Home Forums Guitar Discussion Guitar Whats the worst thing that ever happened to you on stage?

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  • #22299
    lee_UK
    Participant

    Bum notes are one thing, i think we have all had a couple of those, the right solo to the wrong song, my friend John was actually booed off stage by most of the audience, they were saying ‘get off, your crap’ and in the end they all gave up and packed away, they still had 5 numbers to do but thought what the heck, what made it worse was that this was a wedding do !! they had been booked the previous summer and had to keep the booking, meanwhile the band had split and rejoined for this wedding gig, and of course nobody rehearsed, a lot of the songs were forgotten, and he said it sounded an absolute shambles, id loved to have seen that one, there must be a viseo somewhere 😆

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    • #73494
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Please do, PKS. Everyone has a cracker – wedding gigs are usually good. Welcome onboard, btw.

    • #73492
      PKfanSteph
      Participant

      Is it safe to admit I’ve enjoyed reading this thread?

      I have several friends who are working/touring musicians and soundmen, with anywhere from 5 to 35+ years on the road under their belt. It has never occurred to me to ask them about their worst experiences. Maybe I should!

    • #73482
      Guitar Expert
      Keymaster

      😆 The 3rd is my fav vitaminE.

    • #73490
      italos
      Participant

      oh-oh….this sounds bad…..

    • #73463
      1bassleft
      Participant

      😯 Italos, I didn’t realize your audience was in the 16-18 bracket. What are your favourite gravestone flowers? We’ll all contribute 🙂

    • #73448
      italos
      Participant

      [quote=”1bassleft”]:lol: Italos. You know you have to do it. You’ll be alright, I’m sure. Well, the odds on surviving are better than 50% :)[/quote]
      Yeah thanks man very relaxing….
      I guess the good thing is that it’s going to take place at a school so i guess 16-17-18 year olds(no offence) are easier to handle if you play hard enough. 🙂 😀 🙂

    • #73443
      1bassleft
      Participant

      😆 Italos. You know you have to do it. You’ll be alright, I’m sure. Well, the odds on surviving are better than 50% 🙂

    • #73465
      italos
      Participant

      Guys you’re all scaring the crap out of me with all these mishappens…..
      I’m having a gig sometime soon(at least before christmass, that’s what i’m told) but now i’m not so sure i want to be there at all!!!

    • #73454
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Toco, nice to see you again. That is an awful-sounding wedding gig. Seems like there was a good reason all the blokes were talking to the bride for such a long time, like they knew her very well… 😯 Scary…

    • #73458
      vitaminE
      Participant

      I’ve been pondering this thread for quite some time now. Although my good experiences on stage far outweigh the bad, there certainly have been a number of bad – equipment failures, failed musicians, cops, fights, projectiles, vomit (both mine and other people’s), the pitfalls of outdoor venues, irritating fans, etc. It’s difficult to choose an absolute worst moment, so here are a few:

      When I was 16 my band drove to a nearby town and set up in the high school gym to audition for the junior prom that was to be held in the spring. It was a Saturday morning and the student council (charged with booking a suitable band) was there to decorate for an upcoming game. We only knew 10 or so songs and in the middle of our “set” about 100 little children in costumes and their moms filed in for a Halloween party. Before we could pack up and run, the lead mom asked if we would be so kind as to supply the music for the cake walk. I’ll never forget the looks on the faces of those 3 – 5 year olds as they “cake walked” to the strains of “Paranoid,” “Rainbow in the Dark,” “All Day and All of the Night,” etc. Plus, we were terrible and couldn’t stop and restart songs where we left off, so every time the lead mom beckoned for more “music” we had to take it from the top. They hired a D.J. for the prom.

