I had my first gig today... and to say the least, it was rather interesting.

My gig members and I practiced numerous times and we eventually sounded amazing as a group (we were practicing to perform Kansas's Carry On Wayward Son, my favorite song in fact); and they all did amazing, but when the actual performance came around, that's when it got a little intense...

I had my hopes up extremely high; I was like, "there's no way there's gonna be any mistakes". And technically, there wasn't; but right there, right then, I had some pretty bad luck: my guitar strap broke.

The vocalist did his part. He was amazing. The drums came in, and I was ready. We played the first two main riffs. We sounded amazing. The intro solo, everyone was doing amazing, except when my strap broke. I was struggling every note, holding the guitar up on my lifted knee.

Luckily, I could sit out the first verse. However, I didn't have enough time to fix my strap even then; the drummer quickly gave me a stool to sit on so I could fix it (he spared me well; I was so silently gratified that he had done that, otherwise I would've struggled through the whole thing and messed up the entire gig).

Then, my part of the verse comes in (where everything else kicks in), and I'm not doing so well; the strap's still broken, and I had to stand up to set the effects pedal to clean. But, luckily, the stool's there, so I'm saved for now. Chorus and main riff again; gotta stand up to push the petal to distroted, but fast enough not to miss it.

So that part's okay. I sit down and play the main riff. But then, I have to stand up once more to set the effects petal back to clean, for the second verse. But I wasn't fast enough; the second verse already started.

But this left me the opportunity to fix the strap. So I did, and I sat out the rest of the first half of the second verse, and came in on the second half, the way I normally would've in the first verse.

The rest of the performance, we all did great; I couldn't have done that alone, especially thanks to the drummer for giving me a helping hand.

At first I was really kind of pitying the strap incident; I heard the crowd cheering, but I figured it was for the other guys' amazing talents.

But I realized something; the song was kind of teaching me with its own lyrics.

"Carry on my wayward son". I did that, sorta. My strap broke, and I could've been freaking out and demanding the band to stop playing, but, I didn't.

"I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high". I was. I got my hopes up way too high, really expecting this to be a flawless gig; but really, it was my first gig, so I really shouldn't expect it to be perfect.

People told me it was a good recovery. I was starting to think they were only telling me that to be nice, but I thought on that. True, it would've been hundreds of times better had the strap not broken, but it did, and I guess for what happened, it went much better than what I was about to do: stop the band to fix my strap. It wasn't in anyone's control that it happened, there was no booing, plus, we sounded great afterwards (as a group; once again, I couldn't have done it alone). There was cheering.

Nonetheless, it's been a crazy, almost life-changing experience, all in a day's work. In the end, I was rather proud of the recovery (not to boast), and I've seen Angus in an ACDC concert, when his strap broke; he continued, and nobody seemed to care. The strap incident threw me off a bit, but the rest of the performance, wasn't bad.

It taught me something, and I hope it teaches you something, too: don't get your hopes up, and should you be disappointed, carry on. That's what the song has told me all along, really.

Playing in a gig was fun nevertheless, despite the unluckiness, and I'm still motivated to do any more gig opportunities that come up.

Plus, it was the last day of shool, so yay :D