Jacqueslemac

Pix?

What about the Variax bass?

You're certainly not alone. My first gig went something like this:

I'd been asked to join a band working towards a support slot at a beer festival. A few weeks before the gig, the band imploded when the lead guitarist and drummer had a row and the guitarist walked out. None of us did any practice after the guitarist walked out and hadn’t even been in touch.

The gig should have been on Friday evening as one of the warm-up bands at the beginning of the beer festival.

On Saturday morning I got a pleading phone call from the singer. A band that had been due to play on Saturday afternoon hadn’t turned up, so if I wouldn’t mind helping out, we could do a few songs until the next band arrived.

The singer had only been to two rehearsals, most of the songs need two guitars and I didn’t know all the material anyway. What could possibly go wrong?

So I said “yes”, I’d do it.

At 2.30pm I rolled up. They’d already set their gear up in the marquee (a small open-fronted one looking towards the bar, with a few dozen people mingling about between the two).

I put my stuff up, got my amp mic’d up to the PA, did a brief soundcheck, necked a (free) beer for courage and we were off.

The singer announced that we’d come in at the last minute, hadn’t got a full set (we’d cut the songs the singer didn’t know and removed some of those that just had to have two guitars) and that we’d do a few, then break, then do a few more etc.

One, two, three, four and we were off. The first song was one I don’t know very well, but it was okay, because I had my music stand and the lyrics and chords were clear to see. Except that after about one bar in, there was a gust of wind and my papers went all over the floor. Ho hum. I bluffed it a bit and then realised I was going to get terribly lost, so bent over, picked them up and joined in again.

Luckily, the next few I knew and they weren’t too bad and then it was time to stop and have another beer. I managed to work out a way to secure my bits of paper by the time we were on again, so the next few songs were a bit easier, as was the third and final set. We finished on Two Hard to Handle which is one the singer can do well. The crowd were dancing a bit by then, so we quit when we were ahead. There were a few people clapping, so we can’t have been too bad.

Phew, I was glad that was over without it being too bad. Except that we were then told the headlining band had just pulled out and would we go on again at 9pm? The others wanted to do it, so I didn’t feel I could say “no”.

My wife and I left to get something to eat and then I headed back. It was now dark. There were about 200 people there, some pretty pissed. Unfortunately one of them was our remaining guitarist.

The first few songs weren’t too bad, but when we launched into 20th Century Boy the singer’s mic cut out. He swapped one lead, then another and then the mic, but couldn’t get more than a second or two over the PA before it cut out again. We did a passable instrumental version, but the vocals are sort of important. Anyway, we stopped, switched channels, mic and a few more leads and started the next song. The same thing happened, only this time a couple of guys ran forward, gesticulating at one of the PA speakers. Then they started to blow out the flames that were coming from the speaker cone! A short pause ensued while we got the fire under control, disconnected the stack, tested the other one and then got going again.

We stumbled through the rest, but by then the guitarist was fluffing chords or playing them in the wrong key or attempting licks he'd never tried before. The singer was ad-libbing songs we didn’t know while the guitarist was having another trip to the toilet and finally, the singer had to start fielding the odd bread roll.

We had a couple of good songs, where the crowd joined in and a couple where some people started to dance, but mostly it was downhill. It wasn’t helped by only doing three or four songs and then stopping so the guitarist could have another beer and cigarette.

So, a few lessons:

Only play when the whole band is ready.
Have more songs than you think you’ll need.
Stick to the set list you know and don’t break too often. The crowd never really got warmed up.
Don’t drink too much!

But the most important one – no matter how bad you know you’ve been, most people don’t notice most of the mistakes. We had quite a few people tell us we were really good. Most of them didn’t appear to be too drunk either!

That's a relief. I've just joined and thought I might raise the average age of the forum. Seems not!