playing music you are passionate about to an appreciative audience. everything else is icing on the cake.
Accepting that bar bands are universally interchangeable beer sales devices and background catalysts for social interaction related to the pre horizontal mombo ritual, makes it all worth it.
Money is nice but the entertainment often provided by your audience? Priceless. My favorite example is a couple of girlfriends who got into it about fidelity issues. Apparently one of them was being unfaithful with another woman and the wounded party was angry. It escalated quickly from shouting to slapping, then one locked herself in a porta potty and refused to come out. Her significant other finally talked her out where they immediately started beating the ever loving poopie out of each other. It was over in a minute, and about a half hour later they were down front, arm in arm, drinking and having a great time, the black eyes and broken nose forgotten. Proving live music is a universal salve for whatever troubles the soul.
Being able to load in without having to have a lifted four wheel drive pickup pull your guitar player's eco friendly minivan out of a churned up red dirt quagmire behind the lowboy trailer being used for a stage. At least we got to load out with the help of the same truck. The only other alternative was to hand carry everything across a ten acre pasture worked into a muddy mess by the really big audience who loved the show, so it was a good day.
Playing at a private clubhouse grand opening and having your drummer back into a club member's scooter trying to get close to the door, and that member being a good sport about it once he found out the guy was insured and the payoff for his totaled motorcycle (which he was trying to sell) would more than cover the custom build he had recently started, with enough left over to buy back his totaled bike at ten cents on the dollar, and still put back some mattress money. They loved the show and hired us to play the next six weekends. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.
Free food is good. Free food and drink is better.
If playing for the door, supply your own door minion. If the place won't allow this, pass on the job. No point in working while you are also being robbed.
Rent parties are not paying jobs unless you count the gratitude of those you helped keep a roof over their heads while they work through a rough patch. If we get tipped I drop my cut in the pot. This also applies to charity events for privately funded no kill animal shelters. It's not that I'm squeamish or have unrealistic expectations of being able to save them all, I just hate to see a pet paying such a high price for the bad luck of being paired with an irresponsible human. Anything I can do to minimize the repercussions of such a pitiful failure of character is a no brainer.
There are more, but these are just a few of the highlights and lessons from several decades of being an amateur bass player. If I had a chance to do it over, I wouldn't change a thing.
