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Let's talk about gigs


Soda Jerk

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Nobody talks about music anymore. So let's talk.

Tell us all about:

The first ever gig you ever attended.

The best ever gig you ever attended.

The worst ever gig you ever attended.

If you're in a band, repeat the questions but as:

The first ever gig you ever played.

The best ever gig you ever played.

The worst ever gig you ever played.

Ever!

I will work on my answers once I've eaten my tea. And give some reasons. Don't just say BON JOVI LAST YEAR or something.

GET STUCK IN AYE?

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The first ever gig you ever attended. - first show I went to without my parents was Gilman Street, Quik, Griffus and....My Decaying Leg? (maybe) at Lava - I was 13 (sneaking into 14+!!)

The best ever gig you ever attended. - seeing Envy at the Arches in Glasgow was incredible, but I feel I may be overlooking many others here.

The worst ever gig you ever attended. - "I've never met a GIG i didn't like" - Will Rogers

The first ever gig you ever played. Drummonds Open Mic Night - 12th October 2003 - in JEDI

The best ever gig you ever played. - getting an email at 4pm on my birthday saying The Chariot needed a local support at Moshulu, calling the tour manager to 'recommend' CTS, then calling everyone in the band, getting to the venue, setting up, soundchecking and playing all within 3-4 hours of the phone call. Very impromptu, but fun. That, or the show Dweller played at our friend's wedding reception t'other weekend.

The worst ever gig you ever played. - 3rd ever "the.shotgun.love.affair" show at moshulu, I royally goosed one song, then proceeded to goose it again and again - shortly followed by fucking up all the other songs. NIGHTMARE.

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The first ever gig you ever attended.

A band called The Aloof at Lucifer's Mill in Dundee, sometime in the mid 90s I think.

The best ever gig you ever attended.

Idlewild playing on some tables in the bar of the Caird Hall in 97 (I think) or possibly Radiohead playing everything off their first three records including b-sides at the Caird Hall proper in the same year. I must also confess to having enjoyed a pre-Showbiz Muse at the Venue.

The worst ever gig you ever attended.

Ian Brown. Utter, utter garbage.

The first ever gig you ever played.

A battle of the bands at the rival school (Grove Academy)

The best ever gig you ever played.

Either opening for Idlewild at the Barrowlands or an all ages Curators show at Electric Circus that was queued out of the door.

The worst ever gig you ever played.

A drunken disaster at Drouthy's on the Perth Road or possibly an equally drunken disaster supporting the Dangerfields in Edinburgh.

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The first ever gig you ever attended. Fightstar @ Moshulu. Supported by a lesser known You Me At 6 and... a band I've actually grown to like but I can't remember the name. Was in '07.

The best ever gig you ever attended. Either Enter Shikari @ King Tut's last year. It was small and cramp and I got punched and left with someone elses blood on my top. Amazing. or Alexisonfire @ ABC. Taking Back Sunday was actually really great on Tuesday at the ABC. But maybe it's 'cause these are my 3 favourite bands and it wouldn't matter if they played a bad gig.

The worst ever gig you ever attended.30 Seconds To Mars @AECC. Went for Enter Shikari, who's electronics and guitar cut out at one point, was only a 30 minute set, and like all slightly big Aberdeen gigs the crowd was pish and someone started a fight in the pit. And some silly cunt was running head first in to people with a spiky helmet on. Then 30STM came on and I left after 3 songs. Horrible. Instead of singing he would shout JUMP JUMP JUMP JUMP. He couldn't play guitar at the same time as he sang and when he did sing he rarely hit the notes he does on cd. I feel bad for the rest of the band.

If you're in a band, repeat the questions but as:

The first ever gig you ever played. It was a gig that Kobra Kai played at Drummonds. I think. Yeah, 'cause after that we got asked to be on Fat Hippy Vol. 3. I'm sure it was that. If Aaron comes on he might correct me. But I'm sure it was a gig with Kobra Kai. Or it was supporting The Murderburgers at Tunnels.

