At the time, I think that the other guitar player in our band had his dad's fender bassman, so we both just plugged into that one amp. I think his dad had a fender PA as well... one of those old four channel things with the two speaker columns, 4 10" speakers in a line kinda thing.

We never did do any real gigs, but I remember us traveling to a neighboring town to try out for this talent show that somebody was putting on. We whipped up a version of Pat Benetar's Hit Me With Your Best Shot just for the occasion. We didn't figure that Ted Nuggent, Judas Priest or AC/DC would go over too well. Turns out that we didn't go over too well. We never even got picked to be in the contest http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/frown.gif

By the time that I ever got to play any real gigs, I was using an Ibanez Blazer through a Peavey Classic. That was a great guitar and amp.

We never had any PA gear, so we had to scrounge, beg, borrow or rent if possible. We did have an "MJB" lighting system... as in made out of coffee cans and flood lights. A friend of mine got a job in the local hardware store, so he fixed us up with everything we needed http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif

[Sixstring]

My saga starts in church. I played drums for them every Sunday. I was about 13 or 14 years old. Myself on drums, a friend on bass, and three girls in the church put together a band (of sorts) for a state talent competition. We traveled to Saint Mary’s, Idaho and blew away the competition. (We were the only ones to show!) Next we went to Seattle for statewide finals and got promptly DESTROYED by the multitude of finely crafted singers. In fact we were the only ones with drums and bass. All the others were solos or small groups with a piano accompaniment. Even as bad as we were, we were too rock-n-roll.

(It couldn’t have been all bad, though. At age 20 I married the piano player- 15th anniversary this Sept. http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif )

The first time I teamed up with friends to do a full on hard rock cover band was when I was about 18. We had experimented with it in the past, but this time we decided to actually play for someone other than our police-calling neighbors. We rehearsed and everything! We did everything ourselves too. We pulled every string we could reach, from begging a guy for his empty building to practice in, to booking the local VFW for the gig, arranging security, promotion... It was awesome! We played anything we wanted, from mainstream hits, to punk, to obscure, what-the-heck-are-you-thinking-playing-that at a dance?! We all played every instrument so we switched a lot. In fact we had one jam tune where when one person was soloing, the rest of us would switch. By the end of the song we had all soloed on something and had all played everything. (We must have thought we were pretty cool!) At the end of the show we were swarmed by a dozen or so girls for autographs. (Heaven, I’m in Heaven…)

We took the same set to a nearby town a couple days later and then we all went our separate ways. We were all out of High School so we figured we’d live our dreams just once before we left town. I remember it very fondly, and fortunately there is no recording of it to shatter my illusions. http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif

As for the gear we used, I think most of it was our own, but not sure about specs. I parted out some of my drum set to build up our drummer’s kit, borrowed a few mics, that sort of thing.

If memory serves, I’m not the only one on this board to remember those shows. Now whether we all remember them fondly or not is another matter… http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif

[StoneDragon]

http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/wink.gif

[OmniAxiS]

hehe thanx for the input guys. my first show was when i was in 8th grade at the end of the school year for a talent show. We played the song "High" by Jimmies Chicken Shack. Man it was alot of fun but the only half decent people in our temporary band was myself and the drummer whom is my best friend. We really had alot of fun and all the chicks noticed me a little more ( http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/redface.gif ). I was using my jackson charvel through my friends crate 2x12.
man that little show was fun! cant wait to it next year (sophomore year). Thanx for the stories and if anyone else wants to tell theres its cool. http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif

[CyberCobre]

Gawd. What have I come to? Me a classical gal (supposed to be rubbing elbows with the snobs, you know) hanging around a bunch of wild men on testosterone highs! (Don't ya love it? I wouldn't have it any other way.)
http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/rotatesmilie.gif

[OmniAxiS]

http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smile.gif invite the snobs in here http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/redface.gif

[CyberCobre]

Not the sort who go online.

[FUNKGRAVY]

Wow, good stories guys! Ghodaddyyo already told the story of my first gig, see I was his singer! Had a great time that night, think I even got laid.http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/smileysex5.gif

[Bardsley]

Aaah, getting laid right after a performance. Those nights when you feel like the world itself is yours. http://www.zentao.com/ubb/smilies/cool.gif

[Axehole]

heh.. I'd settle for just getting paid after a performance.
Too many years of free gigs just for the 'publicity'... blah.

[JerBear]

I think this thread has come up a few times sisnce I joined.

I hope to have one of these stories before I die. So I sit here getting older by the second.........

&%*#)@B %U$*@O% ^%I$@)*...singers/vocalists....

[magnif_lovemak]

I thought I was a singer. We played a party, and the mic was broken. I yelled one song (You Gotta Fight by the Beasties, which was new at the time) and couldn't talk for a week. And man did we suck.

[chazoid]

I'm such an idiot.. I've been playing guitar for 20 years and never been in a band. Think about how many times I could have gotten laid in that amount of time!!

[GuitarGretta]

My first time in front of an audience was in jazz band on my Ibanez Roadstar11 (which I still have). It was a real cool funk tune and my "improvised solo" was worked out note for note beforehand. I was so wired that I broke a string within the 1st 8 bars. The only A string I've ever broken in my life! So i sucked for the rest of the ride, but it's jazz you know? I was just playing "outside". I can't believe i have stuck with it long enough to have many more sucky experiences to look back on! Now it doesn't even phaze me when I screw up. But I still get real nervous before a gig.

PS I didn't get laid afterwards

[This message has been edited by GuitarGretta (edited January 23, 2003).]

[mojojojo]

Well at least everyone elses' first gig didn't get you suspended for a week from school...

