Everything you need to know about playing your first Gig on Guitar

16. Mai 2025

Why are you playing a gig?

This might seem like a stupid question, but it’s an important one. There are many reasons a musician decides to form or join a band and book their first gig. These include:

You want to entertain an audience
You think you’ll enjoy the social aspects of practicing, touring, and performing with a group of like-minded friends
You realise that there is a lot more to life than just sitting in your room practicing
Playing in front of people gives your practice sessions a solid structure, because you have to nail the songs on the setlist
You want to show off your latest chops and impress the audience or someone in it, especially someone you are attracted to!

The reason you want to play a gig is important because once you know the answer, performing the concert is a foregone conclusion. To achieve the end result you want, whether it’s entertaining an audience, hanging around with friends, or whatever, you have to start and finish the concert. This removes a lot of the pressure and guitar performance anxiety, and goes a long way to giving you some much-needed confidence.

Try and Relax

You're about to go on stage for the very first time to play guitar in front of a live audience. This might not be a concert in a public bar or live music venue; it could be much more low key, and the audience may be friends and family. However, if you’re in a band, there are likely to be friends and family of other band members there as well, whom you won’t know well. They won’t be complete strangers, but not far off, which can create nerves.

You want to play well and create as good a performance as possible. But this often has the negative effect of making you try too hard, mess things up, and lose your cool. So, the best thing to do, even though this advice sounds ridiculous, is to try and relax and just play. Don’t overly worry about making mistakes; it happens, and when you do, laugh them off and carry on as if nothing went wrong, unless it’s a sonic fiasco, 98% of the audience won’t even notice.

Practice to Perform

There is nothing worse than watching a band where every member is constantly looking at their hands. If you’ve got to pull off a complicated move or hit that note up the top of the neck when you’re down in root chord country, by all means, watch your hands to make sure you get it right.

However, if you’re strumming that good old G to D to Am chord progression that you’ve played a million times before, then look at the audience or just out into space above them. I know that this sounds simple, but it's a lot harder than it seems - it takes confidence to look away from the neck, which could result in an epic fail, but there’s a great trick to mastering it…

Mirror Practice

The initial step on your first live gig guitar checklist is to create a playlist on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever, of the songs you will be covering in the order you will be playing them. It’s usually better to use live versions of the songs for this, because they will sound more authentic. For example, they will probably only feature a rhythm guitar and a lead guitar, as opposed to the studio version, which could have six or more different guitar tracks.

The next step of your first gig guitar preparation is to play along with the playlist until you know the structure and each section of every song. Once you’ve got that, it’s time to get into stage mode. From now on, only practice while standing up so that you are completely comfortable playing everything with your guitar hanging from your neck as opposed to on your lap.

And, most importantly, to look like a seasoned performer… practice in front of a large mirror or a window that creates a reflection. Instead of looking down at your hands, as we guitarists do naturally, look at your hands in the reflection in the mirror or the window. Keep doing this until it becomes natural and you’re not tempted to continually check your hand position. Once you get used to this, take a more general look at the mirror without focusing intently on your hands.

As mentioned, if there is a tricky section in a song, or it’s time for the climactic solo that will drive the audience wild, it’s ok to look at your hands, but if it isn’t completely necessary, look forward, not down at your fretboard.

This technique is simple, but ridiculously effective. Include it in your guitar practice for live show schedule for a week or two, you won’t believe how quickly you stop looking like a stage novice and start looking like a stage pro.

Make Sure that your Gear is up to the Job

You don’t need a custom shop Strat and a Marshall stack for your first guitar performance, but you do need a guitar that plays well and that you're comfortable with. You’ll also need an amplifier that is loud enough for the venue you are playing (unless you are going to mic it up, which is unlikely for most players' first-ever concert).

Most electric guitars are fine for your first time on stage, but getting it set up and maybe upgrading or modifying it slightly if you’re unhappy with certain aspects is also a great idea. I’ve covered loads of upgrades, so take your pick from the following list if this is something that you’d be interested in improving:

For quality parts and more information, click HERE.