The best ever gig you ever played.Headlining a local gig at The Warehouse was pretty awesome. I had a wireless system for bass and I was just constantly running and jumping about like a drunken tit. Can't remember what I played but I remember it being amazing.

The worst ever gig you ever played.A christmas party. Was it Onion Terror's? Nothing against them, they were great, but the place was quite quiet. And I was drunk and so was our 2nd guitarist and neither of us played to our full and with the lack of crowd co operation we sort of just cut out set short and ended our set. I pulled that night though so it's all gravy baby.

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The first ever gig you ever attended.

I honestly can't remember. It may have been Travis at the AECC...

The best ever gig you ever attended.

Saw Alkaline Trio at Leeds festival on a Sunday then stopped in Glasgow on the way home to see them at the Garage. Both gigs were amazing, between the two they played every one of my favourite songs with very little overlap between the two nights. Amazing.

I'm probably overlooking something here, I always forget about gigs I've been to but that always sticks in my mind.

The worst ever gig you ever attended.

Green Day at T In The Park the year after American Idiot. Shit set, crap sound, the crowd were gash, the atmosphere was rank. Just a shit storm.

The first ever gig you ever played.

W.C. Fields in Peterhead. Playing in a cover band called Day 4. Was 14 years old and got paid via a free bar and about 50 for the band. Win!

The best ever gig you ever played.

Opening for Stiff Little Fingers in 'Shulu was fucking awesome but the ultimate will probably always be the charity show I played for Hero Next Door because I ended up marrying the woman who booked us.

The worst ever gig you ever played.

We did a "two gigs in one night" job playing Cellar 35 around 7 then Tunnels at 9. Cellar gig was the worst gig I think anyone ever played. The sound was crap, we couldn't make out what the other was doing, vocals were shit.... Just awful. (Funnily, the Tunnels gig later was one of the tightest we ever played..)

On a par with that was a drunken house party the highlights of which include me taking a swing at my former Modern Studies teacher and testing how far the range on my wireless kit was by turning the bass amp up full whack and leaving the house, standing in the garden thrashing away playing random shit shouting about how I CAN STILL HEAR IT HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?

Wanker.

xx

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The first ever gig you ever attended - Terrovision at the Music Hall, I think I was 15 and went crowd surfing. I fell on my face. It was ace.

The best ever gig you ever attended - Shellac in Edinburgh was pretty special, the Idlewild 100 broken windows gig in tuts was awesome too. Finally seeing Godspeed You Black Emperor last year was certainly a highlight. Hmmm. Also there was an awesome Gonga gig which ended up in the Dr Drakes for some reason years ago when it had been booked for Kef that was great fun. Or Public Enemy in the music hall.

I'm going to go with Shellac as I'll probably never see them again and it was proper brilliant.

The worst ever gig you ever attended - probably some local band showcase in kef. I can't think of a standout worst gig just now. perhaps later.

The first ever gig you ever played - Dedalus playing in Dr Drakes. We improvised a soundtrack to a film the others had made and I wore a naval jacket.

The best ever gig you ever played - Market Bar in Inverness as part of Go-Hi, a GoNorth offshoot. It was heaving, people were moving Rob out of the way to get to the toilet during our songs and we had a great response. Best.gig.evar.

The worst ever gig you ever played - Dedalus supporting Stapleton in the back room of Moshulu. We couldn't hear anything onstage, were told to turn all our amps down to fuck all as they were feeding back through the microphones and the amp we were given to use broke during soundcheck. Everyone said afterwards that it was an intense performance but that's cause we were so angry and frustrated by it all we just wanted to get through it as fast as possible.

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The first ever gig you ever attended: Red Hot Chilli Peppers at the SECC in 2003. The Mars Volta supported. I really enjoyed this back then, but I don't think I'd like it much now. I mean, Blood Sugar Sex Magik remains a great album to this day, but almost everything else they've ever done is fucking garbage. The Mars Volta were pretty awesome. Would have been way better if it was At The Drive In.

