Ever had your playing watched intensely by an audience member?

ESBlonde

Back in the days when loads of venues had live bands there was one pub that was notorious as the Friday gig where you would be scrutinised by the non gigging musicians whenever you played their. Often they would watch for half hour and move on, if they stayed all night you knew you were doing something right.
Had plenty of eyes on me but I too went to watch other players if we weren’t gigging, yes that’s what inspired and often enlightened us in those days. That and meeting up in local music shops on a Saturday morning to talk bollox !

Dominic

Pedal board usually given the once over scrutiny by somebody who plays

rich75

It happened to me once at a pub gig. I play the keyboard part on Jump and, at one gig, two people stood about three feet in front of me watching me intently for the whole song.

They told me afterwards that they wanted to check that I was playing it live rather than miming over a backing track. I would have thought the mistakes would have been enough to convince them! 

I wouldn't say it bothered me too much, and I guess it was kind of a compliment (even if they were trying to catch me "cheating"). It was a bit disconcerting to begin with but I have to spend most of that song looking down at what I'm doing anyway so I basically ignored them. 

pintspiller

I used to do the staring. Trying to figure out if the guitarist was miming sometimes. Mostly out of jealousy to be honest.

I remember in one band we were complimented on how my hands and those of the other guitarist moved in unison (WTF? I thought that was what bands do!)

LastMantra

I've done it a bit myself until I realised it probably looked a bit creepy. 

I remember a couple of young guys playing an acoustic set in my old local. When they finished me and my mates (rather drunk) asked if we could have a look at their guitars and ended up having a jam. Think the guys were pretty pissed off as we got a better response than them 

CaseOfAce

Dominic said:

Pedal board usually given the once over scrutiny by somebody who plays

I used to do this until one time a band's bass player looked at me weirdly when I was doing this and at that point I thought what am I doing?
Basically most guitarists have a delay or an overdrive or a chorus, was etc... who cares which brand!?
Unless their sound is so amazingly unbelievable why do this?

Majorscale

I’ve had it happen at quite a few gigs too and it feels quite weird at first. I learnt to mostly block the starers out and just have a good time. The worse thing you can do is become over-conscious and judgemental about what you’re doing (I.e. like the starers!) as that’s when mistakes can happen.

Also had the snide “bet he can’t play that straight”, i.e without FX, so I must have done something right that night!

Lestratcaster

A few times at shows, mostly as others have mentioned cos they're looking at my pedalboard rather than actually analysing what I'm doing. I play in front of other guitarists normally so its common. Some have come up to me afterwards and asked what I'm using or said they liked a certain sound I was using which is nice.

roberty

CaseOfAce said:

Dominic said:

Pedal board usually given the once over scrutiny by somebody who plays

I used to do this until one time a band's bass player looked at me weirdly when I was doing this and at that point I thought what am I doing?
Basically most guitarists have a delay or an overdrive or a chorus, was etc... who cares which brand!?
Unless their sound is so amazingly unbelievable why do this?

I care deeply about what pedals other guitar players use 

MattW

I’ve done it on occasion (and will probably feel a bit self-conscious about doing it now) but it was always towards people whose playing I was impressed by and was hoping to learn something from. Never felt any need to engage with the player more directly but as a self taught player with limited knowledge of music theory, sometimes I find it easier to learn new techniques from watching someone play as I don’t necessarily have the skills to learn by ear alone.

Roland

Poor @Rowby1 got stared at last night. Well, his Dr Z amp did. My ears were more interested in what came out of his pedal board that my eyes were in what was on it.

notanon

Maybe they had Bell's Palsy, did he/she blink?

If not, and the person clapped by slapping the back of their hands together like a penguin, it could have been me, . .   sorry - that old cranial 7 nerve issue mixed in with alcohol!

Rowby1

Roland said:

Poor @Rowby1 got stared at last night. Well, his Dr Z amp did. My ears were more interested in what came out of his pedal board that my eyes were in what was on it.

You weren’t the only gear spotter there @Roland , there were at least another half dozen musicians in the audience apparently!! 

mudslide73

I've had a few people camp out in front of me for certain songs (usually Dreaming Of You by the Coral for some reason). We had a chatty lad on Friday talking about gear (tbf not snobby and extolling the virtues of cheap stuff) but he didn't reveal himself until after the end. I tend to find that asking people when/where they're next playing will reveal how much they're into it. 

tanihhiavlt

Back when I did the IGF Jazz courses, Dario Cortese stood out front and watched us all, I'm glad my guitar had a poly paint job, that stare was intense! 

FarleyUK

Yeah, I get it loads. especially at the venue I played in last Saturday night, and it's always the same bloke; I know he's a guitarist, but he just stands there with his mate keenly watching my fingers.

I've made it a game now where I just keep moving somewhere he can't see what I'm doing (oh the joys of wireless).

WiresDreamDisasters

Yeah. Had one guy do a couple of Youtube covers of my stuff before too. That was odd. He did a good job, but that was one of the first times I sorta had a notion about my own "style" as it were - he was hitting the right notes, but the vibrato was different, the pulloffs and hammer ons were different, and it sounded good... but not 100%, because of these small stylistic differences.

Roland

Those stylistic differences are often more important than the actual notes.

26.2

I joined a band for a tour, playing organ. They had a bunch of really keen Dutch fans including a pretty creepy bloke known as ‘carrier bag man’. At the first gig he stood right at the front on my side of the stage and I could feel his eyes boring into me. He appeared after the show with his friends:

Him: so you’re the new organ player.
Me: oh hi, yes I am.
Him: I like them a lot better without you.

Fez

Yes and done it too.