However, don’t worry too much about guitar gear for gigs, use what you’ve got for now, you can always upgrade in the future when you have more experience and know what type of equipment you need for the types of concerts you will be playing.

The Sound Check

Sound checks can make or break a concert, so use them wisely.

First, set up the equipment. This will obviously vary greatly depending on what type of band you are and what instrumentation you use. But basically, set everything up in the same way as bands that you like and have seen play live.

Once everything is in place and working, run through a song, or two if there’s time. The more comfortable and confident you feel on the stage, the better, and the best way to ensure that is to spend time on it.

It’s unlikely that your band will be going through a PA (public address) system with a sound engineer, so how do you get a good, balanced sound? Well, the best way to get the levels right is for the singer, guitarist, or bassist - drummers, and keyboard players need to stay put - to use a very long guitar lead and stand out in front of the band where the audience will be. Start with the drums - because they have no volume control - then ask the bassist to play along and tell them if they are too loud or too quiet. Once that’s in balance, add the other instruments one at a time, until the whole band sounds the way you want it to.

Top Guitar Stage Tip: Don’t take anything for granted - don’t assume that there will be an electrical outlet exactly where you need it, there won’t be, so take a power strip, or better still, a few of them with multi-plugs on the end. Also, don’t assume that there will be a table you can put your combo on, there might be, or you could put it on some beer crates, but if you have something small and foldable that will hold your amp safely, take that with you, just in case.

Sounds stupid, but you also need to take spare strings, spare picks, and anything else that you might lose or break. Playing your first gig as guitarist will make you nervous enough; don’t make it worse by worrying about playing guitar live with only five strings on it.

Time to Take the Stage

For 99% of people, this is by far the most nerve-racking part of any performance. However, this is actually a good thing, because from my own experience, as well as for nearly every musician I know, as soon as you start playing the first song, your mind goes into concentration mode and the nerves get much less and usually disappear completely.

So, you’ve only got to get from where you are before the gig starts to where your gear is, put on your guitar, adjust your amp or pedals, if necessary, and wait for the drummer to hit the sticks together four times before you’re into the first song. In most cases, that is usually about five minutes or less, so, all being well, you should only be really nervous about the gig for that amount of time.

However, there is another nerve point, usually at the end of the first song. You’ve been concentrating on playing well throughout the song, so you’re mind has been occupied, but when it comes to an end, the silence can re-ignite those nerves. Hopefully, that silence is filled with the roar of the audience and a chorus of happy people clapping and cheering, but if not, the nerves can kick in again. But don’t worry, they will disappear once more, as soon as you start the second song.

The Rest of the Gig

From then on, it should get easier and easier as you get more comfortable on stage in front of a live audience. But if the nerves do come back, remember that they will more than likely go away as soon as you start playing the next song.

Wrapping it Up

We’ve come to the end of my in-depth live guitar performance guide and top tips for guitarists before you play your first gig.

However, the most important thing to remember is to have a great time. No one is expecting you to produce a perfect performance in your first concert as a guitarist, just do your best and enjoy every minute of it, even the mistakes. You’ll only ever play your first gig once in your life, so savour every moment and don’t beat yourself up if things do go wrong, it has happened to the best, it might happen to you, so stay cool and go with the flow.

Plus, you’ll learn so much from your first live performance that will make your second one better, and your third, and fourth!

All the very best with your first gig, enjoy it, and knock ‘em dead!

Ian Davies

Über 30 Jahre Erfahrung in der Musikindustrie, zunächst als Gitarrist in meinen eigenen Bands, dann als Session-Gitarrist. Dann wurde ich von dem kreativen Produktionsprozess fasziniert und wechselte in die Studioarbeit, begann als Assistent und arbeitete mich bis zum Produzenten hoch. In diesen Jahren habe ich mit zahlreichen Größen der Branche zusammengearbeitet. Heute besitze und betreibe ich ein professionelles 48-Spur-Residential-Aufnahmestudio in Thailand, in dem ich mit vielen der größten Acts Thailands arbeite sowie Bands aus der ganzen Welt aufnehme, produziere, mische und mastere, sowohl aus der Ferne als auch für diejenigen, die sich entscheiden, in Thailand aufzunehmen.