Played the best first gig last night... we got an encore!

ishouldbeking · #1 07-19-2007, 05:59 PM

Whew, man... my band debuted last night and I cannot believe how well it went.

I don't have a lot of gigging history, just a few shows here and there with each of my former bands, but this was by far the best show I've ever played!

It was a secret show (basically we didn't advertise, so as not to embarrass ourselves) in Los Angeles, at a relatively new venue called Bordello. It used to be Little Pedro's, downtown, but they've since redone the place, putting in chandeliers, candelabra's and a lot of red paint... The venue was amazing. Only a handful of people were there, but it was the perfect intimate setting for our show. The first band was a two piece guitar duet playing mostly country tunes. We wisely befriended them before their set, and they even had our drummer sit in on a few tunes with them -- instant camaraderie!

So for our set we had maybe 10 people in the crowd (possibly less, it was dark...) so we used our lighting gimmick of putting two lamps on stage and dimming all the stage lights. It gave us a really interesting dynamic with the crowd, I think. And they just ate up our tunes. I was amazed at how good we sounded outside of our practice space (which is a 60 foot long hardware warehouse with 30 foot ceilings), but our sound was fantastic. I was playing my fender MIM Jazz with webstrings flats through my GK 2001RB into a 410RBH and it sounded so much warmer and more organic than it ever does in practice. Must have been good acoustics in there!

We made some mistakes, naturally, but luckily none of us panicked, and i don't think they effected the quality of the show at all. We even had a false start on the last song, but no one seemed to mind. Our singers stage banter was a little awkward, but it seemed to come across as endearing. By the end of our set, the tiny crowd was cheering. As we were thanking them for coming out they started shouting, insisting we play another song. We got an encore our first time out! All we had to play was a half worked out Talking Heads cover, but we gave it our all, and it didn't sound half bad. When we were finished we ended up with 15 names on our mailing list, and 15 cd's given out (5 of them were the staff: really hot bartender, soundguy, the owner of the club, and two door guys). All in all, it was a killer first show... and we have a better show lined up for next week!

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone on here who's helped with gear recommendations: from tips on flatwounds, advice about overdrive pedals (now using a DOD 250, thanks to you guys), and help with my mutant defective MIM Jazz... I appreciate it, and all that help is beginning to pay off. Check out my band's myspace if you like:

http://www.myspace.com/theflyingtourbillon

**Eric Perry** · #2 07-19-2007, 06:12 PM

Awesome. Congrats bro!

ishouldbeking · #3 07-19-2007, 06:16 PM

How could I forget? Here's a couple pics, shot on my gf's blurry blackberry camera. But check out that backdrop!

that's me on the right, not that you'd ever be able to tell. the whole ornate gilded carving was backlit and our two lamps cast quite the glow on the room, though our faces came out mighty murky on camera. Gives us an air of 'mystery', I think.

EDIT: hey, thanks Eric!

**Eric Perry** · #4 07-19-2007, 06:25 PM

That looks like a COOL club dude!!!

Silaxian · #5 07-22-2007, 12:06 AM

Sounds like you connected with your audience in a big way. That's what it's about, even when it's a smaller crowd. Congratulations, you have done something some bands have never pulled off.

Baird6869 · #6 07-23-2007, 03:24 PM

Cool!

I played on Saturday night and we were asked to play an encore too!

Unfortunately we have only been together 2 and 1/2 months and played everything we knew (33 songs) during the regular sets!!!!

Kinda sucked but what do you do!

ishouldbeking · #7 07-24-2007, 06:52 PM

Ha, man... we only have 7 songs so far, plus 2 covers. We had played the first 8, and had to unleash the 2nd cover as it was the only thing we had. Of course our set time was basically 30-40 minutes, and we went a little over 40. 33 songs is quite the set...

On a side note, I'm pretty excited for our next show we're playing tomorrow night. We're actually promoting this one, and we're hoping for a pretty decent sized turnout. I'll keep you all posted on the outcome...

DJ-Jazzy-Jay · #8 07-26-2007, 03:31 AM

That`s tight, dude. Congrats on a good debut!

Rattman · #9 07-26-2007, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silaxian

Sounds like you connected with your audience in a big way. That's what it's about, even when it's a smaller crowd. Congratulations, you have done something some bands have never pulled off.

Yehey! Thats one very good post, and an amazing memory to boot. Well-done on all counts. See, your gearhead brothers here on TB ARE good for something afterall hahaha!!!

chakah · #10 07-26-2007, 02:17 PM

that rock's. love the photo. looks very cool.