Play the Fill: Stage Confidence, Filling an Empty Room & Booking Gigs

You’ve earned your seat on that drum riser, even when four people in the crowd know the Bonham parts better than you do. Dave Hamilton and guest co-host Skylar Hamilton (his daughter) look back on Dave’s summer of gigs, starting with a Led Zeppelin and Heart tribute for about 600 people. A shaky moment in Heartbreaker turns into a drum solo nobody rehearsed, and a derailed Living Loving Maid turns a careful recital into a real rock show. Less than a week later, a Casual Gravity night in Laconia starts with six fans and a nearly empty room and ends packed by the third set. Two rules made that happen: don’t punish the people who showed up, and play for the crowd that’s not in the door yet. Skylar sums it up with the question you should ask every time you walk on stage: are you going to bother to be here, or should you just go home?

Then Skylar picks your questions for Stump the Music Geek. You’ll hear how to juggle a day job and multiple bands (put everything on the calendar), what to do when a private-gig client wants to swap six songs 72 hours before the show, the contract clauses that turn last-minute requests and overtime into extra pay, and why one bandleader needs to make the final call on stage. The Sales 101 spee