Alcohol and playing

SNAKEBITE

Sassafras said:

 I had an unfortunate incident when I was pissed in a club in Guildford, I made an absolute idiot of myself. I shall have to live with the guilt and shame for the rest of my life.

You don't have to, I found divorce works well.

captainbeeffart

I usually take a tab of Acid when i gig.  

Iamnobody

hollywoodrox said:

Darts players in the 80s ?

It didn’t stop in the 80s. A lot of pros still drink beforehand to get to the ‘sweetspot’ - they just don’t take it on stage anymore.

Lebarque

The key is not to let the drummer have any alcohol. Not a single drop. Learnt from experience.

DiscoStu

When I used to gig, I found it difficult to get the balance right with alcohol.
I needed a couple of beers beforehand to combat the nerves, but then I'd need a couple more through the gig and I couldn't play for shit once I was pissed. Nobody seemed to notice but I sure did.

I only really play at home these days. My playing seems to get a bit better after a couple of drinks but that'll be because I've warmed up in the time it's taken to drink them. But then a few drinks more and Mr Spanglehands makes his appearance, as usual.

vasselmeyer

Are none of you driving to your gigs?

Danny1969

vasselmeyer said:

Are none of you driving to your gigs?

For most of my gigs I get picked up and have the first beer in the van before I even get to the gig    If I'm driving I'll just have a couple 
Drinking and playing tends to develop over a lot of gigs over many years. If you only gig a few times a month then a few beers might affect your playing but after 20 years and thousands of gigs you have to drink quite a bit before it's really noticeable. Like anything there's a sweet spot so it needs a bit of discipline. Our bass player did 13 pints at one gig and he was  pretty hammered to the point it was really noticeable so there were words about that

Voxman

I was going to read this thread..but then I decided it was just small beer and I didn't mind a tot what rum things folk got up to. 

ICBM

vasselmeyer said:

Are none of you driving to your gigs?

No, not any more if I can avoid it. I'm playing bass in venues which have a house PA and usually provided backline, so I take my bass, a couple of pedals and cables in a decent gig bag and go on the bus.

I'd do the same for guitar now probably. In the past when I took my own amp I would limit myself to two beers, one at the start and one in the middle, and reckon I was OK... but I don't drink at all if I'm driving now.

OilCityPickups

In my early 20s I was fired from a very promising band for being consistently shit faced on stage. It was a wake up call, I have never played drunk since. I realised It had turned me into not only a bad player, but a right twat in front of many hundreds of people. I think that was a big growing up thing for me.

octatonic

ICBM said:

vasselmeyer said:

Are none of you driving to your gigs?

No, not any more if I can avoid it. I'm playing bass in venues which have a house PA and usually provided backline, so I take my bass, a couple of pedals and cables in a decent gig bag and go on the bus.

I'd do the same for guitar now probably. In the past when I took my own amp I would limit myself to two beers, one at the start and one in the middle, and reckon I was OK... but I don't drink at all if I'm driving now.

I've ridden a motorcycle to bass gigs/rehearsals.
A bass in a soft case on my back and a DI in the top box.
If there is no backline then I just DI and ask for foldback.

JerkMoans

vasselmeyer said:

Are none of you driving to your gigs?

Bollocks to that.

Chauffeur-driven stretch limo, doing vast quantities of blow with strippers \m/

menamestom

There's a big distinction between a few beers and getting pissed.

I have a couple of beers sometimes over about 4 hours and I find it can get me in the groove.  
I'm not shredding so the height of technical mastery is not required, they are known well rehearsed parts or
Improvising.  I can play without beers but I find a couple go down well with playing some music.

prlgmnr said:

Have you got recorded evidence of this difference? You might be surprised.

As long as the audience don't start analysing I think he's alright.  There more likely to remember how into it he was rather than the accuracy of the playing.

Now being pissed on stage is a different matter.

JerkMoans

captainbeeffart said:

I usually take a tab of Acid when i gig.  

Ever seen the footage of Santana playing Woodstock?  

Adey

One should, at all times, comply with Mitchell and Webb's edict....

Always have slightly less than two drinks....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSCppeFzX4

jeztone2

I once played Junction 7 in Nottingham when they had an offer on Erdinger Wheat Beer. I’d had three by sound check and no dinner. Bt the time I hit the stage at 9:15pm I was “well oiled”. But I didn’t notice the effects of the booze until the sixth song in. When I looked down at my board and saw 26 LED’s on it, instead of the usual 12.  

clarkefan

jeztone2 said:

I once played Junction 7 in Nottingham when they had an offer on Erdinger Wheat Beer. I’d had three by sound check and no dinner. Bt the time I hit the stage at 9:15pm I was “well oiled”. But I didn’t notice the effects of the booze until the sixth song in. When I looked down at my board and saw 26 LED’s on it, instead of the usual 12.  

Reminds me of a story Gary Moore once told about swearing off alcohol until after the gig.  

In his late teens he'd get oiled up before the gig until one night on stage when he reached out to pick up his (only) guitar and saw four of them in front of him, and he couldn't pick up any of them.  Bloody hell...

thegummy

jeztone2 said:

I once played Junction 7 in Nottingham when they had an offer on Erdinger Wheat Beer. I’d had three by sound check and no dinner. Bt the time I hit the stage at 9:15pm I was “well oiled”. But I didn’t notice the effects of the booze until the sixth song in. When I looked down at my board and saw 26 LED’s on it, instead of the usual 12.  

That's when I knew it was time to give up the bevvy - I also looked down during a gig and saw 26 LED's on the fretboard.

Turned out I didn't even have a guitar, I was at a 24 hour Tesco.

Danny1969

I remember being so pissed on my 22nd birthday they turned me off at the desk an put a bag over my head. They told me at one point I was playing a completely different song to the rest of the band . That experience put me off drinking for a while while gigging but you soon forget and the bad habits creep back in

darthed1981

Alnico said:

Don’t have 9 bottles of Newcastle Brown and then get on stage and play ‘Rockin’ in the Free World’ in E major instead of E minor, because you’re too pissed to notice how much you’re panicking. 

It sounds like an angry hippie got left in charge of children’s tv. 

Trust me. 

Don’t do it. 

Sounds like a dare to me mate...