My band and I registered for a talent show at high school. This was about 1988 or so. We played "Yankee Rose" from DLR. Steve Vai was God to me at the time, and I had been watcing the video and stealing all his stage moves for weeks. We won the talent show, since no one else really did anything worthy of being called "talent", but soon after my band and I were hauled into the principal's office... for some reason I was being suspended for jumping on the judges table, kneeling in front of them with my guitar between my legs and masturbating it in front of the prettiest teacher... I didn't think it was a bad thing at the time, I mean they did teach that masturbation was normal, I guess they just didn't mean with a guitar. The crowd liked it though, and that was all that mattered. Anyways, the principal said he saw more cooth in a strip club, pointed at me and said "You mister, are going to have a week to think about what you did" and suspended me...
I didn't get laid that day either.

[NotMasteredYet]

And I thought all you had to do was strap a guitar on and it was a shoo-in that night you'd be "rolling with some Cajun queen." Maybe I'd better switch to playing kazoo.

[mojojojo]

There you go..
Kazoo player get all the nookie...

[StoneyBrigand]

I popped my cherry on trombone in the 7th grade with our school band... Its funny, music class was always my favorite, but as I got into the jr. highschool thing, It dawned on me that I could enjoy music and look a helluva lot cooler playing a GUITAR!!! So I saved money and bought my first. Ironically enough, I now wish I had a little extra cash to buy another trombone!!!

As for guitar my first 'real' live performance was at the Indy 500, the night before the race. No, no, no, not officially sanctioned or anything.

You would have to understand that back then (mid 80's) the Indy 500 was just one HUGE PARTY the night before the actual race. Our band had a friend that lived literally on the other side of the Tracks fence (one of those huge 20 foot high things) separating his house from the camping ground property(where all the partying took place).

Basically we set up a bunch of halogen lights and let it rip for hours that night. It was like our own private party at his house, but there were hundreds of people on the other side of the fence checking us out. It was amazingly fun.

Those days were crazy at the track. We vid taped a couple of the shows, and have everything from ladies flashing the 'ta-ta's' to people setting cars on fire... Like I said it was insane in Indianapolis on the night before the race in those days. We continued to make it an annual event until we all (sigh) grew up and had to get jobby-jobs.

I am pretty much a studio smuck now, but playing live is defiantly what its all about in the end.

[Jagstang666]

Ha, good stories, here's mine, this ones pretty bad.

Me and 3 of my friends, all who played guitar for like 6 months at the time, but we could play power chords and thought we were good enough to play in front of our whole school on the last day.

Our "drummer" played guitar parts because he was better than us because I think he might of started before us. So I ended up playing drums, and couldn't keep time with one hand so I basically used no cymbals lol.

We practiced Brain Stew (Green Day) for months. Then we recorded what it sounded like and thought it was good. Then it turned out we couldn't use our schools drums the last day, so I played bass. Our interpretation of the song was completely wrong. Three guitars, 2 in key with me playing bass and the other wasn't. We played the song completely wrong and got laughed at by 800 other kids, but hey, at least we had the guts to actually get up there and play. And now we can laugh about it.

-brenden

[MonsterZero]

I started in 1983, playing Van Halen, Dokken, Ratt, etc...
First shows were Battle of the Bands at school. Then we moved on to other schools, and later, bars. Those were the days.

[BluesGuitarist3]

My first performance was about 3 years ago. I was 13 at the time, and I had recently received an acoustic guitar (Takamine Jasmine). I was starting to get pretty decent, so I decided to look for a venue to showcase my new-found talent. Luckily for me I had connections with a guy who had a local band.
We knew each other pretty well: he had been my 2nd grade teacher in elementary school, I went to school with his daughter, I sang in the school choir which he directed for 3 years, and I had a taken a songwriting course which he taught. I asked him if there were any spots where he might be able to fit me in during a show, and he said he might be able to and that he'd call me. A week later he calls me and says he's doing a gig in a week and he wants to know if I want to play the lead for "Runaway" by Del Shannon. I immediately say yes, but after hanging up the phone I realize two things: 1) I've never even heard the song before, and 2) I've never played lead. Problem.
I get my hands on a copy of the song (which I happened to really like) and some tab, and I get to work. I play and play until I've got the song down pat. The big day comes, and I'm nervous as hell. I'm waiting back stage for my time to come out, and every time I hear the crowd cheer the butterflies in my stomach flap harder and harder. I hear my name called, and I walk on-stage, and for the first time that night I get a good look at the crowd: must have been around 250-300. I take my seat on a stool and we begin to play, and I NAILED IT! Probably the best feeling I've ever experienced: playing with a seasoned band at my first ever gig and holding my own.
So for anybody out there thinking about playing a show and having second thoughts, DON'T! You'll appreciate it.

[crowbarr]

I suppose my first major live gig was about 3 years ago. It was our schools annual music concert thing that night and for some reason 1 of the singers doing a solo fell ill so there was a single song space left in the programme so we snatched it. So we had a 1 song space to fill, so we had 1 afternoon to get a band together and get a song we could play :eek: oh well we did it managed to get my bassist :p a guitarist who could play drums another guitarist and a damn good singer/piano player. Anyway we picked the only song all of us had heard and had an idea as to how to play together- knockin on heavens door.
man tht night was insane it was the biggest venue in town and there was about 600 people all sitting out there. heheheh anyway there we were after about 1 hours practice and we walk on stage and damn did we get some funny looks (all the other performances had been nice classical and at best jazz) so we let rip and it was amazing every single 1 of us played perfectly the singer even managed to dive on the piano and play a great improv solo. I guess the audience were relieved that we weren't as boring as the other performances :p and they all stood and started doin the whole swaying thing, was the coolest thing ever lol
the other bands and soloists were'nt too impressed that we got a better reaction though :( oh well i guess its jealousy


humm sorry for the novel but its a major chapter in my life and i thought i'd share it :cool: