Longest practice or gig session....

[Bangbang]

....in one sitting...no break? Three hours for me. I am going to go for 4 tonight.

[Bangbang]

Bump.....I am amazed this did not get any replies. Does anyone actually play here?

[clarkuss]

I have a regular 6 hour practice on a wednesday 9-3 but we normally have breakfast on arrival and lunch halfway through. I played a song for about 45mins last night during a drunken comedy improvisation around a friend's house. Longest gig I've played has probably been about an hour and a half straight through.

[charlie brown]

Pretty regular (2 times a month) 6 hour gig, no breaks...They bring us beer or (in my case) diet soda, or water,

whenever we ask for it. But, we like playing so, it never seems like 6 hours, etc. Had one "Ten hour" gig, that was an outdoor thing, that lasted about 48 hours (in the late '60's)...where various bands shared 3 stages. Our part of the gig was from mid-afternoon (2PM) to Midinight...then the others took over... That's one reason I find it so "odd" that bands nowadays only play 30 minutes to an hour, then they change bands, sometimes 4-6 times, a night. Hardly seems worth the effort (to me)...but, it's the way it is, I guess, and to each his/her own.

 

CB

[RobinTheHood]

We practice once a week from 8pm-11pm straight through. No breaks. No biggie.

Funny, During our last practice, I was thinking about practice time compared to gig time.

A three hour practice seems like nothing, really. But a three hour gig would be very draining.

It's amazing how much time a band puts in practicing for a 40 minute show.

[AS90]

I once hit 1000 balls on the driving range, thought my arm was going to drop off the next day!!

 

I play guitar for 2-3 hours regulary.

[midiman56]

90 minute gig nightly Tuesday through Saturday, rehersal twice a week or as needed, play at home throughout the day as the spirit moves me (or if I have to learn something new!).

 

JIm

[Notes_Norton]

Longest gig - no breaks - 6 hours. We did 4 hours straight and the host came up, put a couple of $100 bills on the keyboard and asked us if we could play another hour, we said yes. Near the end of that hour he put a couple more on the keyboard and asked for another hour, we said yes. At the end of 6 the greed in us was hoping for more and the need in us was hoping he wouldn't ask. He didn't.

 

Notes

[zombywoof]

Probably at an open air gig I played in summer 1968. We were closing the thing and the band that was supposed to go on before us did not show. They asked us to go on early and I guess we played maybe 3 1/2 to 4 hours straight. We did throw in a few instrumentals to give the singer a break though. Also, I had performed earlier in the day with an acosutic blues band and then did a second sessio0n sitting in backing a local folk singer so I had a pretty long day.

 

I have played some gigs in private clubs with no last bell where the owner would make us stay on the stage even if there was only one person still left hanging around. Probably the longest would have started at 9 in the evening lasting till maybe 4 in the a.m. Did get a few short breaks in there though.

[Dylan1281734152]

Many years ago, I played in a band that closed each show with "Sweet Home Chicago". On one occasion, we played an outdoor going-away party for a friend and a member of the band who had joined the army. We always opened the song up for improv solos, and managed to keep the song rolling for about an hour and a half. None of us really wanted the night to end. We were pretty young, and it must have sounded horrible, but it was fun.

 

Dylan

[Dave]

When I was in a regularly gigging band from the mid sixties until about 1985, we were booked every Friday and Saturday night, generally for 3-4 hours a night. We practiced once a week for about 3 hours. Now, I play in a Christian Contemporary Band where we play one hour from 9-10 on Sunday morning and practice about and hour and a half on Sunday night.

 

Our band has a 5 member sub group that plays an occassional gig doing classic rock tunes. We did a fancy wedding reception under a huge white tent at a nice lakefront home this past Saturday. We played from 5-8 and had a ball. There was a guy set up doing Karaoke during our breaks and a pro soundman who mic'ed everything and monitored levels for us. FWIW, he traveled with Grinderswitch during their heyday and ran sound for them all over the country. It was a very enjoyable gig where we got to do a lot of Skynyrd, Clapton, and other tunes from those days.

 

I'll have pictures in a few days. You will get to see my bald head above my Heritage Cherry Flametop Les Paul (grin).

[Stig]

A band I was in did a 24 hour lockdown at a recording studio.

[Axe2Grind123]

At a house party, we just played all night - lots of musicians there and people would take shifts so it was like bands being formed and reformed, lots of different styles playing together. Metal with rock with jazz with blues, that was a cool night. I honestly don't know how long it went on, all I can say is "all night" -lol

[tsiratiug]

I've done quite a few 6hr+ jam sessions over the years. I don't count all night studio sessions because there's so much down time when recording. The longest for a paying gig.... I was a member of a music festival house band that played behind the local singers and songwriters that didn't have their own band - those days were easily 10-12 hours. We'd start around 9-10am and finish up around 8-9pm when the pro national acts took the stage.