[Dealing with trouble]

Mark, your tale really resonated with me.  I could go on and on...so I'll try not to.  We had a pretty good band going for nearly five years.  Great venues, festivals, opened for a number of national acts, several multiple times.  We demanded and got better money than most of the acts at our level.  We produced three studio and two live albums, of which we're mighty proud. We have two tunes on a You Tube channel with over 80,000 hits.  There were...or my business partner and I publicly said there were multiple reasons for euthanizing the band a year ago.  But there was one root cause.  Our very talented frontman, a crowd favorite, was a toxic personality.  And he was directly or indirectly responsible for several episodes such as yours, not to mention being pretty abusive to one of the band.  We tried, all four of the rest of us, and mightily, to cover, compensate and apologize for, and explain away his behavior.  In the end, he was the end of it.  We really were at the top of our game, but now Ed and I often reflect on what a great decision pulling the plug was.  Sure, there are aspects of performing I miss, but just to excise this guy from the lives of the rest of us was worth it.  Good luck!  

[First gig. Great sound, lots of feedback. What to do about it?]

Get some black felt fabric, two yards of it. Cut it into several smaller ( 1 to 1 1/2 feet in length) pieces and gently feed those, one at a time, into both "F" holes. Also, learn where to stand, relative to the amplifier, to reduce feedback. Don't use a stand for your amp, which aims the amp directly up, at you and the guitar.