Playing beyond our abilities.

[pholli00]

Only because of this ^

I didn't see that. Yeah, you're nuts.

 

[jnsnj]

Absolutely do it. Good opportunities like that don't come very often, if you turn the offer down or bail on the person who booked you next time they probably won't ask. I've seen many a band that I thought was terrible have good crowd reaction. Depending on how long you're playing you may need to learn new songs or cut songs out. Make sure you pick upbeat high energy songs that people know, people want to have fun. Slow, boring, or obscure songs played poorly is your worst case scenario.

 

[4andnomore]

DO IT!

 

[Gaolee]

Interesting thought.... What would work clothing wise, to wear on stage to stay warm when playing in 40 deg F weather? I am thinking flannel, long johns and jeans. I bet notherners would omit the long johns...

Polyseter. Shiny polyseter solves all problems, plus it keeps heat in very well. It keeps sweat and itchiness and everything else in, too.

 

[Bassic Playing]

Play with energy and passion and the crowd will forgive 90% of mistakes.

 

[DirtDog]

Interesting thought.... What would work clothing wise, to wear on stage to stay warm when playing in 40 deg F weather? I am thinking flannel, long johns and jeans. I bet notherners would omit the long johns...

Jeans and a light sweater....maybe a toque!

I know, I know....

 

[jeffbassguy]

there are plenty of awful bands here that continue to get gigs time and time again playing kid rock, 8675309, and some other dandies very poorly. Point being is you already have enough confidence in yourself to plow through stuff. The others will now have to really prepare, worst case, it is a trainwreck and you dont get that gig again. The flip side is that you can use this exposure to book everywhere in a 30 min radius unheard because you played a local to thousands of people..either way its a win and a learning experience

 

[wmhill]

you'll never get better if you don't play over your head....... you might crash & burn, you might not, but you'll come out with some real world experience. Give em both barrels

 

[Guitalia]

A jillion years ago at a long gone club called "The Rock Corporation" a punk band opened for us. They played a six song set by playing 2 of the four songs they knew twice. I won't name names but apparently, "The got the beat."

mugre

Saw the Ramones in New Haven at The Avalon Ballroom, a.k.a. a former car dealer's warehouse, in 1976. Some band opened for them, and they still had to play their set twice through to make it to the end of the gig.

 

[vmabus]

Woodshed it right up until you take the stage.
Do your very best.
Have fun!

 

[Jeff Sarsippius]

A negative attitude will not make the gig better: hate to sound creepy but get out there get it on and kick butt!

 

[JohnMCA72]

Is it wrong for me to view this as an opportunity to be heard and to move on to something bigger and better? Speaking for myself and not the band as a whole.

No, but don't go in with the expectation that you're going to get "discovered" or "signed to a big recording contract" on the spot.

Go into it expecting to learn something. Keep your eyes & ears open, pay attention to what all is going around you. See how others, who have been there before, act. Treat everybody with respect & courtesy. Have fun & try not to take yourselves too seriously.

 

[brianrost]

The gig will be on pit lane at a very large racing venue in central New Hampshire. There will be 40 race teams there along with crew, families and fans.

That's a lot different than a real music venue gig even if the audience is a few thousand. You are just a small part of the night's entertainment. If you guys suck, then you won't be asked back. Take the gig.

 

[PortlandBass77]

You got to show the crowd who's boss, your vocalist has to metaphorically kick their ass!

 

[LT131]

if you are gonna suck, then really suck, the last performance art festival we played our drummer broke his bass drum pedal 12 seconds into the show and then he tried to just play the toms like jesus and mary chain with some ringoisms, our guitarist who can't sing demanded to play his new song we played once during practice, the singer couldn't hear herself so she kept walking too close to the monitors and feeding back, and one our dancers "forgot" to wear panties and got angry that all these guys were staring at her bush (she's not straight) and all the artsy women were horrified and asking us why we were exploiting this young girl in such a horrible way

Pics or not real.

 

[VoodooJazz]

Lots of good advice here already about taking the gig, practicing, and jumping in with both feet. Staying hydrated,too (especially all vocalists)! All good advice, and I agree. Here are a couple of things I would add.

1. Make sure everybody is in tune before you start playing.

2. If you have a tune that gives you trouble (but the others are comfortable with it) practice so that you can absolutely NAIL both the beginning and the end. Even if it goes haywire in the middle, this truly works. You nail the beginning, folks notice, think the band sounds good, turn attention to their beer and friendss. You nail the end, folks notice, and question if it was the beer that made THEM think it sounded weird in the middle.

3. If you have to add songs to fill out your set, only pick truly easy tunes. No weird bridges, time signature changes, key modulations in the middle.

4. If you really make a horrible mistake, smile, don't grimace. Look like you're having a good time and your audience will too.

Good luck, and have fun!

 

[hsech]

Knowing no more songs than that.............. how did you get a gig that big? I played a wedding gig a couple of weeks ago in 40 degree weather. I'm still trying to get over the cold I got from doing it.

 

[CGremlin]

The cold weather will allow the opportunity for outrageous stage costumes.

Dressing up as the kids from "South Park" would be practical.

Seriously though, distill things down to make them as simple as possible, practice the hell out of that, and go forth and do the best you can. Bring a tuner (the cold weather *will* make you have to stay on top of your tuning), and just have as much fun as possible. Best of luck, and let us know how it turns out.

 

[cheapbasslovin]

You have to be SO SO SO BAD for people to remember how bad you were for more than a week. Like can't complete your set bad.

Worst case scenario (probably) is people say you're no good and proceed to forget who you are. Everything else is positive.

 

[Fondsdale]

Just do simple songs. Most non-musicians wouldn't know whether the songs were hard to play or not. As long as the band is tight and in the pocket most people wouldn't care if you only played 3 chords the entire gig.