      This worst “moment” lasted for over an hour: At a wedding dance a couple years ago, close to 40 guys lined up for the dollar dance with the bride. Turns out they were all in the mood for a long conversation with the poor girl. We had only 2 slow songs on our set list and could maybe fake another 3. We went through these songs twice each and finally in desperation our singer / guitarist started shouting out chords in progressions and yelled “solo!” at me every couple minutes while he adlibbed ridiculous lyrics. The dollar dance dragged on and on. Towards the end our bass player summoned me to his side of the stage and informed me that he desperately needed to use the restroom. Before I could protest, I was playing bass (poorly) and trying to turn down the volume knob on my guitar with my foot having forgotten to do so during the swap. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, the bride and groom’s dance was next. This consisted of the bride performing a bizarre form of exotic dance up on stage using me and my band mates as make-shift stripper poles while the groom, making devil horns with his thumbs and pinky fingers, ran back and forth like a deranged troll at the foot of the stage. We agreed not to play anymore weddings.

      One night at the age of 17 while playing a dance at a local auditorium, I had a special little fan dancing suggestively at my feet for several songs. I was thrilled at the prospect of possibly reaping some of the “fringe benefits” of being a “rock star.” Suddenly, a dark figure came plowing through the crowd. It was our drummer’s mom who had been hired to collect the cover charge and chaperone the dance. Well, chaperone she did! After observing this girl’s “dirty dancing,” she decided to take her aside and give her a long lecture about self-esteem and the long term consequences of such unladylike behavior. I’ve never been so embarrassed and went home alone immediately after the gig.

      I could go on and on…

    • #73498
      lee_UK
      Participant

      guitar solo slowly sinking to your knees, thats a classic..

    • #73478
      v BONES v
      Participant

      waaah! where to start?

      My first ever gig was filling in for a punk band at a school disco. I learned the songs okay, even managed to get the band working together a bit better, but I was was nowhere near prepared for the audience. After a short half hour set everything on the stage was covered with a varying thickness of spit – amps, guitars, effects, shoes, jeans…bloody disgusting. I was assured after the gig that it was a sign of appreciation, but I never played punk again.

      Guitar strap broke during a solo. But the roadie had been told to keep an eye on the drummer because the kit kept creeping across the stage. I soldiered on for what seemed like an eternity, slowly dropping to my knees, before he noticed and came over to fix it. The strap had actually snapped so in a fit of desperation, he forced the buckle over the strap button – never did get it back off, had to replace the lot in the end!

      Actually fell off the stage one night because we had too much smoke effects! Walked to the front in an attempt to get in front of the cloud and ended up walking right off the stage.

      Had to improvise a PA once. Agent had forgotten to book it so we ended up begging around the audience until we found a benevolent local band. Then we had to strip all our canon mic leads and resolder them for 1\4 inch jacks in the dressing room.

      double bookings, no lights, no PA, not getting paid, vans breaking down etc etc, pretty much run the whole gauntlet.

    • #73457
      italos
      Participant

      Nice one!Couldn’t stop laughing!! 😀 kinda reminds me the drummer from the gig, he indeed was hitting faster and faster….

    • #73511
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Nice one, Italos. I guess 2nd moral of the thread is “don’t accept a slot at short notice”. Best of all, the bassman kept his cool – amen to bassmen.

      The story kindof reminds me of the old (but true) jokes:

      How do you know the singer’s at the door? He hasn’t got the right key and he doesn’t know when to come in.

      How do you know the drummer’s at the door? The knocks get faster and faster.

      🙂 Now going into hiding…

    • #73442
      italos
      Participant

      Well, not that i’m anywhere close to your levels, either of skill or embarassment on stage, but here’s my story from when i had my first and nightmerish time on stage.
      Our band was rehearsing in a small studio and for the first time we were actually doing pretty well.The drummer, during a pause throws in the idea to participate in a small gig at a bar we all knew.There would other bands like us (which meant tottaly unskilled ones) he said and it would be cool…

      Well what he said was slightly off, as we realised in terror that the other two bands playing were something like underground stars with their own audience and even a groupie or two!!
      Eventually we got on stage, in front of a completely surprised and drunk audience who thought that the gig was over….My face went through numerous colour alterations and i ended up staring the pavement all the time while my stomach was somewhere in the front raw begging me to stop.
      The singer came to me several times asking what was the next verse!!!!
      The bassist was the only one who was ok, but the drummer was constanly losing the pace and songs were like slowing down and speeding up all the time…
      But the worst was at the end when we decided to play something easy and went for Punk Rock Song from Bad Religion: Total disaster!!!The drummer went on a rampaging tempo that didn’t let the singer take a single breath between verses and it all ended up on a mix of applause and laughter….gosh, at least they were nice with us and didn’t throw us anything!!!!

