First Gig ever coming up!

Evz

Inspired
Hey guys,

I'm excited and nervous at the same time, as I have my first gig ever tomorrow night! I've been playing guitar for about 6 years now, and never got a chance to play live due to school or bands coming apart.

The show will be at my University, as a charity event, and my band essentially came together just to play this show... I have jammed with the singer for over a year now and we gel really well, and we brought in a bassist and drummer (both from our circle of friends) in the last three weeks to play the show.

We originally planned to play:

Baba O'riley
Little Sister
Are you gonna be my Girl
Slither

but after many changes from the people who are organizing the gig, and complaints from the drummer, we ended up with the following:

Dani California (added to the set list 2 days ago :| )
Ain't talking about love (been jamming over this one for a long time with the singer)
Little Sister
Something about a truck
Are you gonna be my Girl
Slither

The singer will do some backing guitar for the Jet song and slither through his L6 2x12 amp, and the bassist is using a L6 guitar amp, cause he doesn't have a bass! I'll be using my Axe going to FOH and a QSC K12 to monitor myself.

I hope everything goes well, but I believe tonight I will be spending the whole night rehearsing and setting up my axe tones (they are almost there).

I was told the venue will mic amps, so I'm expecting someone will try to mic the qsc, and will have to deal with that. thankfully we are going first out of 4 bands and I think so we have about 40 min to set up!

any advise or suggestions on what I should keep in mind?

Thanks!!
 
My biggest advice is, just have fun!!!!

We tend to get picky and nervous be aide out fear it's going to suck. If it does, so be it. Most of us do it for the excitement and opportunity of showing what we can do. Others can get caught up in the, "oh no my tone sucks, my axe fx doesn't sound like (fill in the blank) amp, my only my dog can tell frequencies are off."

Important but not critical. Go out there, show them the badasses you guys are, and just enjoy every second of it.
 
Tell the sound engineer that it's not necessary to "sacrifice" an extra mic for you and you can give him a symmetric signal for FOH, which is independent from the stage volume, and that you can use the same XLR-cable he is using for the other amps without moving a mic.

So he will appreciate your efforts to help him save time. If not. he's a moron. ;-) ... just kidding.

I'm sure you will love to perform for other people. It's magical.
 
Go evz!!! Something I've found helpful has been to just forget that there's anyone else there. That doesn't mean to literally ignore the audience, it means to play with the same confidence as you do at practice. Play "within yourself" - which means to not get caught up in trying to impress anybody. Just do what you do!!! Visualize yourself being on stage, people are digging it, and you are having fun!
 
I know how you feel, bro. I did my first (and probly only ever) gig last Oct 19th--a benefit for the family of a recently deceased friend and musician. I was invited to play by a
good friend who it just so happened I mentored him his first Am, Em chords as a beginner. He never forgot me for that. We did a cover of Springsteen's cover of Mary Don't You Weep, which I thought was
very appropriate for the occasion. Talk about nervous! :ambivalence: I practiced that one song for a solid month. I don't think I ever got it right twice in a row. lol I swear I
practiced right up to the time I heard somebody say, "You're up next, Rick," and when I plugged in my guitar it sounded horribly out of tune. Fortunately, I think there were about five or six of us playing,
so my playing the wrong chords wasn't very noticeable. We all sounded out of tune and time. But the audience was nice and applauded when we finished.

Advice? Man I wish I had some for you. The only thing I can say is that now that it's over, it was one sweet experience I'll never forget. I think the best advice is just like Edrod said, and try
above all else not to embarrass yourself. I was fortunate in that respect, and it makes all the difference looking back. Good luck, pal.
 
Good luck, if he sticks a mic on the qsc, unplug it and plug it into the split in the back.

Uggh...that happened to me 2 gigs ago...this old school guy who has been doing sound for ages took my L & R Output 1 Stereo (OK, nice), but also mic'ed my QSC K12. The dude did not want to listen to me explain why that would not be necessary. I felt like unplugging it, but figured at least he was taking my L/R outs and if he needed a security blanket of the 57 on the K12, so be it. Did not want to get into a pissing match with a know it all sound guy.

Anyway, to the OP. Have a blast and knock 'em dead!!!
 
Smile, don't stare at the neck, and have a great time! Your jitters will go away as soon as you start playing. Enjoy!
 
me personally, i like to play an easy song first. I still get a little nervous before the first song, even know i know the songs like the back of my hand. After the first few minutes, my muscles start to relax and my breathing loosens and i'm ready to go. I also bring water too, because i get massive cotton mouth. I'm not sure why but always happens.
 
Sup Evz,
We have all been there. I am gigging around the GTA with an AF2. If you need any help PM me and we can hook up on cell phone.
Definitely do not mic up the QSC if you are running FRFR. Throw him your left XLR OUT.
 
