Why do you gig?

[SactoBass]

To the op that is easily answered: community, and creative interaction between multiple people.
It's about the group working together.

+1

Well spoken!

 

[davidgoldman]

We gig to get the women. Nothing has changed. Same reason I started at 15, 48 years ago.

 

[rtslinger]

I gig because I love to see people enjoying the live music we play. And I love to play my bass for people it is in my blood. It sure is heck ain't about the money ha ha ha

 

[turbo chicken]

I gig for the one or two people whom I've never met that come up and give compliments afterwards. Genuine unsolicited feedback is awesome when the person giving it has nothing to gain.

The fact that someone enjoyed the gig is what does it for me.

 

[JimmyM]

People with no ego have no place onstage. How do you do it and not have an ego? Ego is taking pride in the job you and your band does, it's working at things until they're right so you don't look bad or make anyone else look bad, it's working at being entertaining to watch as well as listen to, and it's part of being a confident and competent performer. Too much turns you into a headcase, but having a healthy amount of it is something you need to be able to put your band over.

 

[Biggbass]

Because I can't play golf at night.

 

[mambo4]

"a song is not compete until somebody hears it" -Rosanne Cash

 

[Marial]

"a song is not compete until somebody hears it" -Rosanne Cash

Nice!

It's that undefinable moment when the crowd and the band feed off of and give each other energy in equal amounts. It's a give and take and when it's equal there is no other feeling like it.

 

[iJazz]

At this point in my return from my musical grave of nearly 40 years I am not yet gigging, or more correctly, playing out. To me gigging is what Dad did; taking a call from a band leader for a job on a particular date where he was playing with a different group of musicians almost any night he was working. That was easier for a drummer in the days of an old-time standard dance book when music was used on stage for everybody else and there seldom was a guitar involved, or perhaps even more rarely a singer. Playing out, on the other hand, is what I think of when I'm in an organized group of regular members with a universe of known music we have worked up for the end result of public performance.

To the point of the question, the idea of playing out again is what is drawing me back to the scene. When I left the music business as my profession, I had grown tired of living in bars, dealing with smoke, drunks, bar owners, and being married to everybody in the band and their girlfriends/wives whims as to what we all should be doing. In an eight or ten piece group that can really become a very big issue. Life was pulling me in other directions and as much as I knew I'd miss the music making I just felt it was time. For a while several of us got together and made some noise on an irregular basis, but it just wasn't the same as performing live with an audience. As well, it became frustrating to know what 30 or so hours a week on the stand would allow one to do musically that became very difficult to pull off when it was a couple of hours every several weeks with no goal or target in mind.

Now, I've become less concerned about musical statements than we were then, but I do look forward to the potential once in a while of the magic of the moment of the joy of collaborative creation while making chicks dance. That provides an energy that can't be found anyplace else.

iJazz - "Live Music Is Best!", particularly when somebody is listening.