Anyone who has played live will have dealt with, at best nervous energy, or, at worst crippling nerves.
Thankfully for me the nerves have never got the best of me where I can't play, and the majority of the time now I just have a nervous energy.
Anyway, I thought it would be useful to go over the things I do to help deal with the nerves.
1. Be happy with your setup. I'm usually happy when I can play my own setup, but unfortunately as a bass player you are asked to play through house amps, or they take a d.i signal from the bass rather than your amp. During soundcheck make sure you are happy with the sound.
2. Warm up. There's nothing worse going on completely 'cold' - particularly if the first track is fast/complex.
3. Know the material. The better I know it the more at ease I am.
4. Make eye contact with audience. When the nerves have been at their worst I tend to look down at what I am playing and want the ground to swallow me up. Often it's worse in your head compared to the reality of what is happening. I find that if I look up and see the reaction of the audience, it makes me feel so much better.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share this as it might help someone out. Alternatively feel free to share anything you guys do to deal with nerves.
cheers
Alex