The best ever gig you ever attended: probably Rage Against the Machine in Berlin (2008) or Pearl Jam in Barcelona (2006). There's something really special about seeing a band in another country. Its always a totally different experience to seeing a band here. Neil Young at the AECC was also fucking brilliant. I'd hard nasty things about the venue, but I suppose the venue means fuck all when you're Neil Young; he's that damn good. Tool are a great live band too.

The worst ever gig you ever attended: possibly Deftones at the Carling Academy in Glasgow. You literally couldn't make out what song they were playing about 75% of the time. They seemed into it, it just sounded really bad. The other time I saw them they were ace.

From my own band experience:

The first gig I ever played was at the Banchory Town Hall. I was playing in a band called Schmuk with my 3 best pals and I literally hadn't learnt the drums yet. We tried a cover of Brain Stew by Green Day which was awful (as we couldn't play our instruments and were 12) and did the first minute of Blind by Korn. We played it up until the "ARE YOU READY?" then stopped and said "No, we're not." Bad times. Funnily enough, two members of the band have gone on to be professional musicians and I'm probably the best drummer in the world.

The best gig I ever played: many contenders in my time with Carson Wells. Our tour with Bonehouse and Kaddish spawned some great shows, particularly Perth and Edinburgh. I'm going to go with The Banshee Labyrinth in Edinburgh on that tour. There was a good 50/60 folk there to pack the place out and there was just a great atmosphere. We didn't play particularly well (we never really do), but that's not always the point I suppose.

The worst gig I ever did play: other than my first ever gig, I'd say my time in parody-punk band The Evil Death Angels of Death was pretty bad. Anything we were involved in was a disaster as one/all of us was too stoned or drunk to do anything, plus we only ever rehearsed about 3 times in our 1 year history. We still had 6 songs, on of which was called Cunt.

Anyway, cool story Moose...

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The first ever gig you ever attended.

Snuff + Less Than Jake, Leeds Cockpit 1999. Less Than Jake were my first love. I didn't dare go in "the pit", so my youthful enthusiasm forced me to pogo at the side, on my own. No fucks were given.

The best ever gig you ever attended.

Hot Water Music, Josephs Well, Leeds, 2001, on the Flight and a Crash tour. They only played for 30 minutes, but if they had played any longer, they would have keeled over. The 'hardest' I've ever seen a band play. Sweat and blood and everything. Ridiculous.

The worst ever gig you ever attended.

Jack's Mannequin in Manchester 2009. Went with the ex. Awful band. Filled with screaming girls. Just the worst.

The first ever gig you ever played.

College battle of the bands in the sports hall for Comic Relief, around 2002, I think. Sports hall meant massive amounts of natural reverb. It made us sound like Aerosmith. My first band was awful. I'd only been playing guitar for 6 months. I could just about play powerchords. Our singer couldn't sing. Terrible.

The best ever gig you ever played.

With my old band It's Broken! at the Counting House, Pontefract, with Owl of Justice, Battle of Wolf 359, June Paik and Carraway. It was the last day of our tour with Owl of Justice. A fight broke out whilst we did a parody of the intro to Master Of Puppets which would then seamlessly go into one of our own songs They hated it that much they started fucking punching each other. I had the best time.

The worst ever gig you ever played.

The first gig I ever put on by myself, at the Common Place, Leeds at some point in 2007. I was completely out of my depth by putting 6 bands on, on a fucking weeknight! I made a massive pot of chilli for the bands, then I started drinking heavily at about 4pm because I was shitting myself that no one would turn up. By our slot, I was completely twatted, so played hideously bad. Loads of people came though, and they couldn't get enough of the chilli. Had it all wrapped up by midnight, and I somehow managed to get to work the next day.

