10 Musicians & Comedians Recall Their First Performances

Lead photo of Mark Kozelek at his very first performance

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Most of us have dreamed of taking the stage in front of thousands of enamored, ecstatic fans. Selling out shows, being admired, respected, beloved. Hearing thousands of people singing our words or laughing at our jokes..

We don’t dream of performing in front of six people. But, as the old saying goes, “Everybody starts somewhere.” And nobody starts in Madison Square Garden. People start in dive bars and little clubs, in living rooms, on sidewalks. In open mics and talent shows. The dream is an audience of 10,000 people; the reality is an audience of 10. We hear and see a lot about the former, not so much about the latter.

So we’ve gathered a group of quick interviews with notable musicians and comedians, in which they share experiences of the first times they performed in public. The common themes: They were terrified, and the experience wasn’t exactly transcendent. We also requested some advice for those who wish to perform but have never done it before.

4. Grant Widmer (Generationals)

How’d you end up performing for the first time?
My first performance ever was the first show of our old band The Eames Era. We lived in Baton Rouge, and one of us had a friend in another band who had a show coming up at a bar right off campus. We promised them that we would get all our friends to come out so they put us on the bill.

What do you remember most about that first performance?
I just remember it being really cold. It was an outdoor stage in the middle of December, right in the middle of finals for school. We practiced for the show for months, almost every day. I remember Ted, the other guy in Generationals who was also in The Eames Era, had a big architecture final the morning after the show. He failed the class.

What advice can you give people who want to perform but have never done it before?
If you act like everything that happens was done on purpose, no one will question you.

5. Peter Silberman (The Antlers)

How’d you end up performing for the first time?
I was probably 11 years old when my first band got a gig. We were gonna play the talent show at our short-lived hangout, The Teen Lounge. The place was pretty abysmal, but a decent alternative to the mall. We needed a name to sign ourselves up, and we landed on “The Illusion” (again, we were 11). There were four of us—three guitars and one drummer. We thought it would be epic to begin our set by running down the staircase that descended to the stage (and by “stage” I mean the cleared-out corner of the TV room.) Maybe 10 other acts signed up, and we tied for winner with a group of older kids that did magic tricks.

What do you remember most about that first performance?
As dumb as the whole thing was, I still remember feeling a very real strength in loud noise, of our team facing people we were used to seeing every day, screaming in their faces with deafening sound. It was a way to release frustrations and fantasies at a time we were all becoming painfully self-aware.

What advice can you give people who want to perform but have never done it before?
Don’t overthink it, and be aware of when doubt and insecurity keep you from doing what you need to do. Performing is a really strange and unique opportunity to be as weird as you want in front of other people. It’s at once disconnected from you as a person and intensely connected to a side of yourself people rarely or never see. That side of you is probably kind of fucked up, and that’s OK. Better to give Mr. Hyde a stage than free reign over the rest of your life.

6. Brian Rosenworcel (Guster)

How’d you end up performing for the first time?
My high school band, Toejamb, played an open mic night at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, Mass.

What do you remember most about that first performance?
We broke a guitar string about 10 seconds into the first song, nobody could hear one another, and I thought it was a trainwreck. The five people in the audience clapped anyway.

What advice can you give people who want to perform but have never done it before?
The more you do it, the better you get at it, so just get the first one out of the way and keep at it. Fail, fail, and fail again… that’s the best way to succeed.