Gig anxiety dreams

Danny1969

Earlier in gig'ing life, in my twenties and thirties I was more relaxed. Things went wrong, like driving to the wrong gig to losing my trousers on the way to the gig. Horns and bass bin speakers blew, the van constantly broke down and had to be nursed to the gigs. But there wasn't much money involved so it just wasn't a big deal really.

Over the last 15 years there's been much more money involved. Bigger venues and tickets. Now it's more of an issue because there's thousands at stake. What doesn't help me is I know exactly how and why almost all electronic equipment will fail at some point. Especially modern designs. So everything has to have redundancy. I have a spare amp in the back of my Fender amp. I have a spare power supply for my pedal board compete with power loom outlets to quickly power all pedals up etc. 2 guitars obviously.

PA is harder nowadays. In the passive box days we had power amps for the monitors that could be put into service to power the mains should the mains amp fail. Now it's all active class D stuff which will definitely fail at some point and that options gone.

The biggest stress is not gigging as a muso for me, it's doing biggish  PA for theaters and such. In these scenarios any failure is a show stopper and possibly ticket refunds with no money earned at all for us. This has never happened yet because we have multiple levels of redundancy. The only show stopper so far has been a failed digital snake (CAT5 cable) at a theater but it was the theaters own cable running under the floor which failed. Luckily we had our own digital snake with us  on a 100M reel so got the show going again within minutes.

Here's something to think about. You never know if some of your gear is working on the way to a gig. You might think you know it's working,  but that's only  because it was working when you switched it off.

The most likely time to fail for a lot of modern gear is at the point you switch it off. There's technical reasons for this and designers take steps to try and prevent or at least reduce the chances of this failure but it's an inherent drawback of modern high frequency switch mode design.

The next most likely time for something modern to fail is at the point of switching it on. Again, steps are taken to combat this but it's another drawback of modern design.

All you actually have on the way to a gig is a good probability everything is working. Hope that helps

DannyP

I had one this week where we arrived, set up, then I went off to find something to eat and got lost. I ran around panicking in a labyrinth of different streets from my memory that, in the real world, are in different towns and cities! Missed the gig.

Nerine

I never really feel anxious about playing or singing. Occasionally at large gigs I’ll get a pang of trepidation/anticipation, but that’s about it. 

The couple of things I do often have a hint of anxiety over, especially if it’s a place I’ve never played before: What are the toilets like, will there be any bell ends in the crowd. 

That’s about it. 

Keefy

At a big festival that I played in the summer, we had to leave our cars at a car park by one of the gates and then fetch them to a point fairly close to the performance area to load in just before our slot. I headed off with the keyboard player in what we thought was the direction of the correct gate, only to find we were at the next one round. The security guy told us it was about a 15-minute walk - it was boiling hot afternoon, I was in my stage clothes (nowhere to change) and the keys player was wearing kitten heels, so I had to somehow rush across rough grassy ground without leaving her behind! I felt like I was in one of my anxiety dreams but for real.

It turned out it the next gate was much closer, and when we met our band mates there they had made exactly the same mistake!

axisus

I used to have two anxiety dreams in my youth - horrible ones about fast moving water, massive waves or a tsunami where I would get very worried but nobody else was bothered. The other dreams were getting ready to leave the house for some reason, but things kept getting in the way stopping me leaving - not having things, not finding car keys, having to look up info, wrong clothes etc.

Both were quite horrible but both stopped many years ago I'm happy to say.

firepaulmusic

I run through gig scenarios to help me get to sleep, how the set up will go etc. Which guitars will I use, amp or Fractal, will I set up the bass bins together under the middle of the stage or one each side...helps me relax for some strange reason.

Keefy

firepaulmusic said:

I run through gig scenarios to help me get to sleep, how the set up will go etc. Which guitars will I use, amp or Fractal, will I set up the bass bins together under the middle of the stage or one each side...helps me relax for some strange reason.

Those are the types of things that I need to have sorted in my head well before I hit the hay, else I’d never sleep!

Snags

I don't often get gig anxiety dreams, but when I do it's not about the playing, it's invariably about load-in and rigging. The classic is a variation of turning up, running round getting all the PA, lights etc., sorted for everyone else despite constant interruptions, interference, distraction etc. and time just vanishing, and then when everyone is nagging me to do a soundcheck, discovering I have none of my own gear, and we're miles away from home etc. etc.  Either that or there are endless problems running cables, getting everything sorted, and we're 30 minutes past start time and nothing works etc. plus I have none of my actual guitar gear.

Doesn't happen as often now that I've trained the rest of the band to be more involved and not just sit on their arses demanding things.

ScreamingDave

My biggest anxiety about dreams is waking up before my wife and worrying if she'll be angry at me all day because of something I did in her dream

Lestratcaster

Mine's not setting up my gear within the allotted time to play the set.

ScreamingDave

Lestratcaster said:

Mine's not setting up my gear within the allotted time to play the set.

That’s just reality for me!