Getting Over a bad Gig

[Dyslexic Magician]

any tips? i just had the shittiest gig of my life. im in a diversity club at my school and throughout the schoolday today we had a performacnce and different periods classes would come down to our theater room and watch our performacnce. horus 2, 3, and 6 and 7 were coming down. during hour 7 the bass amp i was using sounded like it was going to blow, i was totally wayyyy off in timing for the transitions (pretty noticeable) and my overall tone was just YUCK since someone messed around with my mastervolume between hour 6 and 7. i just got so angry over it. my drummer was saying to me "dude you gotta get the songs down" and i was just really upset over it. for the most part people say they didnt notice but i was just wondering how do you guys get over a bad gig? im really upset over this now since i didnt give it my all.

[museic]

think of it as a learning curve..

just try your hardest to get the songs nailed for next time.

[SixnStones]

it'll suck dick for ages. nothing you can do but practice hard, same thing u always do.

[fatbandit]

Make sure the next show pwns hard. It'll make the bad one a distant memory ^_^

Unless you fethed it up REALLY badly :eek:

:smash:

[Brandon_S]

Im sure it wasent that bad,you learn over time. Ive played gigs were I didnt think my playing was that good.

[Tokyo_Vogue]

I know it's been said a thousand times before, but, You and the guys in your band know those songs WAY better than anyone in that audience, your mistakes were probably not even noticed...

I've been through so many gigs that I thought I completely blew and afterwards I was all pissed off and upset. You really shouldn't let it get to you that much. I've learned through experience that when girls come up to you after a gig, a gig you thought was complete shite and you're all pissed about it, and they're all smiling and saying "Hey! Nice show!! ; )"...you don't score any points by being "Grrr! It was awful, I screwed everything up! You're just being nice GRRRR!!"...

It's just one gig, no need to dwell on it. Just practicepracticepractice so you can play your best for the next one. I've always found that if you get super upset after you screw up, the rest of the gig will be ruined. It's much easier to laugh it off and just try to recover the best that you can. In my old band when we would mess up, you'd look around and we'd all be smiling and laughing. Still,We all took it crazy seriously but you can't take it TOO seriously during a gig. YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE MISTAKES, it's unavoidable. You just need to learn how to recover quickly and shrug off those mistakes. You'll be in a much better state of mind for the rest of the gig, trust me.


Oh, and another thing....Keep in mind that,for the most part, the average audience member isn't paying much attention to the bassist unless her or she is a bassist themselves. (it's unfortunate, I know....) So this gives us a little lee-way for mistake making...just don't start thinking like "Oh, I'm just the bass guy, no one's really listening to me" because that just kind of defeats your purpose for being there....

[moghes69]

i was jamming at a friends house and it was just an off day. i was messing up all over the place very sloppy, and just shitty in general. but after we were done, his mom came and started raving about how good i was at bass... i'm pretty sure that everyone that was watching didn't notice your mistakes at all.

[PsychoTronn]

play a sweet bass solo next time

[fade_to_green]

Like it has been said, nobody is likely to have noticed.

[pukeboy66]

any tips? i just had the pooptiest gig of my life. im in a diversity club at my school and throughout the schoolday today we had a performacnce and different periods classes would come down to our theater room and watch our performacnce. horus 2, 3, and 6 and 7 were coming down. during hour 7 the bass amp i was using sounded like it was going to blow, i was totally wayyyy off in timing for the transitions (pretty noticeable) and my overall tone was just YUCK since someone messed around with my mastervolume between hour 6 and 7. i just got so angry over it. my drummer was saying to me "dude you gotta get the songs down" and i was just really upset over it. for the most part people say they didnt notice but i was just wondering how do you guys get over a bad gig? im really upset over this now since i didnt give it my all.

I honestly just laugh at it, and I think "okay... whatever there will be other gigs."

[herrly]

You were off a bit, who cares, next time just make sure you kick ***. The amp you were using sucked, well next time bring your own amp.

It's just one show, there will be others.

[DonBass]

just remember **** happens and move on. it happens to pretty much everyone so just practice and kick *** at the next one

[Left Shoe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku

[Akira]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku

Ahaha. Rep+

[Dyslexic Magician]

I know it's been said a thousand times before, but, You and the guys in your band know those songs WAY better than anyone in that audience, your mistakes were probably not even noticed...

I've been through so many gigs that I thought I completely blew and afterwards I was all pissed off and upset. You really shouldn't let it get to you that much. I've learned through experience that when girls come up to you after a gig, a gig you thought was complete poope and you're all pissed about it, and they're all smiling and saying "Hey! Nice show!! ; )"...you don't score any points by being "Grrr! It was awful, I screwed everything up! You're just being nice GRRRR!!"...

It's just one gig, no need to dwell on it. Just practicepracticepractice so you can play your best for the next one. I've always found that if you get super upset after you screw up, the rest of the gig will be ruined. It's much easier to laugh it off and just try to recover the best that you can. In my old band when we would mess up, you'd look around and we'd all be smiling and laughing. Still,We all took it crazy seriously but you can't take it TOO seriously during a gig. YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE MISTAKES, it's unavoidable. You just need to learn how to recover quickly and shrug off those mistakes. You'll be in a much better state of mind for the rest of the gig, trust me.


