my upcoming first "gig"

okI live in a small town in Canada and for the first time ever in our school the graduating class wants a classmate (me) to play Oh'Canada on guitar instead of having to bug some little girl to sing it at the cerimonies. And here's the thing Im supposed to play this on may 19th next week! now ive learned the song down pat its all pretty much on the same string so i have the option of adding glorius effects without it sounding like crap. now im wondering whether you guys think it would be approprite to use distortion chorus and wah for all or any part of the song?

ive contemplated starting clean and then kicking on my metal zone for the generaly louder half of the song but im still not sure about how this would effect the audiance.If anybody has some wisdom to give me please do because i don't want to piss people of but i don't to play clean either because i don't feel that that is much diffrent from simply singing the thing.anyway any input here is welcomed. :confused:

don't know the song, but I'd say rock on!! if they don't like what you're playing then they shouldn't have asked you :p

it all depends on you offcourse, what's the purpose of your song, to play for the audience or play it 'your' way, I'd suggest letting some people hear it with and without distortion

Yeah, good idea man, I think it'd sound cool if you started off with sort of a jazzy clean tone, then cranked up the drive for the louder part of the song. I wouldn't throw a Vai and use a whole lot of compression and delay, though - you don't want too sharp a contrast between the soft and loud sections.

By the way, don't ask me how I know the Canadian National Anthem, as I am from Australia. :confused:

lol personaly I like the american one more when it comes to doing it on the guitar
(like hendrix,Satriani,and Zakk wylde) actuallyIi just tried doing the song starting with clean chorus then adding extremely mild overdrive and soon after kicking on the metalzone it sounds nice and thick ) I love it like that but who knows howt the granny's that will be out in the audiance will take it. :cool:

actually my class is very small 9 people! we are a very odd and unique class and i got suspicius when they kept telling to bust a solo during the song as i know they are barely kidding.and im not sure whether i should try to please them or the other 200 people that will be watching and probably won't like what they hear.I guess i can see it two ways first our grad our way or second to be respectful of the hug audiance. :eek: I only now just realized that it will be that many people and my fist time playing on stage. well i guess you may see me replying to the embaressing gigs thread after next weekend great stuff. :D

Do it man! Go balls out. You only live once. If I had a chance to wail the national anthem I'd put in every ounce of feeling I could.

I tried to do a Hendrixed-up "Oh Canada" once, but it was awful. So I vote do it. It's a free country, after all. If the ol' grannies don't like it, ship 'em out to Cuba. :)

Yeah man, rock it out!!

I ws asked to do the national anthem for our Regional Championship basketball game back when I was a senior... My friends had been trying to get the principal and school board to let me do it for a long time... So they finally let me... with one stipulation... I had to play it as true to its written form as possible with very little distortion. They wanted to hear me play it in a tsudo rehearsal to make sure they really wanted to let me... So I brought in my amp and axe and played it for them as clean as could be with a touch of overdrive and compression for some mean sustain....... They said yes... So there I was... In the middle of the Gym with all the lights off... With a spotlight on me in my basketball warm up uniform and my Strat slung low........ I started off just like they planned... nice and clean... then at the part right before it goes "And the rockets red glare!" I busted out a huge sweep and kicked it into major distortion mode and the ran away with the rest of the song in true Hendrix form... All I could hear as soon as I kicked it in was the student section go nuts... The adrenaline kicked in and I was balls out the rest of the way. When the lights came back on the school board and principal, who always line up along one of the baselines, were all cheering and smiling as much as the rest of the crowd was... so I think they got over it. One thing that I got a lot of compliments on it was the fact that I tried to convey the emotions of the song as much as possible. One of my teachers said she got a tear when I hit a huge pinch harmonic in the end where it goes "and the land... of the freeeeeee" I held that note for as long as I could until it broke up.

That was probably the greatest memory I have from high school... and from playing in front of the crowd. I say go for it man... if you're going to do it... you just gotta make up your mind and go for it.

Thanks guys Ive made up my mind to biuld up the song by starting clean with chorus and reverb and then kicking on a little grit from my boss sd-1 then adding the metal zone and finally wah shortly after.
Ive been practising it this way and I must say it has worked out well! I hope I don't choke come friday though ill let you guys know if there is a "Story" to be made from it. I guess thats the worst that can happen. :cool:

I do have a technical question regarding reverb though is it a bad idea to use amp reverb in a crowded highschool gym? I guess ill have to test the natural reverb when i get there and do my sound test. Also I have a powerfull amp but would it still be wiser to mic it up to the P.A.? this has been pressing on my mind for a while now and it is one of my major concerns,this and the reverb thing. I know that dry with delay would likely be the best but i have no dely pedaljust a bunch of reverb options on my amp. so anybody know what i should do?

I was in the same situation when i was in high school. I did a "hendrix-ed" version as well. Lets just say the kids liked it, the teachers weren't so impressed. Although I can see where the teachesr were coming from because it was a Catholic School and it was our end of the year "religious" ceremony. BUT..1) I'm not religious and 2) I was graduating that year and had about 2 days of school left.

Hehe...I remeber starting off with a drummer and another guy on an acoustic guitar playing nice soft chords. Then about half way through where it builds up...I just kicked the OD on and started really blastin' away. The drummer and other guitarist stopped playing ( they were those really strict religious people who like only the right thing ). Oh, the old days...Rock On Man!

hehehe my mom is fairly strict she has been hinting strongly at me that it would be a bad idea but im more than sure im not listening,mostly i hope it pisses the teachers off because theyve put me thru so much crap that i don't even want to get into.but yeah if possible im going to have my GF or sombody capture the moment on video and maybe if i can find a way ill post it for you guys buyt that depends on weather i screw it up or not. anyway i probably won't mess it up but im not even sure how to post videos do you know? are sites for that like there is for music? same sites ive never really looked into it they all seem into the music not nessisarly video. :D

Yeah, you can post videos at www.youtube.com That place has tons of videos posted by people. You can find almost anything.

Thanks to all of you who replied
I have posted how it went in the "your first gig" thread
:cool: