You most memorable gig?

I just had the WORST gig of my life. I played for a professor's class a couple of days ago. I was given 2 days to learn 30 songs and play 2 familiar songs. Everything went great until the end. During my introduction, I explained my musical background and that I started playing thrash and death metals. At the end of the class, a guy in the back asked to hear me play something crazy. I tried to obliged and totally failed. I started off playing some really fast shreddy scale things. It did not impress I don't think. Then, my skill significantly dropped. I tried playing Anesthesia Pulling Teeth and messed up like 5 notes in the first 20 seconds. I had to stop myself around 40 seconds. Then I decided I'd play a solo I wrote that would be fun and take a good 5 minutes to get through. I bombed. I was so embarrassed. I messed up like 30 times a minute. Again, I had to end the class by stopping, pretending to laugh it off, and tell the class I'm just not on my A game that day. It has really screwed it's way into my heart. I feel like a beginner now.

The only thing that I noticed getting a great reaction was from my voice oddly enough, which I'm not super proud of. I played bass and sang the words to the "Duck Tales" theme. Once I started singing, I saw the faces of a lot of students look shocked and light up. Makes me wonder if I should put the bass gear on ebay and just invest in a microphone :)

Seriously though, the failed playing has still not been shaken yet. I feel incomplete somehow now.

cheer up, everyone has bad performances... I once forgot to play a solo at a pretty big show (at least 400 people attending) and when I tried to come back in I played in the wrong key completely, got in the right key and flubbed a ton of notes and then the singer had the balls to say my name after the solo section just making the embarrassment worse.... I mean, my mom was at that one, I felt like such a wanker and that whole show was one of my all time worst, a real low point

but I played more shows and it faded after about a year.... I honestly haven't thought about it for 5 or 6 years until today when I was trying to thin of something similar that happened to me so I could give you a pep talk

this dude threw down a challenge, you decided to be really impressive and your subconscious betrayed you... if you take anything from this let it be this; you are only as good as you are on your worst day, so don't be too quick to show off...

I'm still a bit of a smack talker when it comes to music because its hard not to be a know it all when you have a huge wealth of legit knowledge, but I definitely don't show off when I play anymore because the older I got the more frequently I would be thinking I was going to impress people and I would wind up embarrassing myself or some unassuming dude at an open jam would hop up and blow me away without trying to even though I was playing my absolute best... the worst is when you're showing off your chops and some dude just throws something down that's simple, easy to execute, but beautiful and he makes your flash sound like garbage... so yeah, I think there's a moral to this story, which is that you coulda easily answered the guy's request for something crazy by saying you would rather play music the whole class would enjoy or answer general questions about music and playing the bass -- AND once you did bomb you might've pointed out to the class that the great thing about music is that, unlike a lot of other activities in life, its not a contest

I will add: if we never stumble... we never better ourselves. I have assumed crash and burn when a string breaks live, mid solo and quickly mashed something out, only to review the audio later and pick magic moments from the panic and incorporate them into future shows/ solos.

32 songs in two days... that is impressive as all Boom! Be proud of that.

So a guy threw a challenge out... and it didn't work the way you wanted. If you had nailed everything you played.. including the improve, the class would have been less impressed. They got to hear a Musician, playing for the love of it.. not the songs he was told to learn, something that is a part of who he is.

Likely they did not notice. Not all people know all songs, and what you viewed as a catastrophe, could have been the different viewpoint to a song that provides someone in that room with a catalyst to go forward and make something magical.

Be proud of your show. You blew them away.

One thought that keeps crossing my mind is, "Why didn't I ask him to name a song he wanted to hear?" That would have been easier for me I think if he named something he liked and maybe was easier to play.