Top 35 Gig Quotes

When I was young, I used to wear a lot of wigs, and I was running on stage at a gig and tripped over and it fell off. It was in the 1970s, and Swansea were doing really well in the league, and most of the team were there. I almost died, but I picked it up, put it back on my head and carried on.

I’ve never missed a gig yet. Music makes people happy, and that’s why I go on doing it – I like to see everybody smile.

I also played with Jimi Hendrix. Jimi would come down and sit in with Retaliation and we would have a ball. He offered me the gig with him at 20 pounds a week, which at that point, was like 60 bucks.

I had a great time on News Radio, I got to make tons of money in relative obscurity and learn a lot about the TV biz and work on my standup act constantly. It was a dream gig.

I enjoy performing, always, but when you’re taping a gig, you’ve got to blank out this mass apparatus of self-consciousness that’s surrounding you, this invitation to drown in self-consciousness. Otherwise you just won’t be able to do anything.

‘Divorce’ was kind of strange because I was going in and out of doing it while doing different movies! So, I kept returning to a set character and this set gig, and that was kind of interesting for me as an actor.

I’m the diva from the future. The next gig’s on the moon. Catch me while you can.

The first gig we ever played was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I’m from. I was in a band called the October Game, and we opened up for a Vancouver band.

When they offered me ‘Wayne’s World 2,’ they said: ‘We were going to give this to another actor, then we thought we’d see you’. I just thought: ‘Surely you always had me in mind for that just in the way that it’s written?’, but they never admitted it. It was a wonderful gig to do. Really special.

I was just thrilled to get the gig to begin with. Ten years later to still have it is not only thrilling but also somewhat of a puzzlement.

I love entertaining people, I love playing music, and I love rocking like an animal. But at a certain point, you’re playing gig after gig after gig, in town after town after town, and you’re lying down, staring at another hotel-room ceiling, and it’s like, ‘I want to be home. I’m a dad. I’ve got kids.’

Everything always looked better in black and white. Everything always looked as if it were the first time; there’s always more people in a black and white photograph. It just makes it seem that there were more people at a gig, more people at a football match, than with colour photography. Everything looks more exciting.

Life is about putting forth your best effort and showing up. When you show up to the gig fearlessly and put forth your best, who knows what could come of it?

In college I had a weekend gig at a restaurant, a solo thing that was the best practice I could have ever had. That’s where I learned to coordinate my singing and my piano playing.

Each gig should be unique. You’re always treading that line between keeping yourself fresh and giving people something they want to hear.

The ‘Rescue Me’ gig was a unique opportunity to play a character – a misanthropic, angry guy – who was so contrary to how people think of me.

I’ve always wanted to do an adult cartoon, because I want a job where you can just drive up in your pajamas, have a cup of tea and not even get dressed, and you’ve gone to work for the day. What a great gig!

The gig economy is empowerment. This new business paradigm empowers individuals to better shape their own destiny and leverage their existing assets to their benefit.

For The Truman Show, I worked for a few weeks, do my gig, then I was done.

I had a gig in Sweden. There were thousands of people there, and when I launched into ‘I’m Yours,’ they were all singing along. It was as if I was singing the Swedish national anthem. I was stunned.

So many of these comics are just frustrated singers or actors – they want to get a gig doing a sitcom. It’s paint-by-the-numbers comedy, lame joke-telling. They’re drawn to it as a career move.

When I do stand-up for a long time, I’ll get burned out, then I’ll get an acting gig. For me, the grass is always greener. I’d like to do a mixture of all of it. My goal is just to do small movies that I’ve written. That’s what I’m trying to do now, just write smaller movies.

The day we struggle to enjoy what we do and just get the gig over with we’ll quit.

I went to see John Mayall at the Marquee, with Peter Green on guitar, and that was a particularly good gig.

I remember there was days when I would do six, seven countries in a day, you’d just be flying around and I’d get up in the morning and not know what I was doing. In one day I’d fly to Belgium and then off to Sweden and then do a gig in Leeds, I literally didn’t know what I was doing from day to day.

The occasional motivational speech gig tends to pay better than the books and television.

I mean, look, I wear makeup in films. I don’t wear makeup in real life. It’s just part of the gig, that’s all.

Every acting gig isn’t the same, every writing job isn’t the same, every live performance isn’t the same – the challenge is the level of difficulty or ease, and that may vary.

I never thought we’d be put into any sort of historical thing. When we started as a band, it was a day-to-day thing. You sort of played a gig, you got your money and thought, ‘OK, where’s tomorrow’s gig?’ You never thought you’d get past a summer.

When I started working with my manager and started going out on auditions, I always viewed Hollywood as a ‘snowball’s chance in hell’ kind of gig.

I don’t say that I have a job. I have a gig, or a piece, or a film, or a show, but it’s never a job.

I can’t imagine playing a boring gig. Like, a boring audience without reaction, I will play against them.

My first acting gig was a skit for Jay Leno on ‘The Tonight Show.’ It was this Barbie commercial where I got to pour mud all over Barbie dolls and watch the heads pop off. It was so exciting, a lot of fun.

I played football for a United XI against Newcastle recently, and then did a show with the Mondays the weekend after. Man, my legs! My groin! I really struggled through that gig. I’m not as young as I used to be.

Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.