Awesome gigs that you are/were thrilled to have?

dune

dune

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Jul 5, 2019
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#1
This "Band Management" forum is understandably rife with complaints and "gig horror" stories. This is not meant as a complaint - I totally get it. I think it's valuable, both in (hopefully) providing some relief/release to the folks sharing/venting as well as "cautionary tales" from which others may learn. Not to mention the plethora of (IMO) sage advice dispensed here regularly.

I feel extremely fortunate in that the majority of the 15 years I spent gigging full-time on the road and on ships was, while not perfect, pretty pleasant overall with one exception. The band I was in for the longest I truly loved, but later I also spent 10 short months - and by that, I mean the longest 10 months of my life - in "the band from Hell", whose leader was once described very accurately in my opinion by another member: "He may not be evil, but if not he's closer than anyone I've ever met." I quit that band 2000 miles from home with no car, $1200 to my name and no prospects and was thrilled to have been able to do so. To this day, watching that truck pulling out of the parking lot without me in it remains one of my happiest moments. I literally jumped up in the air and clicked my heels. I'm out, baby!!! But I digress...

So, while almost all of what I have read here only reinforces my decision to stay retired and increases my gratitude in having the option to do so, it also sparks my curiosity: There have to be some folks out there whose situations would have the opposite effect of making me want to start gigging again, so how many of you have or had awesome gigs that you were just totally "over the moon", "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this!" thrilled to have? TIA
 
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#2
All gigs are a privilege and I'm thrilled to have each them with some being better than others. Some of the best involve the smallest audience [but not always]. Others are less enjoyable but even those beat digging ditches. I look at each to be an opportunity to either have fun, learn something new, acquire new fans, or all of the above.
 
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#3
Long story short, there's a festival about 2 hours north of where we are located called "Up North Beerfest." Remember this is Wisconsin so if it's not cheese or milk, it's about beer. :D

That festival has been going on for many years on Saturday afternoons in June. It's a pretty big deal, fest attendees pay a flat fee and get food and beer from a bunch of different independent brewers for the day. In 2018 they started a smaller Friday night event called "Premiere Night." This Friday event is for new brewers or those that haven't gotten "big" enough to participate in Sat's festival. We were lucky enough to be asked to play at that first one and have gotten the gig every years since. Lots of fun. The organizers told us last year they never intended us to be anything more than background music but we've been well received with dancers and people interacting with us.

This year they asked us to play both Friday and Sat. We're pretty excited. Thanks to another TB'er I was able to book a local sound company to provide a larger PA for us on Sat. Ours is enough for Friday night but would never handle Sat's crowd. Now we just need to keep our fingers crossed for great weather.

This post was put up on the Festival page for June 2024.

beerfest 2024 writeup.png
 
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#4
WI Short Scaler said:
Long story short, there's a festival about 2 hours north of where we are located called "Up North Beerfest." Remember this is Wisconsin so if it's not cheese or milk, it's about beer. :D

That festival has been going on for many years on Saturday afternoons in June. It's a pretty big deal, fest attendees pay a flat fee and get food and beer from a bunch of different independent brewers for the day. In 2018 they started a smaller Friday night event called "Premiere Night." This Friday event is for new brewers or those that haven't gotten "big" enough to participate in Sat's festival. We were lucky enough to be asked to play at that first one and have gotten the gig every years since. Lots of fun. The organizers told us last year they never intended us to be anything more than background music but we've been well received with dancers and people interacting with us.

This year they asked us to play both Friday and Sat. We're pretty excited. Thanks to another TB'er I was able to book a local sound company to provide a larger PA for us on Sat. Ours is enough for Friday night but would never handle Sat's crowd. Now we just need to keep our fingers crossed for great weather.

This post was put up on the Festival page for June 2024.

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Thanks. Sounds like a great gig and here's hoping you get great weather to go with it.
 
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#5
dune said:
here have to be some folks out there whose situations would have the opposite effect of making me want to start gigging again, so how many of you have or had awesome gigs that you were just totally "over the moon", "I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this!" thrilled to have?
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For me, pretty much any gig that has an awesome crowd that floods the dancefloor is a great gig, regardless of all the other factors. My first one of those was about my 7th gig. It was a Christmas themed event at a bar and the crowd was awesome. I turned to LG and said: "Man, I'd do this for free if it was always like this!" He laughed and nodded.

