Illy's first gig.

As a 14 year old I was "in a band" as we all like to think even before we can actually play very well at all. With two school mates in tow we were rehearsing about once a week and making quite a lot of rather nasty noises we thought was great music!! But boy were we keen!!

Never really thinking we were ready for a gig we just plodded along rehearsing in my mates lounge room with our 10 watt amps when his parents were at work and we were wagging school. As a idea of how bad we must have been I remember at the time that when I played a lead solo I could play it any where I wanted I wanted to, I was not yet aware that I had to do some sort of scale and god forbid in some sort of key!! I just played anything!!! This was how punk was generally played about ten years later when it became massive!!!

So, me and my band mates go to the year 10 leaver's dinner/social in the local memorial hall. In those days all entertainment was always live, ...DJ's simply weren't "invented" then and recorded music was never used and was considered amateurish.

HELL!

The band playing was rather lame performing songs not really suited for a bunch of hormonally challenged 14-15 year old youths. In fact they reminded me of the school leavers scene in the "American pie" movie where the band is doing a just awful version of 'don't you forget about me' and all the kids are bored] A few of the lads at school knew myself and my mates had 'a bit of a band going" and suggested we get up and play. All of a sudden our self belief disappeared and we got all shy and making out we aren't ready, we just 'muck about' we are not really ready etc etc.

We didn't really visualize actually 'doing a gig" that was for 'later'?

Anyway next thing we know the "tough boys" who played footy and were athletic heroes etc come over and persuade us we should play. We are all still 'nah nah we don't want to yet we ain't ready etc etc......

They say "get on stage or we are gonna punched ya heads in" (for the USA reader that translates roughly to kick ya asses real good!!)

HEAVEN!

So with the prospect of smashed heads, broken teeth and loss of any degree of cool we ever thought we had, we trundled toward the stage.

Playing others people guitars, amps, and drums is akin to wearing some body else's underwear, it just don't fit right!!! But we got up there any way....all ready to be booed off the stage and into the dark recesses of the hall. We played honky tonk woman and the place went wild and with everybody dancing and yelling and smiling we thought 'hey this ain't so bad' so then we rip into "Smoke on the Water", then "Jumpin' Jack Flash" then something by Uriah Heep that was totally above our ability. Nobody, especially us seemed to care. Everybody loved it. We kept going and going, the older band looking a mite peeved that they couldn't get back on, the tough boys applauding the girls smiling...my guitar solos still not in any scale or key!! But hey, there we were a real band on a real stage!!

It was great and the start of a 35 year old career for me that is still going.

We were suddenly too cool for school, and quite the flavour of the month!!

Footnote....

About a month later when we had left school the older band contacted us about doing a real gig!! They played down at the local pub on Friday and Saturday nights. They invited us to do a set each night for about three months. They wanted to go off and have a good time while we played for them. We used their equipment and got paid a bit too. But by now we were getting better because we were playing in front of adults. We were way under age, 15 year olds in a place where you had to be over 21, but in those days political correctness etc had not yet been even thought of, so a good time was possible then!!

We got good real fast, we had too, and I finally learnt I had to play in key when I did a solo!!