Playing Our First Live Show On Sunday
 

and i'm a lil nervous. mainly because i don't want the other people in teh band getting too drunk, and i don't want any of us to suck. any tip/pointers/suggestions? the floor is ya'lls.

BE NICE TO THE SOUND GUY.

Go very careful with drink, unless it works well when you're pissed.
Remember that most people in the room won't have seen you before, so they won't know that you're nervous. They also won't know it's your first gig.

DO NOT TELL THE AUDIENCE IT'S YOUR FIRST GIG. I hate it when bands do this.

If the audience do know it's your first gig, they're your mates. You've chatted shit to your mates. You've probably pissed next to them. You may even have had sex with some of them. So play instruments in front of them will be easy.

Try to relax, but don't try and have fun. Only ska-punk bands 'have' fun, and they're mostly shit.

If you're a ska-punk band, stop what you're doing and run at a knife. Repeat until dead.

truer words were never spoken. and thanks for teh advice as well, much appreciated.

About being nice to the sound person:

Some sound people are jerks, and some just SEEM like jerks at first because they have had to deal with so many "artistic temperaments" day in and day out for years. So be nice EVEN IF the sound person seems a little short or borderline rude. They can all make you sound like crap if they want to, and if you prove yourselves to be relatively professional and easy to work with, you might find that some of them are not nearly as jerky as you first thought.

Also, if you get really good stage sound or good audience feedback on the mix, give the sound person 10 or 20 bucks. They like it, and they remember.

Other than that, just show up on time and do your best to set up and take down as fast as possible. Just get your stuff offstage; do all the "putting away of crap" offstage. Do the drum setup/teardown offstage as well. It helps A TON.

And I know it's not easy, but try to relax and feel confident in yourself. It translates well to the audience and it makes your own material work better automatically if you really "believe" you're supposed to be on that stage.
(I will say that it too me a year and a half or more to be able to actually face forward during shows, but I'm glad I got past it)


Good luck.

this is all great advice.

Play with as much energy as you would if you were rocking out in yr bedroom.

Don;t worry about mistakes, or any problems that may arise. it's a rock show. No one expects perfect flow and shit. This ain;t the Metropolitan Opera.

play every song as if it was the last one.

View the cup as half full, not half empty.

A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.





In all seriousness, good luck. Just remember not to get sucked into the atmosphere of the place. Do you thing the same way you do it when you practice in your garage (or wherever it is you practice). Focus on what you are doing. Everybody wants to be the guy that does crazy guitar solos while laying back and letting the crowd hold them up, and while the crowd might think that's cool, in the end they would rather you play the song right.

just have fun and remember that rome wasnt built in a day. i would have a drink for dutch courage but try not to get too trashed. just concentrate on what your doing and just remember that this has happened to a lot of people so if you do scew up just go with it and dont panic.

if your in a funk metal band, cancel the show and kill yourself.

I don't really have advice, but good luck. Oh, and have fun.

having worked as a roadie and as stage crew I can vouch that the most annoying thing in the world is a too-drunk band member trying to set up his equipment.

the guy that's doing the sound is in my band so i don't think that'll be a problem :)
i also kicked out the drunkard in teh band the other day so that's not a problem anymore. the plan is were all gonna get shit faced and reherse one last time sat night. then sun were gonna smoke a doob and have 3 drinks and 1 shot. then get onstage and "fuck shit up", so to speak. thanks again for all teh advice though, i'll keep it in mind.

the show went well. the band that was going after us canceled so we got to go on later than planned and played a little bit longer. we had a couple of fuck ups and i couldn't hear my guitar once it got loud, but all in all it went well. thanks again for teh tips/support.

sounds nice! has it been recorded?
looking forward for your future gigs in lille ;)

nah teh sound guy didn't have his pro tools w/ him. i wanted to record it for reference, but oh well.

glad it went well! Hope you rocked man.

At least in Australia most sound guys in pubs etc are half baked hacks and don't even know how to set the gain structure on a console. Saying that there are some good ones. I would say give the sound guy beer rather than $10 or $20. Beer is a good trade tool. Sound people can make you sound like crap if they want to, however if they do, they are not professional and you should get someone else anyway.

thank you kind sir. from what people told me, we did. hope their right.

cool!