Gig Survival Tips...

So you've joined a band, spent hours practicing your songs (we hope) and now you've got your first gig coming up. You're excited, nervous and everything in between, but there are a few things you need to consider BEFORE the night to make sure you've got all the bases covered.

1) Spare Snare Head - If you turn up to a gig without a spare head/skin for your snare, you deserve what you get. There's no telling what will happen at a gig and usually, everything that can go wrong does. Buy a new skin and put it in the bottom of your snare drum case (you do have a soft/hard case don't you?)

2) Water (Lots of) - It can get REAL hot on stage and you wouldn't believe how much you'll need a drink of water after 2-3 songs. Get a couple of bottles of water to take on stage, you'll be glad you did.

3) Spare Sticks - If I see one more idiot come to a gig with one pair of sticks, I'm going to do something decidedly unpleasant to said drummer. Unless you're 100% sure you'll never drop/break a stick you NEED at least 2 pairs. I take 3 pairs to a gig which unless I'm incredibly unlucky/clumsy should be enough.

4) Emergency Kit - Every drummer should have an emergency kit consisting of the following:

• Drum Key - Preferably a quick key for swift skin/head changes
• Felts - These WILL go missing, make sure you have some spares
• Plastic Tubing - This goes between your cymbals and the stand pole so you don't get metal on metal contact. These are probably the #1 most common things that disappear at a gig.
• Snare Chord - If you have chord on your snare mechanism, get a spare. Inveitably it's going to snap and you don't want your snare to sound like St Anger do you?
• Hi Hat Clutch - You'd be surprised how often these go missing. Drummers "forget" to take them off their cymbals so keep an eye if people are using your hardware.
• Spare Guitar Strings - Eh??!! Yes that's right, you don't need strings for a drum kit, but unless your guitarist is organised, it's definitely worth keeping a set of Ernie Ball Super Slinkys in your kit. Pray you never need them but if you do, you'll be "the man"
• Assorted Wingnuts / Bolts - If you strip the thread on a cymbal stand bolt, it's worth having a few spare for emergencies.
• Duck/Duct Tape - You know the black/grey tape you can get which holds most of the music establishments together. Wrap some around a biro and put it in your kit for patch jobs on skins/cymbal stands. As long as it lasts through your set, that's all that matters

This is the bare minimum that I take to a gig, check out our other articles on gigging for some more information on what to expect.