Music has always played a crucial part in Bill Bailey’s comedy routines, his shows brilliantly straddling the line between stand-up and musical performance, basically a gig that you’re allowed to laugh at without making the band feel bad. Back when Bailey first took to the stage though, there were no jokes involved. Speaking to him recently as part of Classic Rock’s The Soundtrack Of My Life feature, he recalled his debut gig as he went into detail the first song he ever performed live.
“I was in a band called Behind Closed Doors and we had a gig in Bridgwater at the community hall, our first gig in a public place,” Bailey recounted. “I played You Really Got Me by The Kinks. That was my very first public guitar solo, or my attempt at a solo. It went alright. I was really worried about it, I’d worked out the first few notes and then it went a bit off-piste, like ‘I don’t know what I’m doing now… but I like this, this is great!’. It was a bit of a seminal moment.”