As far as gigs that were cool just because of the venue/atmosphere, I was fortunate to do a sub gig at a big 4th of July thing with thousands of people in the large outdoor venue (waiting for the fireworks. Awesome stage with a sound crew. While we only had a handful of people actively dancing in front of us, it was an absolute blast - and I'm lucky enough to have booked it again this year.
 
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#7
The ones that really stick out that I cherish the memory of would have to be:

Opening for Zoso at Gas Monkey Live
Opening for Bellringer at Curtain Club
Opening for our friends at Trees
Covering Zeppelin II at the Perot Museum
Playing J&J's pizza basement in Denton and then going down the street for a 4 hour farewell show for my drummer
BlackHole Party for Halloween - second gig for the best band I was ever in opening up for my rockband (2 bands in 1 night, a dream of mine at the time)
 
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#9
There is a large RV park right next to the Talladega Superspeedway. It is one of the biggest parks out there. We are fortunate enough to get to play the weekend of every fall race and it is always so much fun. Great crowds and great group of folks out there. Getting to play out in the open in the shadows (maybe not shadows, but the speedway is really no more than about 300 yards away) of that iconic sporting location is always a thrill.

The circled area in the pic below is right where we play.

upload_2024-4-18_12-47-11.png
 
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#12
I played a show in a German youth club that was in an old vaulted ceiling bomb shelter, looked kinda like the Beatles cavern club.

we were on a bare bones punk tour and relied on venues for backlines. This one had a e cheapo drum kit, a 100 watt 115 combo for bass, and a peavey backstage for the guitar player.

for some inexplicable reason it sounded GREAT in there and 100 German kids pogoed for our whole set and then made us play half the set again as an encore.
 
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#13
How do you get a musician to complain?
Give him a gig.

A few good ones stand out.

One was an international battle of the bands. My band did all originals and I wrote about 1/3rd of the songs. We made it past the first round and the second round and got to play the regional finals. We came in second out of the 450 or so bands that played in our region and the band that came in first also won the US finals and I think won the whole thing out of something like 3500 bands. We were also voted best band by the eleven other bands playing that night and I was voted second best drummer and won a hit hat pedal for it. Our bassist was voted best bassist and walked away with an Ampeg combo. It was a great night.







Another great one was playing in Lisbon Portugal with a local Philly artist who had ties there. I spent the week and did three gigs - two on drums. The guitarist wasn’t able to do the mid-week gig for Balcony TV so he leant me his guitar, I learned the song the night before, and got to play overlooking the beautiful city of Lisbon:



Lastly, played drums for a local Philly artist on 4th of July at Penn’s Landing. By the time I did the gig our relationship had soured and it was my last time working with him. But it’s probably the biggest audience I’ve ever played for.

 
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#15
In 1988, I was a Sgt. In the Army. That year, Sep/Oct, I had to go to an exercise called REFORGER in Germany. When it was over we were sent to an Army post for like a month while we waited for a flight to go back to the States. The Army had a fairly large beer tent set up for us, it had a stage. Several bands came in to perform for us. One Sat. Night it was a Country band. I made myself a pest and asked the band if my band could play a few songs. Turns out our band all ended up there that night. Surprisingly, they let us get up and play. We were in our Uniforms. We started with just a 12 bar blues thing. The 1500 or so Soldiers noticed us and that it was different. They loved us. They started yelling, screaming, jumping on tables, throwing beers around, falling off tables. Then we played "Paranoid", even bigger response. They rushed to the stage. They were pumping fists, headbanging, handing me beers. Our last song was
" Wipeout" they went even crazier. Best gig of my life!
 
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#16
After starting with a total nightmare gaslighter BL, every band since has been 1000 times better.

I'm lucky enough to perform with a pretty wide assortment of groups now - from a Tom Petty cover band to jazz (cocktail & artsy) to the symphony. Sometimes it's an easy $200 - sometimes I get thrown in the deep end and come out stronger & more well-rounded.

I wouldn't say my lame-dar has gotten to be 100% effective. But I'm usually stoked - say 80% of the time - when someone calls or messages.
 
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#19
We opened for Edgar Winter in the mid 2000s at a resort. It was such a blast. Unfortunately, we never got to meet him, but got to watch him up close during his set. Man, he was good and his band was on it!:woot:
 
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