My high school band teacher hired me for a ratty
little cordovox casual. He gave me $60 CAD (about
$40 US) at the end. I said "How much of this is
mine?"

My very first gig was in a high school stage band in the middle of a park in one of those covered bandstand/gazebo like deals.

My first "pro" gig (and pretty much my only one) was about 15 years ago in Montreal at the Hotel Bonaventure. It was a genuine club gig it was. It was with one of the offshoots of the Drifters, I believe it was "Rick Sheppard and the Drifters". I got the gig through a drummer friend whose mom was in promotions at the hotel. Get the charts and the tape about a week before the show, get together with a local trombonist and the drummer to run through some of the "hits" (parts where the whole band has to, well, accent or something, my mind is drawing a blank on the proper word) with the drummer about 2 days before the show.

Get to the hotel about 2 p.m., set up, run through the beginning and ending of most of the tunes, have about a 1.5 hour rehearsal with the singers... all done, right?

No... band leader pipes in with "O.K., lets put the opening set together." Opening set? WHAT OPENING SET? We're due to go on in 3 hours...

Up to his hotel room and learn 8 tunes in 1.5 hours. All R&B standards... but I didn't know any of them. Luckily the bandleader wasn't fazed and taught us all the tunes... and we did quite well, but still, what a shocker!

Later,

Glen

Postscript to above... I got called back the next year when they passed through town...

Later,
Glen

My first gig would have been with the Edmonton Youth Orchestra. My first "Pro" (money involved) gig was with a cover band playing for bikers on a farm in Alberta. We played from midnight to about 5am, the guitar player was mad that I could play faster than him, and they kept offering me lines of coke -I stuck to the kind that comes in cans, still do . . . I seem to remember seeing my first real bare naked lady there too. Several fights broke out, and everyone would rush away from the stage to watch. I drove back home just in time to put on my tie and go to work at Safeway. I was about 16 years old.

Wonder why I never got into the bar band scene...

My first pro gig was with a Bar band called Catch 22 in Calgary Alberta. They were a CCR tribute band at the time.

I remember going to the audition and I asked my parents that IF I got the gig would they help me buy a pro amp....I think they said yes not thinking that I would get it!!

It was an hour long audition... I often wonder if I never got the gig if I would have become a musician....I couldn't afford an amp on my own (I was 16) so I think I just would have gone on to the next thing what ever it was at the time.. It gave me the confidence to know I could make a go of it because everyone in the band was older than 40 and makin a living. The day after the audition I was giging with them 6 nights a week for a few years!!

Very defineing moment I think.

I think even more than getting the gig is the fact that everyone close to me has supported me every step of the way (including that first amp purchase). Maybe that's the real defineing moment!...:->

my band 37including you (www.37includingyou.cjb.net) played at a backyard party. That was the best time, even though everybody hated us. We used my friend's 60 watt hartke as the main PA system!!! Good Times!

It was back in March 2002, at some backyard birthday party. We had only 2 weeks to get our stuff together. It was cold that night, and we were opening up for a band called Let Down By Fate, that stole our spot in a battle of the bands. We rocked that nite, and everyone loved us, but when let down by fate played, they said the P.A sucked, but it didn't and they didn't know how to level all of their stuff. We made them look bad, it was great. Insane Root (www.insaneroot.cjb.net)

hey dude, i know you guys. You have to be from charlotte. I saw your show somewhere, i can't remember! Anyway, that is cool that you opened for Let Down By Fate, they are awesome~

We played after an orchestra set, we have had no gig's there since.

HIre me for this weekend so I can answer this post!