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Do you remember your first gig?

#23
Summer '77, just turned 18, tried out for a sit down bar gig. Had the courage only because I knew 90% of the material, and they needed a bass player. Nice guys, a few years older. Played 5 nights a week for about 2 months. So, it was encouraging to have a 'full time' gig so early, and it paid $25 a night plus tips.
 
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#25
1982ish. Church youth group dance during freshman year of high school. I was playing rhythm guitar in the band, and my brother was on drums. Terrible plywood strat copy through my bass amp, and a piercing Ross distortion pedal I still remember dragging my dad to an instrument store to get because it was only $15. But our guitarist was great, freakishly so for a 14 years old. I remember our version of “So Lonely” sounded good. Our originals were goofy, but fun. But the guitarist didn’t get the footswitch plugged all the way into his Peavy Bandit amp, so the distortion never kicked in for his note perfect solo on “Ice Cream Man.” We did not know what we were doing! But the other kids enjoyed it, as bands were not real common in the high school landscape of Kansas City at the time...
 
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#30
casualmadness said:
Just curious about first gig stories. I’ll begin with my first.
I was 12 and a drummer. I didn’t discover bass until I was 13. My grandparents got me one of those children’s drum sets when I was 6. To the shock of my parents, I actually tried to play by setting a stereo up with the speakers right behind the drums. Everyday after school I would turn the radio on to the local top 40 station and just try to keep a beat with whatever songs were played. After a few years and piecing together random drums to form a real drum set, my grandmother decided I needed lessons. So she took me to the local music store and signed me up. I think I was 9 when I started taking lessons. Every Saturday morning I had a two hour lesson.
My mom was friends with a guy who played bass in a southern rock band. They had a gig at a park one night and for whatever reason the drummer didn’t show. So my moms friend asked her to ask me to fill in. I said “sure!”
So mom took me to the gig and even though I didn’t know any of the songs, I had been taking lessons and playing long enough that I was able to keep a beat in time.
The gig went well. Everything sounded great and the guys in the band were happy.
The following Monday at school I spent the day telling my friends stories about my professional gig and how I wowed the audience with my drumming prowess.
A year later I sold my drums and bought a Charvel 4 string and a peavey TNT 130 and I never looked back.
So that’s my first gig (they gave me $20) What was your first gig?
Click to expand...

Oh, yeah!

Eighth-Grade, a friend of mine was big into Kiss. He asked me if I would do Gene Simmons in the upcoming school talent show.

I don't even recall where that Gibson bass came from, however, I do remember, even with full makeup and costume, we had a great time. :thumbsup::bassist:
 
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#31
I’ve been singing my whole life. Chorus, Choir. Karaoke Bars even. (It was a dark time). Bass I picked up at 25 yrs old. I’d been playing it for 2 weeks when I had my first gig. Trial by fire. I just held it down and sang my ass off. Almost 23 years later I’m still doing it. Been a great ride. Lots of stories. But that’s for another time.....
 
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#32
casualmadness said:
What was your first gig?
Click to expand...

1983 - High school talent show, 12th grade. We played "Tom Sawyer". Not well, either. We ran over four minutes and the powers-that-be decided to close the curtains as we were finishing the song. We stepped out in front of the curtains to finish the song. One of the teachers started yanking power cords out of amps during the final chord.
 
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#33
I was 14. The band was horrible but the teen dance gig paid six dollars apiece so I agreed to do it when their regular bass player chickened out, knowing the band would get fired. We lasted thirty minutes before being booed off the stage. The manager came up and fired us. Our 15 year old drummer wet his pants from stage fright. We packed up and went home with our tails between our legs (drummer had wet legs), but I had six dollars that bought me two new albums the following Monday, so I was happy. I didn't care that the band sucked since I wasn't a regular member. It was pretty embarrassing, though. But I made six dollars.
 
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#36
I had played guitar for a few years in my very small Midwest Church worship band. About six months into that, and just about a year into playing guitar my church was asked to play at a big multi Church festival in Kansas City. The turnout between about 12 churches was close to 2,000 people, though I don't remember being very nervous. More excited about things! We were very well rehearsed and played great until the last song. The bassist wasn't feeling good and had to sit out, so Steve the youth leader who got me into playing guitar asked me if I could play bass for the last song. I asked him how it was done and he said just think of the route and play that. It was a very simple g c e d a song so I think I pulled it off pretty well.

Point is, my first gig on guitar was also my first gig on bass! I think I was 16 at the time.
 
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#38
Not counting piano recitals, let's set the wayback machine to 1976 and I'm 15 years old, playing banjo in a bluegrass band that had never had a real gig -- we would bring our instruments over to each other's houses and figure out songs together instead of studying. So our high school has a talent show, and we sign up. It's our dress rehearsal, mid-afternoon on the Saturday of the show. The auditorium is full of other performers and the bored parents who are carpooling kids home for dinner afterwards and then back again later. I discover that our school has brought in a pro sound company, and one of their guys helps us get mic-ed up (none of us had ever used a PA before). We're doing three tunes, and the first is 'Rocky Top'. I kick it off, and in that moment of first hearing us all together in the monitors I get goosebumps. By the second chorus folks are up and clapping along and it sounds to me like I'm in the middle of a live recording, and I'm hooked. From there I'll change bands and instruments and hairstyles and real life will intervene and I'll (regrettably) sideline music for a while, but I found something necessary for me that afternoon.
 
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#40
My first was at a music festival when I took lessons--I was on guitar.
We were put together last minute from 3 or 4 bands where people dropped out, so we really only had a handful of practices--only one with everybody at the same practice.
So thrown together.
It was a disaster for a variety of reasons--one of which was I forgot the chords to one of the two songs we played.
Since we had more than one guitar player I turned down my volume for that song & pretended to play--strumming in time though.
The other song didn't go so well either.


One bright spot in a way, but perhaps a sign of what was to come:
While we were getting ready the strap knob of my guitar flew out of the body (Straplocks wouldn't have helped--this was the screw coming out)-with no time to fix it I got to play my teacher's SG Custom, instead of my Les Paul copy.

It was a while before I could listen to the two songs we ruined, without some wincing.

But it made me determined to not give up & keep at it.
It couldn't get worse, could it?
(it never got that bad again.)
 
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