When you play live do you get stage fright?

We have all been there, right before going on stage you are riddled with nerves. What do you do? Some people might pull out of the gig completely but then your reputation would be ruined. The majority of people would continue to play the gig but their performance would definately be affected . This is definately a common problem as you obviously want a good reputation for your band. In this article I am going to give you some advice that will help with this problem and I will also share some of my personal experiences.

Before your gig you need to make sure you have all your material learnt perfectly because if you can't play without making a mistake in rehearsal then how do you think you will play when fifty people are watching your every move? Also if you are about to play a gig and you know you aren't ready this will definately make you more nervous, if you go into a gig thinking you will make a mistake then you probably will. It's true what they say, the best defence is a good offence so make sure you know everything inside out.

Before you go onstage to play your piece just remember why you are doing this. You love music, music is your life and your dream is to make a living from it. This will give you some perspective and will help you feel the music and go with the flow, if you feel the music then your nerves will go away as you will be reminded of why you got into playing music in the first place.

If you do end up making a mistake because of nerves it's not the end of the world. I have experiences of this, once at a gig with the last song we were playing my mind went completely blank even though we had been playing that particular song for the last few months, I wasn't too happy for the next wee while and it gave me the motivation to work my ass off and by the next gig we had we definately made people forget about the disaster beforehand.

Many people say imagine the audience naked and that will make you less nervous, personally I've never tried it and I'm not sure if it would work for me, I might lose concentration and make a mistake lol.
The main thing to remember is if you get nervous playing gigs and even after you followed my advice above you are still nervous it's perfectly normal and the more gigs you do the more comfortable you will get playing infront of large crowds.

Have fun playing!!