Repertoire – repertoire, repertoire, repertoire ; you need to know the standards ! Make a list of blues and classic rock tunes you know, learn them from start to finish and keeping adding new material. Most blues jam nights revolve around standards and you will expected to fit in.
Clean is cool – high gain distortion and reverb that sounds great in a home studio may easily sound muddy and and indistinct in a club jam environment. Much better to go for a tone that’s pretty clean, strong in the mids and lets you dial in a little extra output and crunch from the guitar volume control when you need it.
Leave the pedals at home – it’s not going to endear you to the house band when they see you crawling around trying to wire up a pedal board. Just plug in and play !
Keep It Simple – use a robust guitar that stays in tune, is easy to play and has reliable electronics – a Les Paul or a hardtail Strat is a good option. Make sure your guitar of choice is nice and quiet – major league 50-cycle hum is unlikely to go over well.
Floating tremolos or floyd rose guitars are not a good choice because of tuning issues, fiddly parts or worst case a broken string which will leave you dead in the water.
Don’t try to dazzle the audience with blistering 16’th note flurries from the get-go. A tasty 8’th note solo with maybe a final flourish will generally work better than a botched ego-trip.
Tune up before going on stage – don’t stop the show and waste everyone’s time.
Look after the basics – a gig bag with a couple of tested leads, spare strings, portable tuner, pocketful of picks are a must. Serious player – why not get some business cards made up to market your hired gun persona ?
Learn to use your guitars volume and tone control to smoothly control your sound and fit into the overall vibe. Learn some neat fills, intros and endings to package yourself professionally.
Finally respect your fellow musisicans, their equipment, the music and most of all the audience !
