Do you remember your first gig?

[DumDrummer]

18 years old, playing drums in a punk-rock band in Orange County, CA. First show was at Hogue Barmichael's by John Wayne airport. Most incredible adrenaline rush I have ever felt. And, for better or worse, I wasn't in the band long enough to ever not get that feeling before/during a show.

The bass player had a nice SWR setup-- a 2x10 and 1x15 stacked. He would point the 2x10 at me so I could hear someone else in the band over my drums. I should probably have hearing damage, but miraculously do not.

 

[whero]

My first gig of any kind was in 1975. I was 14. We performed three songs at a high school assembly, at the invitation of a teacher who had heard us rehearsing in one of the music rooms. We did Takin' Care of Business, Brown Sugar and Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo.

My first paying gig was about 18 months later. We played for our guitarist's older sister's birthday party at a local community hall. We didn't really know enough songs but nobody minded that we repeated several of our better ones. We got paid about $20 each, and as much as we wanted to eat. We weren't old enough to drink but there was alcohol there, and not many adults, so we had some anyway.

My first real gig was about another 18 months later. A Thursday, Friday, Saturday run at a bar in the city. We still weren't old enough to drink, but were permitted in the bar as "guests of the management". There was no alcohol this time. It wouldn't have been worth the owner's licence. But to see people we didn't know, adults, singing and dancing to our stuff felt great! That was the start of about a dozen years of gigging several nights a week across three different bands. Probably the best time of my life.

 

[Robert B]

Irene Z. Dunstan Junior High School in Lakewood, Colorado, 1976. School talent show. Our little band of 14 year olds was going to play Stairway to Heaven. We didn't have a singer, so were going to do it instrumental--except for the last part ("And as we wind on down the road...") which I volunteered to sing. I practiced and practiced singing and playing it on bass. The talent show was in the evening and the gym was packed with students, teachers and parents. When it was our turn to play, we made it through the slow part of Stairway and segued into the fast part. When it was time to sing, I stepped up to the microphone: "And as..." It was super loud and squealed with feedback. "Oh sh*t!" I said aloud, which reverberated throughout the gym. I didn't sing any further. In fact it was a couple of years before I would attempt to sing again.

I too remember being shocked by the sound the first time I stepped up to a mike. It can be quite off-setting!

 

[Resonance129]

Ha, my first gig was only 4-5 yrs ago.
I'd been working with a group who wrote originals and after a few weeks of rehearsing together, the BL booked a gig at a small, local festival. There were about 8 bands there, total, and we were second-to-last to perform. I knew the music, but didn't know etiquette at all. I was twisting EQ knobs on the huge amp sitting on top of an Ampeg 8x10 that was probably loaned to the venue by a real bass player lol. Didn't know that was a no-no at the time.

Got through our 3-song set well, and a few people actually liked our sound (THAT was really cool).

...BUT THEN....

The BL, for some odd reason, decided we should play the first song of the set... a second time ( ?). I protested for a millisecond, but they insisted and counted us in. The second time around, it was a DISASTER . Somehow, the drummer got off beat for a sec which caused the BL's strum (acoustic guitar) to become erratic and all over the place. I was trying to re-capture the drummers beat/tempo, myself (ANY beat lol), but failing miserably. I tried to reign the drummer back in with my limited knowledge of how to do so, but after a good 10 seconds of "what the ", we just couldn't seem to get on the same beat and the whole ensemble disintegrated into a full on train wreck. It was pretty embarrassing, but we just kinda plowed through the failure. Smiled for the most-likely disingenuous applause and got out of there lol.

