My Worst Gig Was My First Gig | Tom Strahle | Pro Guitar Secrets

#storytime #sessionguitarist #guitarlife

My first gig, a talent show at my junior high, was my worst gig. I've had other bad ones. Many others. Frankly I'm shocked I stuck with it after such an epic humiliation. Though the impact was largely on me, as from that point forward I was "Tom the guitar player" all through jr. and sr. high. This one catastrophic outing largely solidified my identity as a musician for the rest of my life.

MY GEAR -

Production Tools -

Not kidding here. How many of you have run your hand through your hair only to transfer sticky hair product to your guitar neck. Not a problem with this stuff. You’ll thank me later!

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MY PLAYLISTS…

[peteranderson]

Life's trials lead to great stories. Glad you stuck with it, Tom!

[johnhoward]

Great story. That would have been a scene. Lol. Thanks for sharing.

[bruceringrose]

Folks, if you think this story was good, as Tom said, he has a million more!!! 😀😂🤣 Join his live lessons streaming every Monday morning at 9:00 am California time! Thanks Tom!

[guitardog]

Great story, Tom! You reminded me of a school gig back in the day (I was a drummer then) where our bass player “modded” this monster Ampeg head right before the gig… A monumentally bad idea for anybody, BTW. He switched it on, for the first time, and we had some brief unrehearsed pyro💥 and the power went out for the whole building. After the screams, and because of bad wiring, we almost burned the place down. Yup, had to evacuate, fire alarm… and the opening tune, that was heard by no one, was I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones. We were too young to drink, but we all wished we could have! 🤪

[EJohnDanton]

Good one!! Worst gig - as a teen we as a church group visited a few rest homes at Christmas and I was asked to play guitar. We'd done about 3 in a row (I live in an area with a LOT of homes) and were fairly confident in our repertoire when we journeyed to our 4th.

No one clapped after we finished each number. Just crickets. As was our custom we went after we'd finished to have juice and talk with the seniors and none of them wanted to know us. 1 guy came up directly to me and yelled at my face "You're too G. D. loud!!" No mics and an acoustic guitar :)

What we found out later was that most of the seniors that were "with it" were already away and at their family homes for Christmas and it was the really not-with-it ones who were left. Maybe they should have told us this?!

[landmanjan]

fantastic story a time !! you do better nowadays for sure

[bobschumann]

😂 How have I not heard this story during your live YouTube sessions? I must have missed that one. Hilarious! Sip!

[guitarismyvideogamegary]

Band in high school sip. sip. I had a story like that, but I was just an usher lighting candles at my cousin's wedding. Everything was really solemn, I was keeping pace with the guy on the other side, when suddenly the baby's breath caught on fire on top of the piano from a drip of hot wax. There was this wave of vocal gasps of fear across the audience.. whoosh. My worst gig was one where I sang at an open mic, providing the words and chords to Sweet Home Alabama to a guy who didn't know the song at all. OYE. Worst Rendition EVER.

[jackcruz]

It's weird, but I thought I suffered from depression. Twice a day, I would start crying...once in the morning I'd wake up crying and once in the afternoon. My condition began somewhere in my teens until my shrink finally found the source of my sadness.

After about 8 sessions, my genius therapist asked if I was doing the same thing when I had these sad events? I said, "No...usually I'm sleeping and I wake up crying for no reason. Lately, the second episode would happen toward the end of my workday."

He thought that was interesting and wanted to know if I had bad dreams or was having difficulty with co-workers. I said, "No...but ever since you asked me to start journaling what I'm doing I have noticed an unusual pattern." "What's that?", he asked. I said, "I noticed the time of each crying jag happened around 25 or 6 to 4 (a.m. or p.m.)!" He said, "Did you happen to go to junior high in Indiana?"

Anyway...that was 4 years ago and I've been off my meds and haven't shed a tear since the diagnosis.
😳😳😳🤥🤥🤥

[hoosierdaddi]

Crosswind predated that, but not by much; I remember that guitar. But I suppose playing one song at my sister's birthday party really doesn't count as a "gig"... BTW, a band I was in decades later, we made the voice coils on some BORROWED bass cabinets burst into flame! Had to drag 'em out the side door of the bar and throw snow on them! I can only imagine the stories you have - I was only in a regional band and I've got a million!

[aslanmonn]

Wow! What a story.
If I may be the first to share my worst gig in the comments, I guess I'll do so.
I haven't had a lot, only 1 in 7th grade and 3 in 8th grade (2-3 years ago). That is, if you don't count inside of church. They all were just me and my guitar. The worst one was my second one. I played Only in America (Brooks and Dunn), a song I knew forwards and backwards. But I had a guitarist's catastrophe a few days before. My high E string busted, and I had no spares. GAH! So there I am, in front of everyone in geometry class playing a small guitar with a missing string. As a man of routine, I was thrown off to an extreme. I was used to a string under my index playing a B chord, but there was none. So I thought "OK, I'll just slide A up because it won't make a difference". Unless you have the capability to make stuff up on the fly, stick to the cards when performing.
There was a moment when I actually paused to figure out what the heck I was doing, and it was longer than expected. Some girl in the class cheered and said "You got this" which threw me off worse.
At the end, I thought "Thank God that's over".
Moral: Stick to the cards
God bless you, Tom. I'll try to make it to class Monday

[samstamos]

This event sounds like it inspired some song lyrics to come... For example.. "They don't give a damn about any trumpet playin' band. It ain't what they call Rock and Roll..." or "The amp, the amp, the amp is on fire! We don't need no water, let the stupid amp burn!"