I have a played gigs at a restaurant a number of times and they seem to have gone well. But lately the owner has been giving me the cold shoulder and getting other musicians for the summer season. Do I take offence or just suck it up and move on? If I get a call eventually in the dead of winter, do I take it anyways? Anyone else experience this?

I suppose i'll post this here instead of on Finbar's page, just to get Tod more engagement... My gig tonight was at a place where I have a monthly residency. I usually play a nice mix of '70s and '80s classic rock with some old country mixed in, and I'm pretty successful there. 2 weeks ago I played there, and I found that the crowd was really into '90s country, so I played to the crowd, and had a pretty full tip jar when I left. I hadn't played there in about a month, so maybe there was a shift? Cool, I'll adjust my song list for tonight, and I'll front-load some good ol' country bangers. But the opposite happened. The "country bangers" got crickets. So halfway through set 1, I figured I'd go back to the "holy trinity" of Country Roads, Margaritaville, and Brown Eyed Girl. What d'ya know...the crowd came alive. I reverted back to my classic rock tunes, and they dug it. Just goes to show you, it ain't easy to predict what your audience is gonna like, even if you've played there 25 times. Always be ready to adapt.

Hey gang! I was just curious what is the current gigging gear that you are using. Are you using pedals? Do you have your own portable PA? What guitar(s)? etc. Here is my gear: I am trying to keep things real simple... Guitar: Taylor 214ce Deluxe in Sunburst Pedal: TC Helicon Harmony Singer 2 PA: Harbinger MLS1000 Mic: Shure SM58 (Back-up Shure Beta 58) I have been toying with the idea of adding a Beat Buddy or maybe a simple kick drum pedal. Your turn...

Firstly, a big thank you to the OG members who've joined while this place is still brand new. It's great to have you here, and I'm hoping we can build this into a genuinely useful community for working and aspiring gigging musicians. There are already decades of experience between the people in here, so hopefully this becomes a place where we can share what we've learned, help each other out, have a laugh at the ridiculous side of gigging, and maybe save each other from learning EVERYTHING the hard way. So, to get things rolling... What's ONE thing you know about gigging now that you wish someone had told you when you started?

Twenty-eight years and about 4,000 gigs boiled down into one list. These are the beginner-to-intermediate songs I still reach for, the ones that reliably win a room without needing years of stagecraft behind you yet. Grab it below. If you build even half your set around these, you'll cut out most of the trial and error I had to do the hard way.