Why the BL insisted on playing the same song again, I'll never know...
Still a fun/educational experience, though

 

[Robert B]

I had been seeking musical expression for a few years on anything I could get my hands on - mostly accordion and harmonica with occasional forays into drumming and plinking on a guitar. When I was 16, a friend asked me to join his band. I'd have preferred to play guitar but they needed a bass, so I stepped up.
My friend loaned my a Conrad bass which I used for a week to woodshed, learning 7 or 8 songs. Hour after hour, over and over again, I sat in the basement learning their songs. I moved the needle back on the phonograph and played along with 45s of the songs they played until I got it right, and then did it some more.
The only songs I remember today were Gloria, For Your Love, Love is All Around, Louis Louis, Pictures of Matchstick Men, and the crown jewel of my achievement, Hey Joe.
On the night of the gig, I played by splicing the wires of my cable onto the inputs of a console stereo, using it as an amp.
Everything went well except since I'd been playing sitting down all week, I find I couldn't play standing up and had to sit on a kitchen chair.
I got the gig, got the girl, named the band (Dream Merchants) and bought the bass with my proceeds. And it launched me into a 26-year excursion into playing with bands - a successful night, I'd say!

 

[IamGroot]

First band was me and my buddies playing in the backyard for the neighborhood when I was 10 or eleven. I got to hang with adult players on acoustic guitar when I was 12.

When I was 16, I joined a rock band that was actually pretty good. Our first two nights were played for free at a local music club and we were terrible due to nerves. I was playing a Gretsch Country Gentleman through a Fender Bassman amp. The club owner let his german shepherds have the run of the club during off hours and they pooped in the shag carpet on the stage. We got better with time.

First bass gig..not sure. Probably playing in a three piece blues trio. I sucked when I first started playing bass. Went to music school at night, improved dramatically and started playing jazz real book gigs.

 

[stonetone7]

First, we shared a bill with a DJ at a high school dance in 1988, because we only knew four songs.

Then I played guitar mostly wasted and unpaid for the next 12 years until I fell in with some players at work. Our first paid gig was opening for a band led by a friend of our singer. It was a bar, The Rusty Nail, Harrisburg, Pa. We had 10 songs, and I got to use the other bass player’s full Carvin stack. Our lead guitarist - who never played outside of a house - was so stage frightened he flubbed basically everything until around song 7. The rest of us killed it though, we got applause and we walked out there feeling like champs. I remember bits and flashes of it like yesterday.

That band’s core - myself, the drummer and rhythm/singer - continued to work as a trio and with a variety of accompaniment for the next 10 years.

 

[DoctorZee]

Do schools still have Battles of the Bands and talent shows? It’s amazing how many of us started with one of those.

 

[PaulCISSA]

Sophomore year of HS - 1976. I fronted a band of miscreants that returned the following year and would go onto being the permanent HS ‘house’ band for many of the musicals the theater groups would put on....the rest is history. I’m still in touch with a few of these guys.

This photo was taken by the cute blonde girl that would become my GF and then wife. She tolerates me to this day.

Worth noting: while I was a guitarist and singer, I always respected JT Burley - the fellow playing the fretless jazz. His father was a music teacher in the school system and the kid had great groove.

Jim Lusczic would hump a Rhodes 77 and a B3 w/Leslie to our gigs, no matter how small. Pure awesomeness.

Simpler times.

 

[lbbc]

My first paying gig was when I was 15 (Memorial Day 1974) at a campground near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. 3 guitars, drums and me on bass (and singing lead). We had only learned 30 songs...so, at the end I announced "we had a request for a song we played earlier". That went on for the next 10 songs. Great times and great memories!

 

[Paulabass]

My band during high school was asked to play at another school. Wow! a tour! When we got there we discovered it was a middle school. We played on the gym floor to a bunch of 13 year olds (We were COOL 16 year olds). They sat on the floor in a semi circle around us. We had a little 4 ch. P.A. going into columns, and I used a Heathkit head on a Plush 2x15 tuck n roll cab. I think we played about 40 minutes, with at least 20 of it devoted to Jumpin Jack Flash. (or L.A. Woman?)

