To Play In A Club Again or Not

The band I play has been offered a ton of gigs now that things are reopening, but I'm just not sure about performing in clubs again.

You may or may not know, but I have been a life long musician. I have made several records and have toured all over.

Later in life I got into radio and found a new love but my love for playing guitar has never stopped.

While in radio, I managed to make one more record and do shows with bands like Godsmack, Sevendust, Tesla, Theory of a Deadman, Collective Soul and many more.

As I got older and radio was just too busy for being in an original band, I decided along with some of my buds to put together a cover band and make it like it was our bowling league. We would practice once a week then do a show a month.

Well after a while the band got better, the crowds got bigger and the demand for the band was much higher.

Most guys did not want to play as much as we were, so I slowly lost each guy but at the same time replacing them with a lineup that was more suitable to play much higher end gigs.

Then we started doing casinos and traveling around the Midwest and really started playing way more than I had anticipated, but the band was great and it was a lot of fun.

We were planning to go on a hiatus at the end of April of 2020 so a member could temporarily move to Nashville for some writing projects while another goes on a national tour and were going to reconvene in the fall.

Well, the pandemic hit and our last gig was at the B.O.B. in Grand Rapids March 14. I really wasn't sure what was going to happen and being a dad I was more concerned with my son, my job and my health to worry about a part time music career.

Now that things are reopening the gigs are starting to come in right and left and normally that would be a good thing. I'm just not hip on being in big crowds and not sure I want to get in a room filled with people.

Now that things are getting back to a semi normality, one of the guys is still going to Nashville and the other is awaiting his touring plans for later in the year so the band is still going to go on hiatus.

I was asked to do a couple really high paying gigs in the next couple weeks to help send off the two members with some extra cash while saying goodbye to some long time followers of the band.

I am thinking of doing the shows but I don't want to offend anyone who wants a hug or a high five, but on those things, I am definitely not there yet. Plus, I refuse to leave the stage area other than to go outside on breaks to be in fresh air.

I don't know for sure what I'm going to do yet but I have 24 hours to figure it out and is the money really worth it? I guess I have some serious thinking to do.