Music Gig Quotes & Sayings

Not everyone who comes to Luna's on gig nights is here to see me. Some people are actually more interested in the coffee. Or the scones. Or in hitting on Emily."
"Oh, I didn't say I wasn't' here to hit on Em," I say. "Just that hitting on Em and enjoying your music aren't mutually exclusive. — Sarah Ockler

Hopefully, there's a place in music for Tinted Windows. If we're really trying to be iconic, we should just stop right now. If one of us could die, that would also help. But I don't think anybody wants that gig. — Taylor Hanson

I learned how to play the music working with my dad. Because in the beginning I was super excited, I had this gig, I was a kid, I got cocky and didn't want to take lessons. — Eric Hernandez

Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music. — Bonnie Raitt

I listen to everything. As I told you, sometimes I just want to shut off from music and be silent. Then I play a song and it's refreshing. It's almost like initializing yourself. Recently I was in South Africa doing a press day for my tour. I listened to this band called "Freshly Ground." They were doing a live gig there so that's the last thing I've heard. — A.R. Rahman

I would urge a young player to listen to Charlie Christians' sense of time ... I'll never forget listening to my father (Bucky Pizzarelli) and Tal Farlow playing Christians' 'Solo Flight' backstage at a gig ... that's when it hit me how big of an effect Christian had on jazz guitar. 'Solo Flight' was like the gospel ... — John Pizzarelli

My mum's an opera singer: I grew up watching her get swept up in music and transform herself into characters. She taught me that music is a lifelong journey, and that with every day and every song and every gig you learn something new. — Katie Noonan

Most of actor's work is done at home, in your hotel room, in the wee hours of the morning thinking and reading and feeling, walking around and listening to music. It really just because an internal exercise, whatever skills. It's great if you have to learn something new for a gig and designing a character physically is always fun but it does become an internal exercise in separating the wheat from the chaff. — Colin Farrell

My first gig was at Radio City Music Hall when I was 13. — Questlove

There was a band in San Diego, Bluegrass Etc, that played a weekly gig. My parents would take my brother and me every Saturday night for 7 or 8 years. Sean and I started taking lessons with them and they gave us a great foundation in bluegrass instrumentation. They were the lens through which I saw music for a very long time. — Sara Watkins

Boys are adorable. Boys trail off their sentences in an appealing way. Boys bring a knapsack to work. Boys get haircuts from their roommate, who "totally knows how to cut hair." Boys can pack up their whole life in a duffel bag and move to Brooklyn for a gig if they need to. Boys have "gigs." Boys are broke. And when they do have money, they spend it on a trip to Colorado to see a music festival. Boys don't know how to adjust their conversation when they're talking to their friends or to your parents. They put parents on the same level as their peers and roll their eyes when your dad makes a terrible pun. Boys let your parents pay for dinner when you all go out. It's assumed. — Mindy Kaling

When I graduated college, I had a fairly successful weekly club gig and was buying more studio equipment and writing my own music. I realized I didn't want to work. — Kaskade

After filming, I can't wait to shake off all that '50s primness. I'll go out to a gig and dance ridiculously. I love to lose myself in music. Just letting go - it's dead important. — Jessica Raine

I made music with my friend, who we called Isabella Machine to which I was Florence Robot. When I was about an hour away from my first gig, I still didn't have a name, so I thought 'Okay, I'll be Florence Robot/Isa Machine', before realising that name was so long it'd drive me mad. — Florence Welch

I had a dream about you. You were a stranger playing a gig in this pub where I was waitressing. I felt like I knew you or needed to, so I asked you to have a few drinks with me. Then my alarm went off. I sat up in bed to see you still sleeping. I'm glad I decided to wear a kilt that summer while I was in school. — Crystal Woods

I'm not conscious of the speed ... it's not my motive ... my motive is displaying a voice through the fingerboard ... it can get to the point where I don't have control over what I am playing ... I never end the gig until I can't sing anymore — Alvin Lee

River looks at me for a beat, dragging his tongue over his lower lip before continuing. "This is how I remember it. I was singing a gig at the USC Campus Bar. During a break I went to grab a beer. I met the most incredible girl whom I don't think even knew that I sang in the band, but loved music. We seemed to hit it off. We did a couple of shots, drank a few drinks, and talked without any pretense. I asked her to wait for me after the show. She didn't say anything about having a boyfriend or not sticking around and then when I finished she was gone. — Kim Karr