 

[thisheregiraffe]

I was 16 years old playing guitar in a scuzzy punk band with some high school friends. Our first show was an all ages punk show, they would be organized by people in the local punk scene every few weeks at various club halls. I think this one was at the Moose Lodge. It was a total gong show. We weren't allowed to finish our set

 

[5andFretless]

It would have been 77 or 78. I went to a high school with 250 kids in 4 grades, but we had one hell of a music program director. There was a stage band created out of the regular band - 2 trombones, 2 trumpets, a sax section, a piano player, and a drummer. We were invited to play at the Grange. I remember we played Chameleon and Bang a Gong (By Chase). I was first chair trombone.
It was my first experience on a stage in front of strangers and j loved it.

 

[mdlewis]

First paid gig playing bass was at 17 in 1974 playing a fashion show. I was in a little jazz combo (piano, bass, drums, and sax). I remember enjoying looking at the pretty girls and getting really bored after 15 minutes of the "Girl From Ipanema". In those days, I actually made more money playing other instruments, but I couldn't keep away from the bass.

 

[Steadfast]

Moose club 1976 in Griffin, Ga. 15 year old jazz sax newbie. Playing all Charlie Parker tunes.

 

[brianrost]

If I can remember my first gig was I really there?

It was a bluegrass gig at a bar near the University of Connecticut campus in 1980. It paid $30 (split 4 ways) and free pitchers of beer. We made sure we maximized our beer intake.

At one point I felt a tug on my pants leg, looked down and saw a woman who started yelling at me "Play faster!". She went back to her stool at the bar next to her male companion who at one point fell off his stool onto the floor.

My gear at the time was a Madeira (MIJ Guild) bass, a blonde/oxblood Bassman head and a Peavey 115 cab.

 

[delta7fred]

July 1967 at a leavers "Ball" for a local junior school.

Their parents were invited as well. The kids enjoyed it, not too sure about the parents!

Guitarist had a Burns Bison (?) guitar and AC30.
PA was a Selmer 100W 4 channel tube mixer amp into 2 homebuilt 212s.
I had a 12W tube amp with home made 2x8 cab and short scale bass I made in woodwork class. My amp and cab might appear woefully inadequate but we were very quiet so it coped ok. After that they were immediately upgraded.

 

[eriky4003]

Opener and closer at a talent show at my k4-gr8 school. Three original songs.

 

[Koog]

1963. Hahn Air Force Base, West Germany at the teen club. We became a regular there and within a year were playing American officers' and enlisted mens' clubs, German military installations, local festivals and local clubs throughout that area of Germany and into Luxembourg.

It was a great time to play live music.

 

[40Hz]

1970 high school mixer with my cousin’s 5 member band when his bass player left on short notice. I was just shy of 16 but could pass for 18 at the time. I had been playing upright exclusively for a few years prior to being tapped for the slot. My cousin loaned me the use of his JB and Kustom 200B rolltop head with matching cab. I got three weeks to get comfortable with frets and a “sideways neck” and have a 40 song playlist down cold. Music was of the era: Spooky Tooth, Janis and Big Brother, Country Joe and the Fish, Jefferson Airplane, Traffic, Incredible String Band, Hendrix, MC5, The Who, The Byrds, Cocker and Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Sly and the Family Stone, Grateful Dead, Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly, Doors, a bunch of Motown classics, The Band, Ides of March…and the rest of the usual suspects.

All I remember was butterflies in my stomach before we started, dropping into the zone one verse into the first song, and being slapped on the back by my cousin at the end of it and told “ you did great.”

Then he handed me $70 in cash (my share of the $350 they made) and said “Stay loose. We’ve got two more jobs to play next week.”

Oh man!!! 15 years old and getting paid $70 (about $400+ in today’s buying power) for 3-1/2 hours of what I considered non-work? I was hooked.

My parents were skeptical at first. But when I started playing five or so gigs each month at $70 minimum per night, not coming home high, and my grades weren’t suffering, they became a little more “receptive” to the idea.