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Alcohol + Gigs = success?.. or failure?
- Thread starter BassistNATE
- Start date
I don't drink at gigs while playing. I like feeling in control. I used to drink my butt off when I was young. I remember when I first started playing the entire night sober. By 1:00a.m. everyone I thought I knew had turned into psychos! LOL. This rule only applies to me, every person is different.
Beer an hour before show, sip or two in between sets, nice quick one before load out for some fuel. That's about it. My Black Flag days at gigs are already behind.
Amen to Page and Hendrix live. They had their good nights but some of their live stuff is just awful.
My go to for years has been 2 aspirin about an hour before a gig. It not only eases any little aches and pains but it also seems to help clear my head a bit. I definitely remember lyrics a bit better. On occasion I have been known to wash the aspirins down with a Bloody Mary so I guess that makes me a bit of a hypocrite but I never have more than one and I make sure that I have eaten well before I do it. That said , years ago I had a band together and we practiced or gigged every Saturday. I don't think we missed more than one or two Saturdays in something like 6 years. We drank and smoked all the time and every night we patted ourselves on the back as the night went on about how good we sounded. About 4 years into it we recorded ourselves towards the end of the night when we thought we were sounding great. Listening to it the next day was truly painfull. Everyone absolutely sucked. That was pretty much the end of inebriated music for me. My experience over the years has been the same with almost all the people i have played with.
The other thing about drinking at gigs is this. If your band sucks and the club owner sees everyone in the band drinking , odds are you won't be back. If your band sucks and everyone is sober , it won't be noticed as much by a club owner. They are business people and you are an employee and if you are drunk on the job , they will NOT appreciate it. If the club owners see you drinking before a gig , you better be damn good that night.
It's endearing to me. I'd rather hear that than someone pronounce Newark as 'Nork' any day and I grew up in Jersey. : D
So I just quit a band yesterday, due to front man/lead singer drunkenness. No pitch, couldn't figure out where he's supposed to come in with a verse, forgot lyrics etc. Two gigs in a row. The only two I did with them. When sober he's reasonably competent and prepared. But every gig is a party to him. Life's too short- bye.
The old legacy of sex, drugs and rock n roll. My music is my job. I don't drink while working. I would not want my doctor, lawyer or cab driver to be altering his consciousness with any substance.
I used to drink and broke the sin of sins of ....being drunker than the audience. It's a common fact that alcohol impairs your motor skills so why would you put yourself in that position before a live audience? besides you'd never show up to your day job like that and I'm sure most of you players here consider playing bass the end all and be all of your life, so why? I'm not here to preach just to tell you I've lived that life and thankfully realized it was the wrong thing to do to ones passion, 17 years on the wagon and have yet to fall off. Mostly I just dig being on stage, I never had stage fright and to this day it's where I feel very confident and sure of where and what I'm doing. Sorry guys and gals but I just shake my head when I see players drunk or stoned trying to cop a riff that I know they can do straight but impaired it becomes a chore.
Depends a little bit on the band and the gig for me. I've definitely overdone it before and been sorry about it. These days I usually keep it to a single light beer a set, not a big deal for a 240lb guy. We have some gigs that are so low paying and the joint is so crappy that I don't care if we get a return gig or not, so I'll take my queues from the rest of the band.. if they are working on tying one on I might join in. I've also played with some bands that just weren't going to sound good no matter what, sometimes a good buzz can help through that and at least make the night tolerable. I've played plenty of private events completely sober, and don't mind that at all if it's what's required. I'm not trying to make a living at it, so it's important to me that I enjoy myself or it's not worth doing. I used to tell my band mates that if a gig payed more than $100 I would stay sober, but if it payed less than $50 then my goal was to spend all of that on my bar tab, but in practice I rarely did either thing.
= success when you don't screw it up and the old lady comes out for her annual attendance. Here is the keys baby. I don't wanna loose them on stage
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Nice. Good for you man. I wish there was a really practical way for sober musicians to network.
Been there. Not fun. Not at all. Cost us a Saturday night's gig and my reputation, which took years to fix.
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I respect professional musicians that choose not to drink during a gig wholeheartedly. However, this statement is completely ridiculous. Drinking on the job in the professions you listed is obviously way more dangerous for the client than playing the bass is. A poor performance from a doctor, lawyer or cab driver can land the client in the hospital, in jail for life or even in the grave. A poor performance from a bass player only hurts the bass player's career.
Unfortunately there will always be some neo-prohibitions or general killjoy's that will post "absolutely no drinking during gigs is acceptable" type stuff. I get the argument but it takes all the fun out of playing.
Fat Steve
The poodle bites, the poodle chews it.
Wow. Who would have known you have to have zero alcohol to have fun playing.
This game is fun!
