How I Approach Food On The Gig

As an addendum to a previous article about what I bring with me to my gigs, this is a little inside look at how I approach my nutrition on gigs these days. I want to say right up front that I’m not a nutritionist (although I studied a little of it during my PT qualification) and this isn’t meant to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your food choices, these are just my own preferences.

In short, I always take my own food and drink with me to my gigs. Why? Because I’ve done enough gigs where the band isn’t properly looked after by the client/venue and playing 3-4 sets on nothing but bar snacks or sandwiches you’ve been able to dash out and buy isn’t an experience I recommend for any of you. I should say that sometimes you can be very well looked after on gigs, however sometimes the band is an afterthought and personally I’m much happier removing that as a variable and having control over that aspect of the day. Nothing worse than playing while hangry.

Let’s start with hydration, one of the most important (and often overlooked) elements on the gig because if you get dehydrated, you’re not going to be able to play well. Something that I always make sure I have in the car with me is at least one full bottle of mineral water, which stays next to my rig throughout the evening for consumption on stage (I like some sparkling water when I’m off stage or in the green room). I’m not sure about the rest of the world, but the water quality here in the UK can sometimes be a little variable so having a 2 litre bottle of water that tastes good is a useful thing, especially if you’re playing on a really hot stage (under lights for example) or if the venue in general is really warm. If you’re the sort of player that sweats a lot on stage (I’m lucky in this because I don’t sweat much unless the stage is baking hot), I also recommend keeping some sort of electrolyte mix (tablets or powder are fine) in your car or gig bag so that you add it to your water and get those electrolytes back that you’ll be losing continuously throughout the gig.

When it comes to my food, I always prep it on the day of the gig and pack it in an insulated thermos so it’s nice and fresh. It might not be hot by the time I come to eat but even lukewarm is better than something stone cold, especially now we’re getting towards wintertime! The thermos is big enough for two small meals, so I fill it up and then split it/consume it in two halves through the night. I do this because if I eat too much in one sitting so that I feel overfull, I then feel sluggish and lethargic for a good hour or so, which isn’t ideal when you have to go back on stage and be energetic.

I try to plan ahead so that my meal pack has a balanced composition, so it will have a protein (usually beef or chicken), some vegetables (usually some mixture of broccoli, carrots, bell peppers and onions) and some slower acting carbohydrates (usually brown or basmati rice) in a rough 30/30/40 split. This sort of meal/nutrient split works well for me personally, it tastes good, is fresh and it helps me maintain my energy levels whilst giving me a lot of the nutrients I need. I have tried some other diet methods (such as Keto) and I haven’t enjoyed the way my body has responded to them. This is something where knowing your own body and how it responds to different foods (or lack of them) is extremely important

In addition to this, if you’re going to go down the meal prep route (it may sound like I’m stating the obvious here) but make sure it’s something you are actually going to enjoy eating. Eating healthy is one thing but forcing yourself to eat food you’re really not into isn’t something I recommend all that much. There are tons of recipe books out there that can help give you ideas for this, whatever your preferences may be!

This sort of self-knowledge is also the reason I try and avoid really sugary snacks on the gig, so I can avoid sugar highs and crashes midway through the evening, as well as avoiding general caloric over-consumption (I do have a weakness for sweets). I do keep a box of protein bars in my car, so I have snacks available if I get a little peckish and I sometimes pack either a fresh apple or some simple dried fruit (my wife makes this for me) if I think that I’ll need a gentle energy boost or it’s a long gig.

A thermos of coffee is something I like to take with me too, not because I’m opposed to buying out or anything like that, more because I love my coffee and I’m a little choosy about my blend...sue me (plug: for UK folks that are into their coffee, Bean Coffee Roasters in Liverpool! Ethiopia Chelichele and Rwanda Kinini are both winners!). I do try and not go crazy with my caffeine intake because this is something I struggled with a few years back and as with the sugary stuff, I don’t like crashing on gigs, especially if I have a long drive home so I tend to sip it over a longer period.

https://www.beancoffee.co.uk/

---

If you enjoy the content I have here, you can support and contribute to me doing more of this for the price of a Café Nero latte (£4.10). Every single contribution is appreciated and enables me to bring more transcriptions, lessons and articles to the table!

---

One thing that often comes up in these sorts of posts/discussions is alcohol and the question of drinking on the gig (whether you should or not, and if yes, how much). Alcohol and its consumption is a sensitive topic for a lot of people so I’m not going to touch whether you should drink on gigs or not. I used to and I don’t anymore, entirely for personal reasons. It’s a very personal choice to make and only you can know to what extent it affects you and how adverse those effects are on your ability to play. There is a great article here on No Treble written by Damian Erskine that examines the effects of alcohol on the body without getting judgmental about it, something I would recommend looking at if you haven’t already!

https://www.notreble.com/buzz/2017/04/12/drinking-on-the-gig/

Something I’d like to make clear is that quantifying a lot of this (such as examining what different foods do to me) only came about after the nutrition modules in the PT course I took caused me to take a closer look at my dietary habits and food choices. For further full disclosure I fell off the wagon big time last year with my food choices as a whole (being self employed and a parent to a precocious toddler can be stressful and stress eating is something I have been prone to) but I’ve now managed to get my act together and have gotten my overall diet back to place where I’m happy without massively restricting what I eat. That’s a whole other conversation but I wanted to highlight that I’m as human as the next person when it comes to my diet, I’m certainly not a super-clean eater. If you want to take a closer look at your own food choices and what your actual intake is like, tracking your food using an app is a good way to begin (my fitness pal is a good one, and things like the Apple Watch and Fitbit have a function to track your food). Honesty is key here, you must track everything you put into your body, not just your main meals, otherwise all you’re doing is kidding yourself.

It’s also worth pointing out that most of my gigs are professional situations so while I always enjoy playing live, there is often very much an element of the workplace there that wouldn’t necessarily be if the gig was purely for the pleasure of playing (although I always want to be as sharp as possible on my gigs!).

If any of you have any comments or questions, as always please post them below!