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The first ever gig you ever attended. First proper gig other than the annual talent show at school was Korn at the SECC on sept 11th 2002. Supported by Puddle of Mud and Trust Co. Puddle of Mud didn't really go down well with the crowd. They attempted a back and forth ala Freddie Mercury chant, getting the audience to chant back what they just said. It was all going to plan until they tried "We love Puddle of Mud". think everyone changed love to hate. the band looked disappointed.

The best ever gig you ever attended. Machine Head at the Barrowlands Fri 5 Dec 2003.

5 people in a 1.0l micra road trip from aberdeen to glasgow. Was really looking forward to seeing them. loved the venue being relatively small and had a great time stomping around with everyone. Machine Head did their little cover medley of pantera, judas priest and slayer. Also waiting for the band to start in the middle of the crowd i desperately needed to pee. so instead of going to the W.C, losing my mates and possibly missing the start of the show. I just unzipped and drained my self in the crowd. Waiting outside for the band afterwords was awesome too. got a traffic cone and my ticket signed and eventually ended up on their DVD elegies :)

The worst ever gig you ever attended. Worst gig probably was a Deadloss Superstar at Cafe Drummond a year or so ago. Not due to the band but the horrendous sound. piercing guitars low vocals. Actually hurt my ears and had to sit at the back of the venue. Matanuska played also, their monitors were louder than the PA. was a horrible waste of money.

The first ever gig you ever played After joining Cobra Kai a few years ago we were due to play a fund-raising charity gig at New Deer village hall. Was an awesome venture. many of the locals were making a day of it and pulling all sorts of moves to us. Tables of old grannies tapping their feet to our miserable music. awesome

The best ever gig you ever played The best gig I've played was on saturday just passed. Played with Fifteen Dead at Cramond Isle of punk. the whole means of getting there, being stranded by high tide, the DIY element of it, and all the effort people made to get there made it amazing. Playing outside to quite a sizeable crowd (more than I'm used) felt awesome

The worst ever gig you ever played was when playing with Cerebral Inferno, was due to play the opening slot at the Moorings in June 2010. our drummer decided to not turn up to the gig. We attempted to play a selection of pop covers off the cuff with the other guitarist bonner on drums, me on an acoustic and Vo singing. That gig ended inferno and I lost a lot of my motivation for trying to be in a band.

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The first ever gig you ever attended. - Franz Ferdinand at AECC around 2005 I think. Probably the only gig I've ever enjoyed there.

The best ever gig you ever attended. - Pavement at Barrowlands last year, or either time I've seen Aphex Twin.

The worst ever gig you ever attended. - Arctic Monkeys at AECC. Shit crowd, and shitty uninterested band. I'd been a big fan up until then.

The first ever gig you ever played. - My older brother's mate's birthday at Kemnay Village Hall. Or a school Christmas concert. Both are pretty wild.

The best ever gig you ever played. - The first time we played Dirty Hearts Club. 6pm soundcheck and not playing until 12, meant by the time I was onstage I could barely stay upright. I had a great time. We almost definitely sounded shit to everyone else though.

The worst ever gig you ever played. - Hustlers in Dundee. Our first ever gig outside of Aberdeen. In a pool hall full of neds. Luckily we didn't get stabbed.

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The first ever gig you ever attended. - Hmmm my first proper gig was Sirrius in the old Drakes, under castle gate, i dont think music has ever shocked me as much in my entire life, i remember going to to the toilet when they said it was the last song and coming back to find Terry rolling about in the remains of the drum kit. Before that i had been to see Kylie and Madonna in the ECC but they dont count.....

The best ever gig you ever attended. - Dragonforce in Moshulu a few years ago, or Aphex Twin at Rockness a few years ago, both amazing nights.

The worst ever gig you ever attended. - Taking Back Sunday, My Chemical Romance and some other shit down in Glasgow, all bands were terrible and it put me off TBS from then on, the guy cannot fucking sing at all, how he gets away with it ill never know.

