More advice about playing gigs.

Here are some other things I forgot to tell you about playing gigs.

If you haven't been to the place already, go there and check it out before you play the show. Check out the stage or space you'll be playing at and get a feel for it.

Also, talk to whoever is running the show and find out what equipment you need to bring. Usually, there will be a house PA system and a house drum kit, leaving you to bring the amps and extra cymbals. Bring extra cables, batteries, strings and guitars if you have them because you never know when something might break on you. There have been a few times where my guitar's battery has died in the middle of a solo and making it look like I was air guitaring.

Make sure you label everything with you or your band's name, EVERYTHING(cables, amps, bags, cases, drums, ect). Some people are scum bags and will try to steal some of your stuff because it is untraceable. One time we played a show down on 4th and Girard in Philly at this bar called the Fire. The place was a hole in ground in a pretty bad part of the city. And what do you know, somebody stole one of Ryan's drums. You would figure that would be kind of hard because drums are pretty big, but no. After our set, as we are fumbling back to the car with our stuff, some made off with one his drums.

That leads me to my next point, always have someone watching your stuff when unloading and loading the cars. Rotate band members on every trip. Have a friend watch. Pay a friend to watch. Do anything you can think of because your stuff is too valuable to loose for such a stupid reason.

The sound check is everything. Without a good sound check, you wont be able to hear yourself properly and the audience won't hear you guys as clearly. Find out when your sound check is going to be and be there at least an hour early. I think there was only 4 or 5 shows where we made it to the sound check early and had a legit check. That's 4 or 5 times out of about 40 shows. Not a very good average.

Find out what time you're playing at and tell everyone your inviting that its at least an hour earlier. Even more frustrating that being late myself, was having people show up as we were finishing playing, especially if they had to pay 10 or 15 dollars for a ticket.