What is the biggest audience you ever played for?

[Adam.M]

I did something in Leeds in the mid-70's at Hyde Park (the other Hyde Park!!), and we had the same problem, in spite of having a 1,000 watt per side PA (that was a lot in those days!!).  Mind you the crowd for that wasn't anywhere near as big as the Heilbronn gig!

Hyde Park's just around the corner from me, woop :)

The only gig i've 'played' was doing lead guitar for a buddy on open mic night, just two songs. It was at the Hyde Park Pub here in Leeds.

I was an absolute nervous wreck, we were playing sat down and man, my leg was shaking so bad i didn't need to do vibrato, it did it for me!

I really do want to play live again, almost desperately, with a full band. But i'm a rubbish player, nevermind!

[phlip]

My biggest and best memories were the Marquee in 1989 and 1990 in a Sleeze rock band called Poker Alice at the Charing Cross venue it was sold out (We were supporting) top notch memories, did the crowd like us maybe, but who cares it was the Marquee.

Over to 2000 and the next best was a Gig in Paris I played guitar in the live lineup of Goth/industrial band Athamay, The music was not my bag but it was a great gig, about 1000 and we were headlining. Oh and French Goth girls don't were very much and are cute.

[mikeluke]

OK - let's flip it around - what is the smallest audience that you've played to?

We played a pub in Waterlooville (near Southampton) - total audience (excluding 3 friends/family who travelled with us) was TWO people!!! Try motivating yourself for that!

"Hello Waterlooville! It's great to be back....." NOT!

[_tom_]

One gig in the old coverband was awful, at one point we were playing to just the barmaid until two drunken old men stumbled in to watch :lol:

[TwilightOdyssey]

^ I've played more gigs like that than I can count!

[phlip]

^indeed once I played in Manchester to the bar staff. We found out later that while the bar manager was charging to get into our gig upstairs he also had a free rock disco in the basement.  :shock:

And a gig in preston where we dicovered a room full of Quo fans who thought we were the ex bass players new band, who were also called Diesel, that gig was the first we knew of it. They didn't kindly when we opened with a piss take of Rockin all over the world in an Almighty style before doing our set of original songs  :D :D

[tomjackson]

What was your biggest concert?
How was it?
Did you like it?
Did people like it?

Mine was last year, the August Bank Holiday biker festival in a local town.  It was an all day gig, with bands taking it in turns on the back of an articulated lorry.  We headlined  :D

I guess there were around 500 or so people there, and we went down really well.  Bikers love 'DC, generally  ;)  I really enjoyed it, even though I blew an amp  :roll:  I was using my old Laneys at the time, fully cranked, and I blew an EL34.  I always take a spare head though, so a quick swap and we were back on rocking again.

The only thing I didn't like was the waiting around until the end of the night to go on.   I don't like to drink before or while I play, so it was a long evening!

For those of you who don't know, I never dress up as Angus for YC/DC? gigs.  No-one resembles their AC/DC counterpart, so we don't try to look like them.  Unknown to me, the rest of the band dressed up as Angus for this one gig.  It raised a smile or two!

Pity I didn't stay, I was playing keys with a band earlier in the day.  It took us about an hour to get power as the generator was wired wrong but luckily a biker / electrician was on hand to save the day.  Not my biggest gig, there were only about 50-70 people there earlier on and as it was on keys It doesn't count anyway! 

[gwEm]

played a show in copenhagen which seemed to be quite small - had an absolutely excellent time though, and the people there were very welcoming and interested in 8bit.

[Johnny Mac]

About 70 in a large pub. Not very exciting compared to other experiences posted here but I got really bad stage fright for a few minutes then relaxed and got right into it. I didn't jump off any amps or set my guitar alight with lighter fuel though  :lol:

[HTH AMPS]

my old band were due to be the second-top headliner at some open-air festival near Scotch Corner back around Aug '03.  the promoter told me the PA was spec'd for 60kW and they typically got crowds in the 6000+ region.  our singer got seriously ill two weeks before the gig and we had to cancel, I'm pissed off about that to this day, would've been an awesome gig.

biggest gig I've actually played was my old band's own headline show.  we booked out the smaller stage at Newcastle Uni, did our own PR and sold tickets directly.  We got around 150-200 people in there paying £5.00 a head - not bad for a local unsigned band.

Oh, we also supported a Scottish band on Alan McGee's Poptones label called The Cosmic Roughriders.  That was at Edinburgh Herriot Watt Uni.  Probably around 100 people in there.  shitee gig as it happens, one of our absolute worst - left my plectrums in the van which was a good ten minutes from the stage and only realised as they were announcing us on stage.  Also had a memory blank mid-song and forgot all the chords, of course everyone else went to pot too as they all followed my lead, not the drummer's (oddly enough).

Smallest crowd was a single punter at one of my very first gigs with my college band in '91/'92, could have only been 16 or 17 at the time.  Was totally dire.  The guy in charge of promotions appartently 'forgot' to advertise the gig and put up posters etc...  :roll:

It's been probably four years since I've gigged now - just never seem to get another lineup together thats worth the effort.  My current band is really good and worthy of the trouble, but they're all waiting for me to get better before we can start gigging  :(

[headtheball]

Biggest was about 2,000 people in a GAA hall in Omagh, filling in with my uncle's band. i didn't enjoy it in the slightest.

Smallest was one of those "Other bands, their Girlfriends and a barman" jobs we all seem to hit every once in a while. We were last minute replacements for a band that pulled out, and we really, really didn't fit in with the rest of the bands (a bunch of fey indie types, who just weren't into the particular brand of noise terrorism we were peddling), who pretty much hated us on sight. Still, The barkeep reckoned we were rockin', and kept shunting trays laden with stout and crisps toward us. So it wasn't all bad.

[38thBeatle]

In contrast to my earlier post, I too have played the type of gig that only needs some tumbleweed to blow across the floor of the venue to make it slightly more desolate. We played a gig once in a venue where there was an England world cup game ( why bother, we are never going to win!) and the punters disappeared into their TV room and left us playing to the bar staff who were about as disinterested in us as you could get. "Paid rehearsal boys" were the words that night.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Okay, sorry for the delay in posting this, fellas ... crazy week!

Alright, the Exploding Rivera Story:

What: Gig opening for Nightwish
Where: Lamour, Brooklyn, NY
When: November 2003

How: You saw the picture, the place was PACKED. We opened our set with the song Defiler ( http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=6798854&q=hi ), about 30 seconds into the song, I lose audio on my side. After checking my cables, I see that my K100 is off, and a burning smell was coming out of it. I knew at that moment I was well f'd, because there was no way it was gonna give me sound that night.

Sitting on the floor next to my rig was the head from the band that played before us (Zandelle), a 5150 Mk2 head. I pulled the lead from my guitar, threw it across my back and launched myself off the stage and into the throng. I waded my way to the bar just off the side of the stage (not in the picture), found the guitarist who owned the head (TW Durfy) and quickly gave him the sit rep.

TW and I pushed our way back to the stage, he set me up quick-fast and I had sound in time for the end of that very same song.

Thank god for ... a good friend that happened to be sharing my cab with me that night ... a band that didn't stop playing no matter what ... a bit of quick thinking and aggressive footwork on my part ... and opening your set with an 8 minute song!!

Rest of the gig went without a hitch aside from the fact that my tone wasn't my own. Turned out to be a bum EL34 in the Rivera. I was very upset that it didn't keep playing with 3 power valves. I did not get a Splawn at that time, I got an ENGL/Marshall rackmount rig as a backup.

... and that's the story.

Now, if you want high adventure, I could tell you about the time my Rivera cab fell down a flight of stairs, the time my Charvel came out of the gig bag with the headstock broken clean off, the time my cab blew when we were co-headlining a festival with Jag Panzer .... the list goes on!! PDT_008

[Will]

sweet story Ben, more would be good :D

[gwEm]

that is a gig story of the highest grade! i've a few, but nothing to compare :)