and it was a battle of the bands. The judge guy thought we were stupid playing a botb first but we came third out of six somehow and got booked again. Avoided lending my bass amp out, sang in tune and remembered the words. Our guitarist was shitting himself but all was good.
What was your first gig like? I would like detailed accounts please! Are we that insane to play a battle of the bands first?
i don't think it was pity
the other bands were TERRIBLE and were either exact carbon copies of Paramore, or something out of Rockstar 27's record collection.
so yeah
third sounds pretty shit doesn't it?
My first gig was a botb
was at school though, so i guess that makes a difference....
We did a cover of seven nation army and one of our own songs. It sounded pretty fucking good and we won anyway, which was pretty cool cos we were against 17 year olds and we were like 13.
OLDBANDLOLJAG http://drownedinsound.com/articles/3155470
yeah
my bro is our drummer an he's 13
was pretty intimidating when bands like white plague pulled up in THEIR CARS while my dad was unloading our kit. They were rolling joints and my bro was asking what they were doing.
He doesn't get nervous though which rocks
well done
3rd is definitely good with first gig nerves; a sure-fire way to win most botb is to bring the most supporters! :>
our first gig was in a renovated cinema- they'd spent a fortune on top of the range PA, outboard etc. We did a cover of Surf Wax America (complete with 3-way harmony) and went down a treat!
battle of the bands was my first gig too!
must have been a good eight years ago in MK, and we won our heat! it was great, really good venue and good crowd, i think we must have practised our set about a million times before hand too. i dont think we made any mistakes eithers. good times! (we came second in the final too)
My first gig was playing for this proper '77 punk collective
They were good people, but pretty scary. We drank cider in a shed afterwards while they all did loads of drugs.
My first gig with my band now was supporting Dead Meadow, and the first gig with my last band was supporting Gregor Samsa. I guess I got a bit more lucky.
my first ever gig
was at the brixton windmill when i was 17. it went fucking badly. i got really drunk and turned up my guitar really loud once we got on stage, totally fucking with the soundman and making me 10x louder than the rest of the band. I fucked up the arrangements of the songs and during the last song i kicked the lead out from one of my effects pedals. Badbadbad. because of that i never drink before we play a gig now.
the first gig with my last band i was in went loads better, it was to a packed Old Queens Head in Islington and Preacher Man/Howard from the Mighty Boosh was there!
"avoided lending my bass amp out"?
that will get you nowhere. Just share and share alike and then the venue isn't packed with tonnes of gear, everyone saves on lugging loads of stuff about so on and so forth.
this band
didnt have a brain cell between them. "having the speaker protection system off makes it much louder mate, trust". It also blows it.
It was quite weird
When I first started my first band (Zero Beat, which eventually changed its name to Fridge Noises and unsurisingly became a solo project) I had lots of people who were really up for doing stuff, and so I organized a gig, and lots of them lost interest. I did however get enough interest to at least do the gig (even though I did have to pursdae an old girlfriend to play drums at pretty much the last minute as the drummer realised he was not in the country on that day)
So all was well, but its a lot easier doing it as a solo thing
to be honest
i know alot of artists and bands who say there frist gig was shit
i played to an empty room with 5 people in it
I was thrown into the Lion's Den without even knowing it...
It was the first time I had performed musically ever - and as am not a 'musician' (ie, had only recently learnt the tracks and chords for the synth act I'm in), didn't realise what I was in for. Still, despite being so nervous, we were okay. We were playing in front of an established club crowd and went down well. Looking back I can't believe the balls I had to do it. I think it was a healthy dose of naievity (sp?) really...
I felt high afterwards.
Congrats! Taste of Blood, Feet Wet
Hat's off to Dad and Bro! My 1st gig is coming up in October. A friend is letting us showcase in his artspace. We're going to open for ourselves, weird cover songs first and the original material and we're going to have dancers- wicked burn!
Live Dove
and Devo. Awesome.
My first gig...
Was in a local 'new bands' night in Wrexham in a pub, there were only 2 bands on the bill a month before the night so me and 3 other musically inept mates decided to form 'Hi Hi Hi's' (last minute Clockwork Orange reference)
We were a cross between Shitdisco, The Horrors and The Fall, we were shockingly out of time and had the lyrics and music sheets cluttered around our feet - we brought 60 people to the gig and didn't get paid, but it was still ace - then half the band went to uni :(
My first gig was in Stevenage
It was better than I expected. We were a pop band sandwiched between hardcore and metal. Still, we played well, surprisingly the audience seemed to enjoy it, and I think we go paid too. Result!
My one was in a school hall
playing to about 150 kids during our schools 'activities week'. I was 16 and we were worse than shit.
There were 5 of us in the band and we were all playing different things (that didn't fit together). I remember the music teacher telling us we needed to work out how to start and stop the songs at the same time. Things must have been bad......
Anyhow, cos it was rock 'n' roll we hired a portable smoke machine and by the end our mate had pumped so much smoke into the hall no one could see a thing, which delayed the headline bands set... Half way through thier heavy rock set the school bell went and 90% of the kids went home. They were not happy.
At the time I thought we were great and was shocked when my band broke up that evening.
my first gig...
was at the Peel in Kingston, went pretty well. we managed to fill the place with friendly faces so we weren't really that nervous
i do remember sweating severly from my fingertips which made me really worried i was gonna slip off the fretboard or something but i didn't
i played my first gig
at school. people moshed and i told them to stop, cos i lilked at the drive-in a lot. best comments:
"very experimental"
"you made me understand rock music for the first time"
"you sound like the manic street preachers"
school gigs for the win
my first gig was at school! last day of year 11. I think we only did one song - a cover of "You Know You're Right" by Nirvana (back when it was still You've Got No Right). It was sweet... we upstaged our friends band who were way better than us.
the guy holding the gig told us 'less drugs more songs'
and the sound guy said we were like the velvet underground.
so overall i was quite happy. it was a disaster though, had two minutes to sound check and was thoroughly drunk/coked up.
We played a school band night
My bass cut out towards the end of our final song (Darts of Pleasure)
Drummer didn't know when to finish songs (especially Blitzkrieg Bop)
Wisely abandoned potential covers of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and Shellac's "The Squirrel Song" (yes, really)
We weren't the worst band by a long way. I was fairly pleased with it overall.
I was 17
and the rest of the band were a decade older than me,we sounded like Ju Ju era Banshees and the first gig was supporting this awful rockabilly band with a preening lead singer, the guitarist in the other band stood his pint on my amp, which I didnt like, so I got our psycho bass player who looked like a crimewatch rapists photofit to threaten him in order to remove it.
Happy Days!
Wow!
DiS is crawling with players!
We never played a proper gig,
because we were young and never that serious, but we used to busk. The juxtapositison of our tortured teenage riot grrrl lyrics and upper-middle-class Cheltenham was pretty interesting.
We made over £10 one day and spent it on amp batteries, cigarettes and cheap cider.