My first gig

Me c 1979 playing an Ovation Matrix electric/acoustic guitar
I first began to involve myself in Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) during the early part of 1974, just after I came to faith. Armed with just an acoustic guitar and a few self-penned songs, I began to play short sets in cafes and church halls - in fact anywhere I could get a spot.

My first ever 'concert' consisted of just four songs and a few stories, which I put together when I was invited to play an evening slot on the Royal Air Force camp my father was stationed at, just outside Hereford in a village called Credential. I was just 16 years old. It was an evening organised by SASRA - the Soldiers and Airmen's Scripture Readers Association, which was being held in one of the airmen's bars on the camp. The audience was mainly young RAF apprentices, just out of school, who were there to basically have a few beers and let off some steam after a hard day of training.

When it came for my time to perform my songs, I walked nervously up to the stage, and placed my music and lyric sheets carefully onto the stand.

I played my first chord, and the music stand promptly collapsed with a loud clatter, scattering my music sheets all over the stage. The audience cheered, and I blushed. It was an inauspicious start to my career as a CCM artist, but it taught me two important lessons. Firstly, I learnt that I should be more self reliant, and after that evening, I very rarely used a music stand again. All the songs and lyrics were memorised in my head. Secondly, whatever happens on stage, you need to just keep going, as if nothing has happened. The show must go on.

I picked up my sheets, gathered my composure, and began playing and singing, and ultimately, the evening went very well. I had managed to play my first full concert and left the stage unscathed to polite applause. I was a little embarrassed by the mishap, but it was a start.

Creative Commons License
My first gig by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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