Oh, and another thing....Keep in mind that,for the most part, the average audience member isn't paying much attention to the bassist unless her or she is a bassist themselves. (it's unfortunate, I know....) So this gives us a little lee-way for mistake making...just don't start thinking like "Oh, I'm just the bass guy, no one's really listening to me" because that just kind of defeats your purpose for being there....

+rep man thanks that really makes me feel better. you're completely right on that. ill just learn from my mistakes and take gigging more seriously since that show was very little practace involved.:smash: :chug:

[Criss Frantic]

Everyone has bad gigs, just like everyone has kickarse awesome gigs. You just gotta take the good with the bad. And you said that people for the most part didn't notice the bad things, which is good. As long as the audience enjoyed themselves, the gig was successful IMO.

[EADG]

Don't worry about it


It happens to everyone


And it's in the past anyway, there's nothing you can do about it now. Just take what you learned and use it next time.

[chaosMK]

Usually I'll just drink and ge beligerent or eat a bunch of gnarley food to create some "ammunition" for the next day in band room.

[Jimbobntnr]

Don't worry about it


It happens to everyone



yeah, they do. Bad gigs as well as good gigs contribute equally to the musician that you become in the long run. The want of never again having the feeling of completely showing your *** at a gig is what keeps you on edge. Embellish it, learn from it, and make it a funny anecdote for when some new guy posts this thread again in three months:

I did fill in work for a band about a year ago, they gave me a set list that was completely classic country and old school southern rock. I learned it all piece by piece over the course of three weeks and showed up for the gig. Come to find out - they were covering remakes of all the songs. About half of them were what I was used to and the others were not really even recognizable. I looked like a complete idiot. They gave me my money at the end of the night and I never heard from them again but I did learn to ask which artists the songs were by from then on.

[Soulfly666]

I got a pretty nice, but unusual, compliment from my jazz band director yesterday. He said that I'd been doing a good job because, for the most part, the other people in the jazz band don't know I'm there, because I play things right and on time. What I got from that is that people don't know I'm there unless I really screw up super hard, which happens more than I would like, or I want them to know I'm there.

That said, I think the same goes for the audience. Unless something is really noticable, like your amp catches on fire, or you break a string and stop playing all together, they won't notice you. So all those people that said they didn't notice your mistakes, were more than likely being sincere.

[Esp Griffyn]

This counts for me at home, aswell as jamming or on stage, if I have a bad day, my timing is off, my improv is ****, Im hitting bum notes or I'm just really not exploring new things with my improv, I generally dont play for somewhere between 3 days and a week, but when I pick my guitar up again, Im hungry for it, my fingers are fast as ****, my alt picking is dead on, my improv sounds more like Shawn Lane and less like Tom Delonge and its so invigorating.

If you had a bad gig, take a few days off, when you go back to a band practise after a bit of a break, everything just clicks into place.

[mastrrbasser]

i had a bad gig last friday, but we also had a gig the next day and rocked out better than we ever had before. Just play a really good gig next time and forget about the bad one. You can't win them all.

[iamreprogramed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku


hahaha!

threadstarter: try to think positively. a bad show is a great learning experience for what you need to work on. everyone's right when they say that the audience doesn't know the difference. just keep your head up.

[king of suede]

7 hours is pretty harsh on the fingers man, i'm not sure what you were playing, but 7 hours is alot (at least for my band, hahah we practice for an hour and take a 12 hour break to play guitar hero or make amovie or something, hahahah)

umm.. i'd just tell you're band what happened, but laugh about it. you'rehuman, people mess up. and people mess other people up (someone playing with the amp during the final hours????)
just laugh it off, we all have days when we're a little off
i'm sure not everyone was locked in the WHOLE time, if you bring it up lightly with the band, someone'll chime in and they'll be like, 'haha yeah i heard, but i started getting screwy around la -dee-da"

or maybe thats just me?

[Left Shoe]

7 hours is pretty harsh on the fingers man, i'm not sure what you were playing, but 7 hours is alot (at least for my band, hahah we practice for an hour and take a 12 hour break to play guitar hero or make amovie or something, hahahah)


goin places with this band arentcha

[Matt Till]

goin places with this band arentcha

Guitar Hero is more important than success.

[Criss Frantic]

Success can buy many copies of Guitar Hero.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

[Kage]

Instead of getting down about it, let it feed your hunger to get back out there and do it better.

[king of suede]

goin places with this band arentcha

we get stuff done,
we were recently on the radio,
in the town's big parade (50,000 commers from what we've been told... but thats questionable)
and we've got like 5 new gigs lined up
we've got alot of connections (a drummer who knows EVERYONE helps)

Guitar Hero is more important than success.

this is true

[Left Shoe]

we get stuff done,
we were recently on the radio,
in the town's big parade (50,000 commers from what we've been told... but thats questionable)
and we've got like 5 new gigs lined up
we've got alot of connections (a drummer who knows EVERYONE helps)



this is true

ipod transmitter doesnt count

[Dyslexic Magician]

Haha, I was like 15 when I wrote this.

[Sablate McNuff]

HLOY

http://www.breaktaker.com/albums/pictures/signs/Bump.jpg

BTAMAN!

[Jaded]

definitely been there. i think i've had more equipment failures mid-song onstage than anyone i know. just take a few shots and smoke a joint and think about how trippy it is that people showed up and stood around while you and your friends jumped around plucking metal strings attached to dead trees


edit: christ this is old