How bad were you...

[rollie 55]

@rollie 55
If ever at a rugby club and at a loss just get on the mic and start with
"Father Abraham had seven sons...."
Everyone will be naked in 5 minutes and wont care

 

[Adam Wright]

Pretty good actually. A little stiff and our collective band time was probably shakey but I knew my modes and knew all 12 keys. I had really good teachers. It was all songs that my friends and I wrote and we were pretty ambitious. We rehearsed literally every day and I lived with my bass in my hands when I started playing.

 

[lbbc]

I was ok at best...hung on the root of the chords until I learned how to play walking bass lines (in first position). I got better with practice, playing live and a few lessons.

 

[awakefie]

I was "the worst guitar player in a band that had 3 guitar players and no bass player". The band bought me a bass and a stack and I switched over. First gig I hugged the roots. It was an open air gig on a Marine bass (I was in the Corps) and we got permission to play on some flatbed semi-trailers in the outdoor commons. We expected about 50 people. 800 showed up. We sucked, but had fun.

 

[rollie 55]

I was "the worst guitar player in a band that had 3 guitar players and no bass player". The band bought me a bass and a stack and I switched over. First gig I hugged the roots. It was an open air gig on a Marine bass (I was in the Corps) and we got permission to play on some flatbed semi-trailers in the outdoor commons. We expected about 50 people. 800 showed up. We sucked, but had fun.

its all about fun man

 

[Holdsg]

I was a late bloomer, started playing bass at age 40 and gigging at 42.
My first gig was a "be in a band summer camp" thing with other adults that were just as cluless as me, and we could barely get thru Evil Ways (a 3-chord song). it got better within about a year as I started playing with people who knew what they were doing.

 

[Magthegrate]

I played in my bedroom for 3 years before I finally did some looking for a band to play with. Man! I should have done it way earlier! My playing has gotten exponentially better, and regular practice is the only thing that keeps my GAS at bay.

I don't consider myself a great bassist, but I can hold my own. I tell my bandmates that what I lack in natural talent, I try to make up for with my willingness to practice. They seem to appreciate that. I'm pretty weak at improv, but as long as they send me practice tracks with their drums and guitar, I make sure I that I show up to practice with the material learned.

Go for it!

 

[Magthegrate]

Wow! if I could go back and do it again, I'd be 18 again. I'd love to be 18 again, by golly!

Not me! I might go back to my 30's if I could, but honestly I'm pretty comfortable in my skin at 45. You couldn't pay me to be a teenager again! (well.... everything has a price!)

 

[DoctorZee]

Who knows? I was young and cocky and stoned. I either sounded amazing or awful, but I had fun!

 

[Rip Van Dan]

When you first started gigging? A musician friend at work asked me today if I’d started gigging yet. I said I hadn’t found anything yet but also I’m not that confident (been playing 3 years and I’d get by). His reply was that I had to be more punk about it and just get out there. So how about you all give me some confidence by sharing your nightmare gig stories from when you started out and didn’t know your A from your elbow?

At the age of 15, I started playing with a group called "The Warlocks". It was a high-school group and the first gig we had was a battle of the bands. If I recall correctly we played 3 songs (we knew 4 songs). Shortly after that I was invited to join another group and I started playing high school dances with that other group about 6 months later.

One of the songs we did at that battle of the bands was "Hey Joe" by The Leaves. They were the first ones to record it and it's a fast and rocking version. This was before Jimi Hendrix' slower version of the song.

I played it very similar to what you hear in their video below. Added another run when they hold on the A that my buddy a guitar-player suggested I add to it. Seemed to amaze everyone at the time. Here's that video of the Leaves. Only knew 4 songs at the time, but it was a start at the ripe old age of 15.

 

[Uche_bass]

At 4 months of getting a bass I started playing live. I think I kever had a "perfect" gig in nearly 2 years, but I love every second, and I learn with every gig. There's a long road ahead, but I'll take it with fun and enjoyment, and take out the best every day. If you love it and pour your heart into it, you'll do great

 

[DoctorZee]

Cue the downbeat and... the keyboard was completely detuned with some sort of demon harmonies. To make it worse, the keyboard player was unable to fix it on the fly. By maybe song 5, he figured it out, but we had already ruined the audience.

This happened to me once! At the time, I didn’t even know it was possible for keys to be detuned, so I assumed I was out of tune and kept trying to fix it. What a clusterf***. Thankfully we worked it out after just one song.

 

[WannabeBassman]

...but that improved over thousands of nights in smoky bars, watching gunfire and knifing, playing for three hookers and the bartender in an airport hotel

I assume you found someplace to trade them for cash.

 

[Yonni]

Played my first gig when I was 12. Was asked by the girl I had the biggest crush on to play her birthday party. This is my chance I thought, we are going to rock!! Set up, began to play and blew my speaker on the very first note. That was that. Put my bass down and danced the rest of the night. The band didn't seem to miss me. To this day every time I think about it, I laugh hysterically, what a memory.
No matter how good or bad you are in the beginning, being in a band is FUN!!!! Just do it.

But did you get the girl???

 

[dan1952]

I assume you found someplace to trade them for cash.

Yeah, that was back when people actually were willing to pay musicians with cash.

 

[jamro217]

If this is attempt to obtain blackmail material you'll have to try harder. It was AWFUL!!!! Fifteen Years old, school "dance" (for the drummer's school, Thank God I didn't go there. Nothing against the school, but nobody there knew me.) rock trio with two female background singer/dancers. Found out afterwards the reason the guitar sounded so muddy was because it was plugged into the "normal" input instead of the one marked "treble" on the ancient high school backline amp. Ran half the night through a Big Muff. Just horrible.

 

[Gunga Din]

First gig, first song, fkd up the middle of the set intro.

 

[Gunga Din]

Very first gig was at a high school auditorium. Just our band, and I have no idea how or why it was a full house. It wasn’t my school, so nobody knew me.

About a third of the way into it, the borrowed amp I was using (a 7ender 115 combo?) just crapped-out. Nothing gets you rattled like squatting in front of a broken amp during a show, clueless as to how to fix it. I ended up plugging into one of the guitarists Yamaha 212 combos for the remainder of the event. Sounded horrible, I was so shaken I couldn’t even look at the audience anymore. Scarred for life. I felt I had ruined the gig.

A few weeks into gigging with my first gigging band, the lead guitarist's Music Man combo failed at the top of the show. In those days (late '70s) I had a HH IC100S transistor amp head. It had a 'Sustain' switch that provided some nasty SS distortion and lead G wanted to used it. I was pretty much forced to go direct into the PA without a monitor (only the singer had one) and couldn't hear a fkn thing the whole show. God knows how it sounded.

 

[Wanker_Joe]

Awful then, awful now. I still get up and rock like I own the place.

(And somehow people still come see me play.)

 

[G19Tony]

I haven't gigged yet, but when I was learning to fly jets, and would get frustrated about something, my friend Wayne would tell me, "Bud. Nobody was born with a jet airplane up their ass."