Damn right, a gig is a gig.

I had never considered myself having any "playing out" experience until a discussion with my brother in law. He lives in San Francisco and would perform with his acoustic guitar at open mics. I told him that was cool and I wish I could do something like that. He then pointed out that by me playing in our church chior, I had way more people listening to me play than he did. He had a point. Which comes back to what you said...a gig is a gig. You'll have more people listening to you play than most of us here I suspect.