The first ever gig you ever played. - Playing in my first ever band "Situation 187", i know worst band name ever, we played in Malt Mill and were a mix of punk rock all covered in shit. We were so bad, we had one guitarist, two bassits and a chick singer, me and one of the bass players used to write most of the songs in school during maths.

The best ever gig you ever played. - It would prob be between opening for Sugarcult in a sold out Moshulu with Point of Origin, or the last night of when we did our residency at The Moorings with Stayover, we did a night over covers, mostly our fav local bands songs, The Excets and Alyssa's Wish amost others, we also had a member from each band come up during the songs to either play or sing. we ended the night with Baker Street and then Angels by Robbie Williams, with a guy Philip that used to post on here playing the sax. I have a very good quality DVD of the night which is prob one of my most cherished things in the world, even now when i watch it it gives me goosebumps, that sounds corny as hell but i am still to this day so proud of that gig, the place was so busy and the reaction we got was amazing, plus we played "stay the same" with Murry coming up to sing, thats almost like sharing a stage with a real rock start now a days!!! Infact just to be a show off here is the link to the video of us playing Baker Street, watch out for the Ghost of Fudges face.......

The worst ever gig you ever played. I would say the first ever gig i played with situation 187, we got all of our friends along and they kicked us off after 3 songs because we were so bad. But i would prob say a gig i did with my covers band Mixed Generation, we were playing the Mains of Scotstown in bridge of don and there was a football team in who were out for their xmas night, needless to say they abused us all night, stole mics in the middle of songs, tried to help the guitarist play the guitars mid songs and bascially were complete dick heads. You could prob add a few midweek gigs in the tunnels playing to 3 other bands and no one else, they were always great fun...

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The first ever gig you ever attended - Some pop-punk show at the Cairnie Bar in Arbroath in 1999 or so. I never went to any gigs until my mid to late teens because Arbroath isn't exactly the touring capital of the world, unless you're Capdown. I eventually came out of my shell a wee bit and started socialising with school chums who were in bands and there we are, I started going to gigs.

The best ever gig you ever attended - I actually played at this one, but it's got to be Charlottefield in the Balcony Bar in Dundee. Amazing band, amazing wee space for them. It wasn't very well attended as I recall, but the band didn't seem to care in the slightest. Probably the best live performance I've ever seen. Sadly missed.

The worst ever gig you ever attended - I've somehow managed to see Capdown about 8 or 9 times by accident. You'd go to a pub in Dundee or Arbroath and there they fucking were. Terrible band. So yeah, one of those times where my quiet drink was interrupted by Capdown.

The first ever gig you ever played - School Christmas variety show, circa 2000. We were called ARGH! and we were totally horse. We did a cover of the 'Smooth Criminal' cover by Alien Ant Farm, except our version was markedly out of time, entirely atonal and probably half the speed.

The best ever gig you ever played - My band Pensioner did a few wee album launch shows, and our gig at Bloc in Glasgow was probably the best out of the run. Really great turn out and people were totally digging it, which was nice. And we didn't mess up despite being totally hammered.

The worst ever gig you ever played - My old band Juliet Kilo played a Dundee vs Glasgow all dayer at Sleazys which was organised by the lovely This Is Our Battlefield folks. We got stuck in traffic en route to Glasgow for about 3 hours. We finally arrived, went straight on stage and chucked a shit fit; the drum kit fell over mid-song, we simultaneously forgot what we were all playing in another song and everyone in the crowd looked either mildly irritated or amused at our collective meltdown. The rest of the day was great though!

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aww, capdown were ace. charlottefield also ace. they did a great gig in cellar 35 a few years ago.

Yeah, I know a lot of people who liked Capdown, but they just annoyed me!

I remember it wasn't long after I finally saw Charlottefield that they disbanded. I was really itching to see them play again. Very sad times.

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The first ever gig you ever attended. - Some gig in Portlethen I think, Black Atom, Hot Mangu and various bands with people from school. First big gig was Green Day in Newcastle that was pretty fantastic.

The best ever gig you ever attended. - Radiohead in Glasgow 2008 (I think) amazing performance with an almost perfect setlist from my favourite band.

The worst ever gig you ever attended. - It's hard to say really, I once went to see Finch at the Lemon tree because loads of friends were going. Not to my taste at all and I really didn't enjoy it.

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The first ever gig you ever attended:

Fenix TX at Newcastle University - April 2002. support came from Vendetta Red and RX Bandits who were both tremendous. I was there with a bunch of people for my mate's 18th birthday having spent the previous night partying and generally not sleeping. As a result of the sleep deprivation and all that he feinted during Fenix TX and we ended up missing most of the set making sure he was alright.

The best ever gig you ever attended:

Green Day at Newcastle Arena - June 2002. This was on their International Superhits tour, there was no support act aside from some dude in a rabbit suit walking on stage, downing a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale and walking off again. They played a monster 2 and a half hour set with two encores including a significant number of non singles from Dookie, Insomniac and Nimrod. I sang every word of every song and jumped around to the extent that I was unable to straighten my legs or talk the next day.

The worst ever gig you ever attended.

Red Hot Chilli Peppers at Leeds Festival 2007. They were awful with far too many aimless jams and Anthony Kiedis forgetting the words to half the songs. Then they disappeared in a helicopter. Ugh.

The first ever gig you ever played.

Rainstick at Morpeth County Council HQ, somewhere in 2001/02

My first gig was at a youth parliament election night with the covers band I was in during high school. We played a 30 minute set that included such gems as Brain Stew/Jaded by Green Day and Blind by Korn to a bunch of 16-18 year old wannabe politicians and got paid 50 for some reason. I have no idea if anyone there enjoyed it or not. I presume not.

The best ever gig you ever played.

Nod From Afar at Trillians, Newcastle - May 2008

Playing Trillians was a real thrill for me because our only aim we first decided to start a band a couple of years earlier was to one day play there so it was fitting venue for our last gig together. Dream: Achieved.

The worst ever gig you ever played.

The Surgeprotector at some pub near Consett, County Durham - July 2006. This was to help out a mate of mine who had a solo project and needed a drummer to play on a couple of songs during his set. His setup was guitar/vocals with an mp3 player for backing tracks. During the soundcheck everything seemed fine but when we actually got on stage (I say stage, there wasn't so much a stage as an area of the floor where the crowd wasn't) we couldn't hear ourselves at all. This, combined with being underprepared, meant that we ended up playing completely out of time with each other and the backing track. Must have sounded woeful to everyone in the crowd.

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I never liked Capdown either. A friend of mine was helping to book a charity all-dayer back in around 01/02, and the big headliner (Five Knuckle) had to pull out. He got in touch with Capdown to take their place. They said yes, but they wanted 3,000. Not bad for a band called Capitalist Downfall. Pricks. They weren't even that big then. Support Less Than Jake on one tour and all of a sudden you're Blink 182.

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The worst ever gig you ever played - My old band Juliet Kilo played a Dundee vs Glasgow all dayer at Sleazys which was organised by the lovely This Is Our Battlefield folks. We got stuck in traffic en route to Glasgow for about 3 hours. We finally arrived, went straight on stage and chucked a shit fit; the drum kit fell over mid-song, we simultaneously forgot what we were all playing in another song and everyone in the crowd looked either mildly irritated or amused at our collective meltdown. The rest of the day was great though!

Did Glasgow win then? I was actually thinking about this show not long ago, even though i wasn't there.

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The best ever gig you ever attended:

Green Day at Newcastle Arena - June 2003. This was on their International Superhits tour, there was no support act aside from some dude in a rabbit suit walking on stage, downing a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale and walking off again. They played a monster 2 and a half hour set with two encores including a significant number of non singles from Dookie, Insomniac and Nimrod. I sang every word of every song and jumped around to the extent that I was unable to straighten my legs or talk the next day.

This was the gig I mentioned as the first I went to with a really big group playing.

I was really into them at the time, loved it.

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