Little Wing is like one of these beautiful girls that come around sometimes ... you play your gig; it's the same thing as the olden days, and these beautiful girls come around.. you do actually fall in love with them because that's the only love you can have. It's not always the physical thing of "Oh, there's one over there ... ", it's not one of those scenes. They actually tell you something. They release different things inside themselves ... "Little Wing" was a very sweet girl that came around that gave me her whole life and more if I wanted it ... — Jimi Hendrix

When I had my first gig, I was 18 in January in 2007. My first gig that I got paid, I was playing for 10 people in a 250 people capacity venue. The promoter wanted to book me because he liked my music. I played a couple of songs that made people dance. To me, that rush has always stayed the same. — Afrojack

Touring with King Crimson wasn't a lot of fun for me. I had a lot of equipment, and when I was in improvised music I'd set it up myself, play the gig, and put it all away again. — Jamie Muir

I don't really think of these as projects. I think of them as bands. I have tried to not just convene a group of musicians and make one record or make one gig and just drop it. Each of them develop over time. I have been really fortunate to keep a band like the Sextet together over three very different albums. Each time, the goal got more deep for me in terms of how I wanted to write for those people. So it is really about trying to develop ideas and trying to have a consistent focus on a way to come up with new ideas in music that I want to do. — Dave Douglas

I don't tend to set out on huge world domination goals or have anything in mind. I just like to play. I like to gig a lot; I like to write music. — Imelda May

In the end, it is your responsibility to read the small print, whether it is for gig contracts, record contracts, investors, management, booking agents, or anything else. You can blame everyone else for your mistakes, but when you make them, you end up being the one who has to pay. — Loren Weisman

They only want to be there while you're on top, and when you haven't gotten a gig in a while and you don't know how you're going to pay your rent at the end of the month and the glamor they thought they signed up for is gone, they're walking out the door, leaving you to pick up the pieces. — Courtney Giardina

I love entertaining people, I love playing music, and I love rocking like an animal. But at a certain point, you're playing gig after gig after gig, in town after town after town, and you're lying down, staring at another hotel-room ceiling, and it's like, 'I want to be home. I'm a dad. I've got kids.' — Flea

I was so happy and content with in life playing music. Music was always my first job and my day gig was my second job. — Bo Bice

It took us two years to get our first real gig. That was a big dream. We ended up booking a lot of our own gigs and putting on a lot of our own shows. We were trying to get our actual music across, trying to make a connection there. — Greg Ginn

I've never missed a gig yet. Music makes people happy, and that's why I go on doing it - I like to see everybody smile. — Buddy Guy

My music is not for everyone. It's only for the stong-willed, the [street] soldiers music. It's not like party music- I mean, you could gig to it, but it's spiritual. My musi is spiritual. It's like Negro spiituals, except for the fact that I'm not saying 'We shall Overcome.' I'm saying that we are overcome. — Tupac Shakur

Growing up, I always wanted to be in punk bands, so I'm really enjoying the harder, heavier element. It's always been my dream to have people moshing at my gig, kind of that really feral element of the music coming out more. I love crowd-surfing. — Florence Welch

Now I know what happens at a gig, I will be ready for it, next time
I will come in just a T-shirt and shorts and books, and fight my way to the front, like a quietly determined soldier, and then let the band take my head off. I want to walk into rooms like that every night, with a sense of something happening. — Caitlin Moran

Obviously I still gig on my own, but I've always heard my music with a band. — George Ezra

Music is the most natural thing in the world. When we go to a gig and we all like it and we share that experience, it's the same sense of communion as a sacred rite in Borneo or wherever it may be; it just gets dressed up different. Its good for the soul. — Paul Weller

Music is a gut thing. You're working in a medium which is more in touch with the primal than the modern. A gig is a ritual. There's a congregation. — Siobhan Fahey

Since the music industry cracked and fell apart, gasping for the cash flow it had come to expect, much re-thinking has been the order of the day. It is a fine time to be a musician. Like walking through Sodom and Gomorrah while it is still smoking, on your way to the next gig. — Jane Siberry