A gig with the new band

Today, at a college in the city, was my first gig with the new band ‘Flood’. I don’t know what happened but everything seemed to go wrong. From the moment we took the stage, to the moment we were almost ‘booed’ out by the crowd, it was a disaster. The only two people who were having fun in the entire arena seemed to be myself and our drummer. That was primarily because we were good at laughing at ourselves.

Technical issues like bad sound were one of the reasons, but we have to blame ourselves for the performance. We, as a band, aren’t good enough. Each of us might have had a lot of experience playing live music but we sucked tonight. I wasn’t surprised the result of it all considering how the rehearsals had gone. The only consolation to me was that I didn’t feel bad about playing with a pathetic sounding band. That’s a professional step forward.

The audience included my bass guitar student and the members of his band who had opened for us. When I asked them about their opinion, they were very polite in saying that it was ‘okay’ and stuff. The truth came out clear after our curtailed performance when the band which had won the ‘band competition’ came back and played a few tight numbers. The crowd was back – well, what was left of it after our performance - and were dancing!

For those who are musicians or aspiring musicians – here’s the bottom line. Never go to a gig without rehearsing. Even if you rehearse to perfection, things can go wrong in a gig. But if you don’t rehearse at all, there is a 100% chance that they WILL go wrong.

Yet another band?

A year or so back, I had no band. Now, I am an established member of two and prospective member of three more - one being my own private band. Yesterday, after the gig with Shoonyas, I was chatting with a friend of mine and he gave me the card of a certain someone who was looking for professional bass guitar players. Obviously, money was important and so was experience of playing with other people.

Since it was the first time that I was actually going to audition for a band that I didn't have a clue about, I was wary. Today, was our first rehearsal session and my doubts proved to be quite worthwhile. It is a band which has a long history. 'Dinosaurs of Rock', a phrase used for the performance of rock veterans from yesteryears at the annual I-Rock mega-gig, could be used to refer to them. The only difference - there was just a single dinosaur.

The band, which I would refer to as 'Flood', had split due to various reasons and only one founding member was remaining. That meant that three out of the four musicians jamming with me were like me - sessions players, who were just playing for the money. That gave me some reason as to not feel bad about doing what I was doing. Besides, I have always wanted to play with other drummers; I've only performed with E-boi.

The rehearsal was pretty chaotic and cacophonic. You can expect that for the first rehearsal you would say. But I had fun meeting and playing with other musicians, some really funny. I hope that I can really be professional and do my job properly with these guys.