Am I right to pump the brakes?

[juggahnaught]

Ok, so I've been playing with another two guitarists for a few months, an original project. We have about 3 solid songs at this point that I feel are surprisingly decent, plus three interesting covers, plus about three songs in various stages of development.

They are in their mid 20's, I'm almost ten years older than them. One of them has done a few open mics solo, the other has no experience playing in front of people. I have played in front of people before, but not since high school, and only at house parties and underground stuff really. I do not consider myself experienced nor do I know a lot about live sound management. I'm the most well equipped member of the band - I have a nice GK MB210ii Combo that is quite flexible, the guitarists both have smaller combos and we currently have a drum machine plugged into a small combo as well (partially artistic, partially because drummers are hard to find). It's all loud enough to play let's say a small cafe, but even a bar setting and things start to fall apart on their end, I think.

The two guitarists are both anxious to play out, and have, through connections, arranged opportunities to play within about a month's time (they aren't totally crazy, the types of things they are setting up are multi-band shows, so the set would be shorter). This is at real local venues, and regardless of how many people show up, its still a professional setting and very much a scheduled event.

My impression is we need more practice, and though we still have time between now and then, we should hold off scheduling things until we are ready, period. And at that point we should dip our toes into the water more slowly, maybe playing someone's house or an open mic to do a few 'dry runs'.

I don't want to be a buzzkill, but I also don't have delusions of grandeur and as the oldest member I feel like I have some kind of responsibility to prevent us skewering ourselves, especially in a small scene. Am I wrong to pump the brakes and tell them we need more time to flesh out material, improve gear, get the performances tighter, and maybe even wade more slowly into live performances? Looking for help from the many people here with more experience than me.

Just do the gigs. You'll have to jump in sometime anyway, and if all of you are inexperienced you'll never be ready enough. It won't be perfect but you'll all learn a lot, anf in the granf scheme of things nobody will remember or care about any issues.

 

[LBS-bass]

You don't want to go out there unpolished, but that road can be infinite. My presence is to book the job and with towards the deadline. Gotta get out of the house and these guys have fire in their bellies.

Yep, nothing works better to get you ready than having a goal and a deadline. I've been in bands that wanted to rehearse and rehearse and polish and polish and eventually that wears on everyone. Give yourselves a target, but also work hard to be ready by target day. It may not be perfect, but it can still be good.

 

[gln1955]

My current band has done 32 gigs beginning last August and we were all experienced before that. I still don't feel like we're ready.

 

[LBS-bass]

My current band has done 32 gigs beginning last August and we were all experienced before that. I still don't feel like we're ready.

I never feel like we're really ready - we have a show coming up in a month and it will mostly be stuff we've performed in the past. But it feels like we aren't ready because we have been concentrating on new material since our last show and haven't practiced it. But we have a month, and we'll be fine with that.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

If you played your 6 songs for 3 minutes each, you have an 18 minute set. Sounds perfect for playing sandwiched in between 3 other bands.

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

Don't overestimate the impact of your first gig. Hardly anyone will care and fewer people will remember. And don't bother with recording your rehearsals. Aside from you, no one will bother listening back. Just do the gig and move on to the next one.

 

[LBS-bass]

Don't overestimate the impact of your first gig. Hardly anyone will care and fewer people will remember. And don't bother with recording your rehearsals. Aside from you, no one will bother listening back. Just do the gig and move on to the next one.

I agree about the impact of the gig, but recording rehearsals is the best way to have reference material for practicing at home between rehearsals, and if you aren't doing that you're increasing your odds of a train wreck.

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

You need to take them to see a tight band that can own the stage for five hours as an object lesson.

Aren't they an originals band? Who'd go see 5 hours of originals?? Their six song set should suffice.

I agree about the impact of the gig, but recording rehearsals is the best way to have reference material for practicing at home between rehearsals, and if you aren't doing that you're increasing your odds of a train wreck.

I fully agree. Which is why I have a Tascam and used to record, splice and label every single rehearsal, and eat up bandwith to post tracks. But no one ever bothered to listen. So I figured I had better use for my time. Now I will sometimes record a rehearsal, when the arrangement we come up with is different and I want to play along.

 

[LBS-bass]

Aren't they an originals band? Who'd go see 5 hours of originals?? Their six song set should suffice.



I fully agree. Which is why I have a Tascam and used to record, splice and label every single rehearsal, and eat up bandwith to post tracks. But no one ever bothered to listen. So I figured I had better use for my time. Now I will sometimes record a rehearsal, when the arrangement we come up with is different and I want to play along.

I have had that same problem. Put them up on SoundCloud, which tells you if anyone's listened to it, and if nobody bothers, I don't waste my time editing files for that band again. One of the many things I use to weigh whether a band is worth my effort or not.

 

[soul45]

I've seen so many new bands with 6-8 song sets at local shows. If people know it's your first show they'll be cool about it. And the folks that hate it can hang with the smokers outside until the next band.

 

[basseux]

Aren't they an originals band? Who'd go see 5 hours of originals?? Their six song set should suffice.



I fully agree. Which is why I have a Tascam and used to record, splice and label every single rehearsal, and eat up bandwith to post tracks. But no one ever bothered to listen. So I figured I had better use for my time. Now I will sometimes record a rehearsal, when the arrangement we come up with is different and I want to play along.

I just don't split, and compress into MP3 constant bit rate instead of variable bit rate, so it's possible to seek easily in the 2h track.