The absolute most important thing is just to have fun! Don't worry about tone, moving around, where you're looking... None of that matters. Just pretend you're jamming away without a care in the world.

In my experience, the more I think about my mix, tone, moving around, HEY WHATS THAT GUY OVER THERE DOING, the more mistakes I make.
 
Smile, don't stare at the neck, and have a great time! Your jitters will go away as soon as you start playing. Enjoy!
I'd say not staring at the neck is not a good advice for the first gig. You are nervous as hell and should use any means that will make you ease-up.
For your first gig, best advice is to not give a shit about your stage performance. You're nervous and everybody will see that, no matter how hard you try, so don't bother hiding it. The cool will kick in after the first couple of songs and will help you perform better automaticly.
Besides, nobody cares about the guitarist anyway. It's the singer that makes the show.

I'd say the best advice for your first gig is: practice the hell out of it! Practice so much that it haunts you in your dreams. Nothing builds up confidence more than knowing every song inside-out. You won't believe how much a lot of practicing can do; you can even get to the point where changing presets is a reflex, not a thing that requires your attention (this, however, requires that you practice with your rig)!

Also, don't forget to tune your guitar whenever you have the time during your gig. Your singer is talking? Tune your guitar. The keyboarder is playing a piano solo? Tune your guitar. You won't believe how much you can be off at the end of your gig, even without using the whammy bar. It also fights some nervousness, to retune here and there (at least it does for me).

EDIT:
Another good advice: practice while standing! Especially if your technique isn't top-notch, you will notice it makes a dramatic difference in your playing wether you are standing or sitting. Unless you want to sit on your gig (which looks stupid, don't do that!), you should really do that; as it will not only improve your technique, but also make sure your guitar strap is set to a comfortable height.
 
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Take a deep breath, walk out on stage and own it! The audience will respond to confidence regardless of what you sound like. So have fun and give them what they want - to see you confident and enjoying yourself - even if you don't feel it at first, act/portray it for the audience.

You will probably be self conscious about your tone and volume. - don't futz with it, leave it to the sound guys. Your job is to perform for the audience - enjoy the performance.
 
Remember this, if a mistake isn't big enought to completely derail type song 3/4 of the audience won't even notice and of those that do it is doubtful any will care. If you do make a clam, don't sweat it. Just move on :)
 
Thanks for all the advice guys! Definitely been practicing everything standing and trying to avoid staring at the neck the whole time! haha. Only issue for me i think is that stupid dani california solo... we added the song 2 days ago and I have not played it in years (probably almost never), so thats the only solo I'm nervous about, so hopefully I wont mess it up too much, and if I do, then I have 5 more songs to make up for it (That i know I can play well)!

@teddis thanks! if you want to come by, its a free show, will be at Hart House @ u of t st.george campus, I think its at the bar there (Sammy's), we go on around 8.
 
Hey Guys, so the gig went well, it turned out to be a very small lounge venue, but they had a house PA and the tech let me use XLR directly to the board with no hassles (was very nice lady haha).

we kicked off the show so we got lots of time to noodle and do sound checked. I quickly flipped through my patches and was satisfied with the tone I was getting through my QSC, and hoped the audience got something similar.

We started with Dani Cali which went well until the solo where we had a minor tempo issue which threw me off the solo, along with a missed queue at the end by the drummer and bassist, which lead to me to being stuck in about 6 extra bars of solo at end which made me more nervous, but have fudged most of the solo anyway, there was nothing more I can do then make eye contact with the bassist and drummer and get them to end it haha!

Starting off like that wasn't a good confidence booster, but going straight into Aint talking about love was good recovery for me as I have been very well versed in the song. It went perfect till the end where we slightly lost out tempo on the outro, but it was still good.

Little sister went great, but during the solo my pick almost flew out of my hand leading me go off beat for 2 bars, but I caught up with it near the last 4 bars, but the drummer and bassists lost the queues again, so the last bit of the solo was extended by 2 bars, but it worked out great cause we all ended of the same note!

Something about a truck went flawless, but I was too shy to sing backing on the chorus.
Are you gonna be my girl was also great, with only one specific note missed because I accidentally muted the string, again too shy for vocals.

Slither came out the best, cause I felt more comfortable and in the groove, no issues with any fills or the solo.

Overall it was good, it didn't feel perfect at the time, but thats cause of nerves and possibly lack of practice as a band. I found myself sometimes looking at the neck to make sure I didn't lose any chords, but I also wore sunglasses to help with shyness when looking at audience. Judging from the photos, I should have moved a lot more, but again thats a comfort issue.

Will post pics when I get them!

Thanks everyone for the help! Definitely want to do more shows to redeem my solo fudging!
 
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Sounds like you had a great 1st gig! Rest assured that the minor tempo shifts for a couple bars or the "one note" missed probably went by so fast that the audience didn't catch it. Everything else is just getting comfortable getting on stage.
 
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