playing first show this saturday: tips?

[AlexEnglish]

Hey guys. my band (your word is law) is playing its first show this saturday.
i booked the venue, got the bands, and organized the show COMPLETELY by myself.
all of the bands, including ours have been promoting this show like crazy (ex. myspace, facebook, putting up fliers in malls and streets)
and im pretty excited about it.
anybody have a few tips about playing shows, or just your first show in general? it would be greatly appreciated.
-chris


here is the flyer for the show too:
http://i37.tinypic.com/2n0jvpx.jpg

[StereoBlind]

Dude props to doing it all yourself. I serve as the vocalist and booking for EVERYTHING in my band.
I've booked over thirty shows for us. Lol
Tips?
Dance around. alot. people like to see movement. its so much more fun, gets you loose and makes you feel like you're playing at home
when you see people enjoying your music.
if you have a mic, make fillers between your songs with jokes.
get the crowd laughing, and be serious enough about your stage performance that the fans will see that you're into your music, and you have a sense of humor.
other than that, play well man. go meet all the people in the other bands.
it gets your name out there.
good luck!

[splitsecond]

Good to see bands doing shows 100 percent DIY. Put the same passion into your performance, and you will be on the right track.

[JoeJealousy]

give it a 110%...have fun...and know your parts.....most importantly have a ton of fun...for god sake you are playing with half hearted hero and that is fucking awesome.

[Tristan Needler]

Just have fun and be yourself. Do what you do when you play and no one is listening. If you flail around like a psycho, great. If you're not feeling that and stand bobbing you're head the whole time, do that. Don't force anything, and don't hold anything back. If you want to play some random guitar riff or thing on the bass or drum fill that you never have before, do it. If you don't, don't. If you start feeling nervous, turn around and look at the drummer and pretend it's just a practice until you feel a little better. Just do whatever you have to do man, just feel it. There's really no rules or advice anyone can give you.

In short, just do what YOU want to do.

[Tristan Needler]

People say dance around, but I used to try that sometimes when I really wasn't feeling it, and it felt shitty. If you're not feeling the dancing, then don't dance. The audience will know if you're bullshitting them.

Also, stay in the crowd when you're not playing. Be a normal audience member when you're not in the band. It will make you more approachable and people will know you're legitimately there for the show; for the music as a whole, not just for your own band.

[patrickhowell]

Important notes on actually running the show:

You need to find three people who can help you out with running the show:
1) Someone who you can trust to take money and mark hands at the door that is stern enough not to let people in free.
2) Someone who can run the PA system.
3) Someone who will be in charge of the show to answer the questions the other bands have about set times, etc.
You can fill any or all of these positions yourself, but when you set up a show and you're in a band, it's not fun.

Things you need to make sure to bring:
1) Sharpie permanent marker to mark hands
2) Time sheet, written or printed out, with the names of the bands in the order they are playing and the door time, show time, etc.
3) Change. Since the show is $7, I'd try to bring at least $20 in singles.
4) Make sure you have a PA with enough mics and stands. If you're not bringing a PA, make sure in advance (like today) that the church is letting you use theirs.

Show up really early. If there are tables or chairs in the room you're using, try to put almost all of them in storage, or at least folded up somewhere out of the way. Almost every time this doesn't happen, something gets broken and the church won't let bands play there again.

Set up a table at the door that is kind of in the way so people can't sneak by easily. Give your door person the change, a copy of the time sheet, and the sharpie.

Set up 2 or 3 tables for the bands that have merch. The best place for merch is a place where people have to walk by the table on the way in and out of the venue, and can see it while the band is playing.

Designate an area for the bands to keep their gear where people won't mess with it. The best place might just be a corner of the room you're using or an empty room/hallway nearby. It's important that the gear is safe and as far as possible from anybody trying to dance/mosh.

I see that this is a benefit show, but also that you've got at least one out of town band (Half Hearted Hero) playing. If you're not paying them, try to do your best to take care of them. If you can bring them a pizza or something, they'll probably be real stoked on that. It's really good to build up relationships with other bands. If they're happy, they'll want to come play more of your shows, and they'll want to hook you up with shows in MA.

Now, about actually PLAYING the show...

You play drums, right? After you've got everything set up, and before you open doors / start the show... bring in your drums and put everything on the stands. When you're done playing, take everything off stage back to the gear area and then take it off the stands. This will make changeovers much quicker and make you look more professional. Always offer to help the other bands, especially drummers with their gear too.

If you're nervous while you're playing, you're going to want to speed up. Playing at the right tempo is going to feel too slow to you, because you're excited. Just try to keep it solid and you'll do alright. If you can, get a friend to video tape some of your set so you can see how to improve.

Most important: have fun.

[IntoTheSea]

Now, about actually PLAYING the show...

You play drums, right? After you've got everything set up, and before you open doors / start the show... bring in your drums and put everything on the stands. When you're done playing, take everything off stage back to the gear area and then take it off the stands. This will make changeovers much quicker and make you look more professional. Always offer to help the other bands, especially drummers with their gear too.

If you're nervous while you're playing, you're going to want to speed up. Playing at the right tempo is going to feel too slow to you, because you're excited. Just try to keep it solid and you'll do alright. If you can, get a friend to video tape some of your set so you can see how to improve.

Most important: have fun.


Totally agreed with everything you said. Especially the last part. You should really focus on having your gear (and everyone else in the bands gear) ready to go when it is time for you to load on to the stage. If you've got that extra room to keep the gear in, utilize it and set up your drums in the room and then carry them out to the stage area.

Also, something that our drummer does is he has a gray rug that he has his drums set up on at rehearsal and he traced around each leg with a sharpie so that when we tour he just sets his drums up and puts them on the rug where they belong, and it makes set up a lot faster. He's really a perfectionist on how his drums are set up so that helps him out a lot time wise.

As for everyone else, its good to have amps and everything set up, heads connected to cabs and stuff like that, and then either wheel it or carry it out set up. Through personal experience I've seen bands just starting up that get really nervous while they are setting up their gear because everyone seems to be waiting on them, and it causes them to not set something up right and might cause problems during the show. Setting everything up beforehand can really take care of a lot of those problems because a lot of the pressure is off while youre setting up. Nothing worse than your guitar player strumming the hell out of his guitar and nothing coming out and him thinking its some epic problem when really he was just too flustered to remember to connect his head to his cab.

Something else that helps shows be a little more fluid is to play some music between bands, I'm sure you already thought of it but I've played some shows where the promoter or whoever was setting it up didn't have music to play and that makes things a little tedious for the people standing around while each band is setting up. Its as easy as plugging your mp3 player into the PA

Good luck man, hope it goes off without a hitch

[jtresk26]

Good luck tonight. I am sure you guys will kick ass.

[rawkandrowl]

PatrickHowell FTW!

[patrickhowell]

Chris, let us know how the show went !

[smorgy]

good luck man, i hope it goes well. we need more new/hard working bands in rhode island, the scene needs to come back.

[xmicxcorex]

Hey guys. my band (your word is law) is playing its first show this saturday.
i booked the venue, got the bands, and organized the show COMPLETELY by myself.
all of the bands, including ours have been promoting this show like crazy (ex. myspace, facebook, putting up fliers in malls and streets)
and im pretty excited about it.
anybody have a few tips about playing shows, or just your first show in general? it would be greatly appreciated.
-chris


here is the flyer for the show too:
http://i37.tinypic.com/2n0jvpx.jpg

Since I'm too late to offer advice-not that it's needed after the awesome PatrickHowell took care of it- howd the show go dude?