The most nerve wracking gig you have done?

Teetonetal

Jesus. I've just played a country set for my own company's Xmas party. 

I'e done 100's of gigs. I've never been so nervous. When I went to tune at the start my foot was shaking  as I stomped on the tu3

Happily went well but never again.

Lestratcaster

My first one back in 2007 for a rock band that we threw together as a three-piece, originally a 5 piece but the other 2 left and we were stuck whether to carry on and play or pull the gig. We went ahead and played and it was pretty nervewracking as it was my first ever gig I've done in a band. It actually went well just the build up towards the whole night was making me anxious.

meltedbuzzbox

The end of year performance for my music degree in some skanky pub in Nottingham. End of year 1, we get this massive speech from our main lecturer about how it doesn't matter if you make mistakes, just before we went on stage. 
He kept going on and on for ages and made us all feel a lot worse.
I don't think my fingers felt right once during the whole set

skaguitar

Playing at the Indigo o2 in Greenwich this Saturday to about 2500 people..we're only the support band and it hasn't happened yet so technically not the most nerve racking done.. but I am getting a tad nervous in a good, looking forward to it kind of way...

richardhomer

A friend of mine owned a music shop which promoted an Arlen Roth concert in Rochdale in the ‘80s. At the time, he tended to gig to backing tracks, due to the cost of flying his band over from the States.

My friend proposed that the band we were in stood in for the tapes at the Rochdale gig. AR agreed on the condition that we ran through the set the night before - and if we weren’t good enough, he’d play to tapes.

We got a list of songs faxed through and rehearsed them solidly for two-three weeks before the gig. AR ran through the set with us - and we passed the audition.

To make matters worse, as the whole event was to promote his Hotlicks tuition tapes, the 500 strong audience was made up almost entirely of guitar players.

A great opportunity and a wonderful memory....

Teetonetal

skaguitar said:

Playing at the Indigo o2 in Greenwich this Saturday to about 2500 people..we're only the support band and it hasn't happened yet so technically not the most nerve racking done.. but I am getting a tad nervous in a good, looking forward to it kind of way...

That is exactly why we play isn't it? To get heard? Good luck! Relax and enjoy

Sassafras

A rugby club in the home counties where the audience members had drunk a minimum of 18 pints each. It was carnage.

iseverynamegone

Years back the manager booked our band as support for Nuclear Assault. We were very far removed from thrash metal, more heavy indie pop  and knew it wasn’t going to go at all well.

There were probably a good few hundred in the venue and at the end of the first song literally one solitary handclap was heard and then you could hear a pin drop. Same for all the other songs.  

skaguitar

Teetonetal said:

skaguitar said:

Playing at the Indigo o2 in Greenwich this Saturday to about 2500 people..we're only the support band and it hasn't happened yet so technically not the most nerve racking done.. but I am getting a tad nervous in a good, looking forward to it kind of way...

That is exactly why we play isn't it? To get heard? Good luck! Relax and enjoy

cheers... I am looking forward to it and you're right...it's why we put in all the hard work practicing and gigging for these ones that come along now and again that hopefully will be a special memory and one to tell the grandkids...lol

timmysoft

Download Festival 2013 or SlamDunk Festival (Hatfield uni)

jumping@shadows

Most stressful gig was when I played guitar for pop starlet Eliza Doolittle for a couple years as a duo, before the full band came together and we had a really high profile ASCAP headline live broadcast from Studio 1 of Abbey Road Studios. All was going great until I realised the White Album had been recorded where I was sat, and my mind went blank on the chord progression- and I had absolutely F@£K all idea what was coming up, with a room full of industry and kids listening in...I thank the God of muscle memory as I just took a wild stab and miraculously landed true, and all was well  

UnclePsychosis

The first time I ever played amplified was terrifying, because it was on a massive stage in the open air in George Square, Glasgow, as thousands of people went about their days on a Saturday afternoon. 

I was about 15 and I played flute in a big band. I was a fairly decent player and the band was good but obviously for an outside gig like that I needed to be mic'd up, which was a very new experience for me. Sound checking was a riot - I could hear myself bouncing all around the square as I showed off all my best party tricks. 

It was fun but bloody scary for someone not used to being either heard or loud! 

siremoon

First time as the singer.  I could hardly move before we went on and how I got through the first song I'll never know.

english_bob

A solo fingerstyle acoustic arrangement of "Abide With Me" that I'd written for the occasion less than a week before.

The occasion was a funeral in freezing cold crematorium chapel in winter. 

Cold hands, extreme nerves and unfamiliar arrangements in a style you don't play often are not a good mix. I did it, but I wouldn't want to do it again.

impmann

Singing in a metal band at the Horn of Plenty pub in St Albans. May not sound like a big gig but... at the time (dunno if it still exists let alone still the same) it was owned by the 'Angels and was a hang out for big hairy biker types. It was a tough venue. I'd also only been playing with the band a few weeks and I was a long way outside my comfort zone.
I'm not much of a singer today - I get by - back then I had a better set of pipes (sadly an accident in 2000 buggered my vocal chords - thats a different story) but I was shitting bricks. We came on stage in the room out the back, and the opening song was Hanger 18 by Megadeth. The guitarists blazed through the opening, and were playing the riff with drums pounding  behind me and... I couldn't even remember my own name, let alone "Welcome to our fortress tall..." The band kept playing the riff, as I - like a rabbit in headlights, desperately tried to remember the first line...
It felt like about an hour, but it was probably less than 20 seconds that I floundered before the bass player shouted the line into my ear and I was away, a little squeaky and wobbly. The biker dudes were utterly brilliant as it turned out and we had a fantastic night in the end.

Our encore... Hanger 18 with a 'proper' vocal.

I still have nightmares about that one!!

gubble

My wedding was probably the most nervous I've been for a gig. Doing a full set to all my family and friends was quite something but we smashed it.

p90fool

The bigger the name I'm playing with and the bigger the stage the less nervous I tend to be, it's those 'pin-drop' recital-type concerts where I've been hired by some moody singer songwriter that I find tough. 
There's always a friggin' solo guitar intro at the very start of the show IME, I think they all do it deliberately to settle their own nerves. 

cpcompany

When I was 11, me and 4 of my mates wrote a hip hop song and rapped in front of our whole school in assembly. It was 1987 and barely anyone knew what Hip Hop was then, especially in a Northumberland mining town. Thirty years later I still deservedly get the piss ripped out of me from loads of my mates back home.

thegummy

Mine will be my first ever gig next month. I'll be doing bass and sole vocals and will be shitting myself!

Modulus_Amps

mother-in-laws 60th birthday party....... everyone in the family are pretty good musicians too

Jason

Early 90's we supported a glam band at the Ship Ashore in Brum, we were on the top floor (no lift) and below us, The National Front were having a meeting/piss up, they heard the music and came upstairs. They lined up at the front of the stage and mouthed you're shit at us for the whole set. We played at twice the normal speed and were done in 15/20 minutes.

I was back home before the big haired & heavily made up glamsters came out of the dressing room.

Other than that, my first gig as the songwriter and singer, I'd always just been the rhythm guitarist before then, I was terrified, although no one mouthed that we were shit throughout.