And im not talking about experiences on the internet…Me personally I’m just doing this as a hobby…but that’s just me…being that i’ve only played live once realized I wasn’t good enough and decided to pursue other things…but for those that are active or were active…feel free to share…
Apologies this thread feels like deja vu for some reason…
One time I spent a week doing a shitload of gigs with a singer songwriter guy who needed a drummer, and that’s when I realized I never wanted to do anything like that ever again. Even without being in the direct spotlight it was nervewrcking.
I also got a local music festival to invite me to play, but then I chickened out because of anxiety. I went to said festival and spent two entire days there, realizing that I’d rather be on the audience side.
Feel free to share?
Had around 15 concerts with a band.
The hour of play goes by in a few minutes it seems. The experience is just awesome.
It depends on the place i played… Some places do not have reference speakers, you can never know how does it sound off the stage, must trust the sound guy. Sometimes other instruments arent even audible on stage but sound great off. Pay was ussualy just for the fuel, and a pack (20) of beer lol. Crowd was ussualy great, from small places with 40 people to large with 400, playing before (timeframe) our country most known bands. I remember one night there was the main band chained pistons, they came quite drunk on stage. The guitarist miserably failed 80 percent of soloing. (Not a known band tho) Never happened to me, that must be shamefull. In general the most popular known main bands in our country drink a looot, speaking from experience. They have their own staff for cable managment, mixing people, drivers(because every person is drunk) , they require the organisators to buy them specificly written amounts of drink otherwise they do not play.
i remember the smaller bands ussualy interchange gear like amps, drumkits, because driving ton of music equipment sucks. Drums take a car, amps take a car, we were always stuffed between the gear while driving.
Once you play in a more known place organisators quickly ask to play in future concerts. Nice people all around, other bands members are very open for communication and “teamwork” because the scene is small. Of course anxiety is always a thing, but if playing is your passion you just get over it and rock that show. You do it for people. It is worth it, if you are worth it.
Sometimes places arent heated. That means freezing fingers, guitars out of tune quicker. sometimes the stage is so small you cant move more than half a meter, but on larger stages you need to be good at sports to own the surface.
There was one time we played at a bar with just 3 people in audience. Hahaha. The only time, luckily.
There is no money in music in our country. Even the biggest bands have a additional job to survive. It is just the way it is. But some really sucessfull went international like Laibach and Avseniki, the first played in korea 2 years ago, and the second owns the worlds most played instrumental song, which is Na Golici.
I’ve been involved on multiple levels. When I was in grad school I wrote for Bassline Magazine and was also DJing in and around Youngstown, OH. Mostly just pub events or house parties but I also did a lot of weird stuff other people didn’t want to do. Like several times I worked with a charity that sold paintings that got painted live on stage. Obviously I provided the music for the evening.
Then I didn’t do a lot for a long time. After moving to Akron I started helping out, casually, with some local monthlies…like just showing up early enough to help out.
The biggest thing I’ve done is the last two years is with a friend of mine who is an artist. He has created a 3D piece of art for a festival–basically it is a whole tent that is decorated according to ta theme. He always has a main art piece which is usually some kind of god/goddess/mythology oriented thing then everything else is on that theme. So, the festival is a week long and we have a dance party inside the art space three nights during the week. I’ve DJ’d at it for 2-3 hours a night at that. Festival got canceled this year though. We might try to do some kind of live stream.