So last night, my band played our first headlining show at a pretty sweet venue in Provo, Utah called The Velour.
We were super psyched about the show and did a fair amount of promotion, including handing out about 1000 fliers, inviting a bunch of people on Facebook and Myspace, etc. So the night of the show comes, the doors open at 8, and here we go...
The first band didn't start playing until 8:50. Why? I don't know. When the doors open at 8, you start playing around 8:30, or at least that's what I'm used to. So almost an hour after the first ticket buyers walk in, the music finally starts. The first band played for about 45 minutes, no joke, and took about 10 minutes to get their stuff off the stage. However, they did bring a lot of people, so I was willing to be understanding.
The second band started playing around 9:45. Luckily they only had 5 or 6 songs to play, and were off the stage pretty quickly. They, too, brought a fair amount of people.
10:15 rolls around and it's finally our turn to play. We load our stuff on stage super fast, do a quick sound check, and start playing by about 10:20. I look out into the crowd, and what do I see? A severe lack of a crowd. There are about 20 people still in front of the stage (all people who came just to see us), but the other 30 or so patrons brought my the other two bands are gone, including the other 2 bands. Now, it was late, so I can understand people leaving, but us starting late was entirely out of control. :/
So, first song is over, and wouldn't you know it, our guitarist broke his G string (he broke his D string in practice the day before as well). So his uncle heads out to his car to grab his Telecaster, but in the meantime we kept playing. Didn't sound nearly as great as it should have. Time for the 3rd song, which is a soft, acoustic-esque song. Our guitarist plugs in the Telecaster and starts playing. The tone is horrible! Super bassy/muddy; pretty much the exact opposite of what the guitar is supposed to sound like on that song, and my guitarist did nothing to fix it.
The 4th song comes around (and it's at this point that I realize this post is super long...) and my guitarist grabs his guitar; his uncle quickly restrung it. We nail the 4th song, as well as the 5th song, but lo and behold, my guitarist breaks another string! (it was the B that time). By this point, it's pushing 10:45, so we cut our 6th and 7th song, play our 8th song, and cut our 9th. Show over.
So in recap:
1. Promoted the hell out of the show and got 20 people to come. Not bad, not great.
2. Invited two bands to play with us. One started late and played too long, both ditched out after they were done and took all their friends with them.
3. Guitarist doesn't know how not to break strings, or how to properly adjust tone on a new guitar. Oh, and did I mention all the downtime on stage due to him tuning? We (myself, drummer, singer) made up a 3 minute jazz jam on the spot between our 3rd and 4th song because he was moving so slow.
4. Cut three songs, one of which would've redeemed our entire mediocre performance, if we pulled it off.
5. Didn't get a chance to try to sell our demo. No one wants to spend $3 on a CD after standing in the same venue for almost 3 hours.
I actually played better than all of my other shows, had a great tone, looked good on stage (my stage presence is still being developed), and got plenty of compliments.
