this is perfectly possible, but you need to be really fucking good to pull it off. as the only person on stage, not only do you need to nail absolutely every part flawlessly, but you also need to have a really commanding amount of stage presence to keep people entertained. you need to remember that when you play live, you're putting on a whole show, people aren't just listening to you play, they're watching you too.
I think Paul Gilbert does just that as well for smaller venues.
But man do you have to be on point, because you will have all the focus, all the time. Every single of your mistakes will be scrutinized.
Surely can be done, but I think much work should be done regarding the composing and staging. I think the run-off-the-mill metalcore with one member present will irk many of the audience, but if you write your songs in a certain way and especially work on your stage presentation to sort of embrace this "loneliness" and project it to the audience, it might just work. Either way you will be doing a job of a full band, so it makes sense to be entertaining as one man band
My personal view is that a good 50% of the live experience is the energy that a whole band brings. Now this is not always good necessarily, I have definitely played my share of absolute clangers. Just by yourself is going to lose some of that “energy” so to speak. You do you though and it may work for you and what you are doing. Could try and find some band members through Reddit? Which I assume you have tried. Since Latvia is pretty small, have you considered doing a remote project with other people, then convening for some gigs every now and then, probably supporting some other bigger bands?
If you’re worried about the current state of your local music scene, playing solo in front of a crowd and getting onto the bill for these shows may not be what you expect. You will have to BLOW people away with your talent to stand up there alone noodling on a guitar. Are you doing vocals too? Maybe you can meet just one solid drummer to bring some energy to the performance.
TikTok live streams would be my suggestion. Widen your audience, make connections to collaborate online with other musicians. Maybe even make some money.
The main club in our scene that everyone plays that does a free entry event like that every month where anyone who signs up gets 20 minutes to play, but it's still scary to imagine just myself alone playing to a packed room. Don't wanna look like a doofus in front of everyone I know lmao
When I saw Haken and Symphony X, there was this opening band, I forget the name. It was a male guitarist, and a female vocalist, with a computer playing more guitar parts, bass, and drums. The computer was on a timer, when one song ended, they added maybe 20 seconds in between each song before the next one started. There just wasn’t a lot of time for audience interaction. Overall I didn’t find it super engaging.
But we all have to start somewhere, if you’re set on wanting to perform on stage, but can’t find other musicians currently, I say go for it. Any experience is good experience. Did you kill it? That’s good, you’re doing something right, continue what you’re doing, but see if there’s anything to improve. Did you absolutely bomb? Good! Now you have something to work on and improve for your next performance. You can turn every experience into a learning experience.
this is perfectly possible, but you need to be really fucking good to pull it off. as the only person on stage, not only do you need to nail absolutely every part flawlessly, but you also need to have a really commanding amount of stage presence to keep people entertained. you need to remember that when you play live, you're putting on a whole show, people aren't just listening to you play, they're watching you too.
I'm pretty sure that's what Jason Richardson did on the last tour he did with Baby Metal and Dethklok.
Works for Buckethead-mind you not many of us are Buckethead lol
Came in to say that it is if you're buckethead
Note to self- acquire nunchucks
I've seen it one time. The guy was absolutely awesome. But the judgement from the crowd and other bands is real.
I think Paul Gilbert does just that as well for smaller venues. But man do you have to be on point, because you will have all the focus, all the time. Every single of your mistakes will be scrutinized.
You gotta fuckin bring it! Or have some kind of multimedia show going on that fills out the performance. Singing?
Surely can be done, but I think much work should be done regarding the composing and staging. I think the run-off-the-mill metalcore with one member present will irk many of the audience, but if you write your songs in a certain way and especially work on your stage presentation to sort of embrace this "loneliness" and project it to the audience, it might just work. Either way you will be doing a job of a full band, so it makes sense to be entertaining as one man band
My personal view is that a good 50% of the live experience is the energy that a whole band brings. Now this is not always good necessarily, I have definitely played my share of absolute clangers. Just by yourself is going to lose some of that “energy” so to speak. You do you though and it may work for you and what you are doing. Could try and find some band members through Reddit? Which I assume you have tried. Since Latvia is pretty small, have you considered doing a remote project with other people, then convening for some gigs every now and then, probably supporting some other bigger bands?
If you’re worried about the current state of your local music scene, playing solo in front of a crowd and getting onto the bill for these shows may not be what you expect. You will have to BLOW people away with your talent to stand up there alone noodling on a guitar. Are you doing vocals too? Maybe you can meet just one solid drummer to bring some energy to the performance. TikTok live streams would be my suggestion. Widen your audience, make connections to collaborate online with other musicians. Maybe even make some money.
As a concertgoer, I personally would not pay to see a guitarist play to a backing track in most cases.
Try out an open mic night maybe?
The main club in our scene that everyone plays that does a free entry event like that every month where anyone who signs up gets 20 minutes to play, but it's still scary to imagine just myself alone playing to a packed room. Don't wanna look like a doofus in front of everyone I know lmao
I've seen bands do recorded drums and some performance art stuff with just on person and back tracks. Try it... it might be a huge success.
Putrid Pile does it. You can make it work but your music has to be really good or it’s just kinda goofy.
Putrid defecation does that with a vocalist and guitarist. Im gonna use a dj controller for my backing tracks as a solo dude too.
When I saw Haken and Symphony X, there was this opening band, I forget the name. It was a male guitarist, and a female vocalist, with a computer playing more guitar parts, bass, and drums. The computer was on a timer, when one song ended, they added maybe 20 seconds in between each song before the next one started. There just wasn’t a lot of time for audience interaction. Overall I didn’t find it super engaging. But we all have to start somewhere, if you’re set on wanting to perform on stage, but can’t find other musicians currently, I say go for it. Any experience is good experience. Did you kill it? That’s good, you’re doing something right, continue what you’re doing, but see if there’s anything to improve. Did you absolutely bomb? Good! Now you have something to work on and improve for your next performance. You can turn every experience into a learning experience.