Whats the biggest/most important gig you've played?

[shadowcat]

Shadowcat.. you played with Psycroptic?... Those guys are sweet!

Yes, they definitely are. I love Symbols of Failure especially.

Although I have to say, their live appearance lacked a little...
don't get me wrong, they played all the stuff PERFECTLY! They didn't miss a note (at least I couldn't spot any mistake...). That was pretty impressive.
But it didn't really kick you in the face, the guitar sound was very articulate but not very punchy. They didn't connect too well with the crowd either.
So I actually enjoyed Yyrkoon more afterwards.

And then Nile blew us all of the stage and made all the opening bands look like beginners.
They were massive...

[Fragle]

germany's party.san and summer breeze open air festivals. a couple of thousand people each. pretty cool feeling playing such large stages

[HoWheels]

It will be October 21, opening for Moonspell, Katatonia, and Daylight Dies (Katatonia's first New England show!)

Wow, that's awesome!

I'm flying up to Portland to catch the show with Agalloch opening!

-a

[Wayniac]

My biggest presonal show was when we opened for Savatage and Fates at the Webster Theater in Hartford- sold out ~ 1300

[Endrik]

My second ever gig was pretty cool

I had been in a band for about a month and half (I quit a couple of months later)

it was a nice summer day

we played in a festival

there were about 6000 people

The crowd witnessed the most badass and entertaining rock'n'roll guitar player in the country.... me :ROTF:

I was the king of the day

I had long wavy hair then, I jumped on the stage like a lunatic, I played guitar behind my back....I played with my legs. And I got to play a lot of solos and I got to play really really fast.

Big stages kick ass small stages are just fucking gay

People wanted extra songs too.

After the concert tons of chicks followed me, I got to sign shit too

And it was the first time I fucked a groupie



It's the most memoriable gig because, It was on the biggest stage I've been, I hate playing in small places so much, I was born to rock the stadiums, hopefully that will happen some day but first I have to get out of this fucking place and get a decent band together.


btw. I got my first Jackson guitar just a couple of days before the gig and It was the first gig where I played with Jackson

[OnlineStageGear]

Your second gig was infront of 6000 people and you quit the band 2 months later ? Was that not good enough for you ?

Matt

[Mr Graphic]

Well, in a different perspective my biggest working "gig" was as Warren Haynes guitar tech. My biggest playing gig was at the Portuguese Feast http://www.portuguesefeast.com/ because I was drunk on Madeira Wine, had my Flip Flop Red Kramer Baretta, and played Cat Scratch Fever to a LOT of drunken peoples:ROTF: I smoked some green with Gregg Allman back in the day too

[sl2lover]

My band has a gig in a few weeks in front of like 1000, maybe more people! We're excited!! Biggest group for most of us, except my drummer, he's opened for Slayer before!

[Inazone]

For me, it was playing at the Minneapolis date of Nile's "Annihilation of the Wicked" tour with Hypocrisy and Decapitated. We were the third of three local bands, so by the time we went on there was a decent crowd. It wasn't our best performance or the biggest crowd, but it was definitely higher profile than any other show we've played.

[donf]

Cool! They were (and still are) one of my favorite bands. Great music for coffee house's. I was messing around on the stage with cables and one of the audio engineers told me to pick up one of the acoustics to check sound levels before America was to do a sound check. I played the opening riffs with the hammer-ons to "Ventura Highway" and Dewey came up and told me to keep playing. It was amazing. They said "you sure know our songs"! I told them I had all their albums and learned every song for one of my bands that did a lot of acoustic stuff.

I got this computer at work that I just use for music and it shuffles music all day long. I have, like 6 or 7 America songs on it. When I saw them, Al Stewart opened for them. I never really liked him back in the 70's, but I became a fan of his after the show. He held the stage for an hour with just an acoustic. I could've swore there were 3 guitarists up there .

