They say everyone remembers their first time. No, we’re not talking about what you think we’re talking about. We’re talking about the first time a musician sets foot on a stage with the express purpose of entertaining the audience with their tunes.
Nic Wilson, guitarist for veteran homegrown indie rockers British India, definitely remembers his, and he recently recounted it for Going Down Swinging, explaining how losing his “onstage V plates” didn’t actually happen with British India.
At the time, Wilson was a student at Melbourne’s St Bede’s secondary college and had banded together with two other hormonal boys to play an admittedly out of tune and out of time cover of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxey Lady’ during the school’s annual talent show.
“In those days, if you lived near someone who had a cheap knock-off bass or drum kit, you were automatically in a band with them,” Wilson writes. “Brothers in arms forever, or at least until you weren’t. Genre clashes and personality differences were a minor detail.”
According to Wilson, his first gig was on a rainy day in 1999. “The distinctly stale smell of soggy school blazers and Lynx Africa hung heavy in the air. Rock’n’roll was far from what the kids were listening to at the time, so the odds were stacked against us,” he writes.
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“My executive decision not to include a beat boxer in our outfit was starting to seem like a bad one.” Despite those odds, the band actually managed to capture the attention of the crowd and Wilson was soon duck-walking and playing the guitar with his teeth like a real rock god.
“Our performance was a humble moment that pales in comparison to some of the unique opportunities I have had playing with British India. We were without a doubt hideously out of time and tune in equal proportions,” Wilson adds. “But god it felt good.”
Readers can check out Wilson’s full article via Going Down Swinging here, or listen to him, very much in tune and in time, with British India below.