[Big D]

We've played a show every year called "Waterstock". There were about 7.000 people there this year. We opened for Cinderella, Poison, etc. We also opened for Nugent last year in front of about 2,000. Good luck, big gigs are FUN!!!

[Endrik]

Matt

first, the other guys had played together for many many years, all great players, they all live in the same little town, they wanted me the big city boy strictly for two reasons: new ideas and shredding.

there were many reasons why I quit, first I got really really sick (went to the hospital) and was basically disabled for half year.

also I didn't liked the new musical direction, the band was doing prog-ish hard rock but the other guitar player (the heart of the band and main songwriter) suddenly wanted to do simple modern-heavy metal (ala BLS) wich didn't interested me at all that time, his songs bored the hell out of me. I was heavily into jazz, avant-garde, prog and all that crazy experimental music. My songs were 20 minutes long wich included 17 different riffs, 5 different solo sections, acoustical parts and whatever the crap I came up. The other band mates had hard time learning them.

The chemistry wasn't right. No one really wasn't satisfied what we were doing. The singer and other guitar player are brothers and they pretty much had the same vision (both are the sons of local guitar hero who played in locally famous heavy rock bands). The bass player is a huge funk and modern alternative rock fan. The drummer is a monster proffessional player who was heavily into jazz-fusion and 70's rock at that time. The best times were when me, the bass player and the drummer jammed together, just the 3 of us. We experimented a lot and came up with some cool shit, and it was totally opposite what we were doing as a whole band. Everytime when the other guitar player came in, we were like, ohh fuck, we have to play this shit again.

And of corse the egos. The bass player was a lot older than us, he always was bitching and never had the time to come to band practice. The drummer was bored and perfered to practice his rudiments and drum solo compositions by himself (but hey, he won the biggest drummer's contest here and got a deal with Paiste). The singer had major drinking problems and he was even hornier than me. I thought it was impossible, but no, he fucked everyone who had pussy LITERALLY. He fucked some random bitches, some hot chicks, some ugly milfs or whatever. He was fucking so much that he missed a lot of band practices. Hey fucking is cool, we all fucked (and still do) like maniacs but this was ridiculous.
And then there was the other guitar player's bullshit. He back talked everyone all the time. He was so full of shit all the time. He was sugar coating everything. Never had the balls to tell what was in his mind. And then his views on politics, religon or whatever were ridiculous. He had totally different opinion every friggin day. And he was hanging out with some very freaky-scary friends. I didn't want anything to do with that shit.
And I probably have the biggest ego, I get really mad if everything doesn't go the way I want to and I'm known to telling everybody to fuck off.

So I just quit. And the funny thing is, after I quit, the band quit too.
I had a grudge with the guitar player for a while but now we all get a long fine. The drummer is one of my best friends, he is one of the best players in country and we have plans to do something together.
They are doing something together too again with some slight line-up changes. They are trying to do mainstream pop-rock and they have a major producer supporting them.

But thanks to that band experience I'll probably never be in a band with other guitar player. My ego is just too damn big.

[gort]

Awesome story, Endrik.

[guitarsjb]

My band is just getting started, we've only played a few shows. Our last one was a bike rally outdoor show. We were 4th out of 6 bands..went on just as it was getting dark. It was cool. Ended up playing to about 200 people, who seemed to enjoy themselves, got several compliments and booked a few more shows from that. Except for one older lady (late 50's/early 60's ish) she was right on the front row for our whole set. Then we get done and are loading off stage she yells "You fucking sucked!" And walked off. I laughed my ass off.

[Inazone]

One thing that has helped me retain my sanity as founder/songwriter/manager (and sometimes guitarist) is to book what I call "gigs of opportunity" or shows that we can basically just fall into. Rather than drive myself crazy trying to book shows at various clubs and arrange for other bands to participate, I put my name in the proverbial hat when promoters are lining up national acts, festivals, or all-local shows with compatible bands. My bandmates are great guys, but they don't put much time into the behind-the-scenes aspects of maintaining a band, so I try to get in good with the powers that be.