    • #73444
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Ouch, that’s a nasty one. I’ve had the one-hour-notice, but that was to an empty – which is nowhere near as bad:

      The singer/guitarist got a “scramble” and the idea was we had to cover a pizza ‘n’ pasta place that had been let down with an hour to go. He’d agreed, but I managed to ‘phone them up and explain we were original material, indie-type stuff. Not exactly restaurant band. Fine, fine, anything will do – any port in a storm, free food, sort out the payment later, etc.

      We set up (facing a lone couple over a thin-crust) and the owner suddenly appears “Where’s your crowd?” He actually expected us to bring a coach load of ravenously hungry fans with one hour’s notice. We were allowed one song, no food and no pay, then he’d pull the plug on us. Our song had a line in the chorus “Little boxes”.

      Our man Chris ad-libbed, “Little boxes, little boxes, you can stick your pizza, in your little boxes.” The owner had the grace to laugh as he pulled the plug out.

      I was at Clapham Common for an “Artists Against Apartheid” gig in the 80s. Not playing, of course – just watching (Sting doing Roxeanne, that sort of thing). Then the MC introduced one of those earnest, female, singer-songwriter types with an acoustic. “Put your hands together for… (whoever she was)…”

      I, and several thousand others, simultaneously went “WHO? ❓ “

      Now, that must have settled her in nicely.

    • #73446
      lee_UK
      Participant

      i had quite a ‘Brown Stripey Underpants’ kind of evening on saturday, we (our band ‘Land) had been booked to play a 45 min set at a local all dayer, there were about 10 bands on during the day, and we was due on 2nd from last at 9.30pm, so saturday eve i get a call from our ‘Leader’ Paul the drummer at 7pm to say that the other guitarist Kevin was in bed too ill to move, had the flu, and could i cover his guitar parts??? he plays quite an interesting repotoire of solo’s and riffs of which i have never learned to play, no need is there? so paul says can you learn them?? uh? with 1 hour before i have to leave for the venue!! so i say i will try, we cant let the organisers down, so i do my best and head off for the venue, i get there and we start getting our gear on backstage and their was a realy good band on playing behind the curtain in front of us, they finnished their set and a big cheer goes up, the singer opens the curtain and comes off stage i see at least 300 people out their!! it was packed, so now im looking for the exit but before i can get my legs to move a roadie picks up my gear and loads it on stage, anyway we get through the 1st number and it sounded quite good, my nerves are settling a bit, but halfway through the 2nd the lights on stage go out, and the only light working is a strobe light blinding me! i cant see a thing i playing, im hitting a few bum notes and its sounding bad, that song ends and i walked up to Paul the drummer and said ‘if i dont get any light on stage we are f**ked’ so he shouts his didpleasure over the mic to the lighting guys and tells them to sort it out, 3 guys come racing on stage pushing plugs in and pulling cables, we lose half the audience to the lure of the bar, and they manage to get a single 100watt green light going, it was murder, we just about blagged our way through it, turns out a fuse blew and they lost most of the front stage lighting, never again, ive never been so terrified as the moment the lights went out, i just wanted a hole to open up…

    • #73508
      Michael
      Participant

      hahaha – made my monday 1b.

    • #73469
      1bassleft
      Participant

      I definitely do now, in fact I’ve finally traced a lefty 5-string cheap enough to languish as backup. This isn’t a comp, so I’d love to hear other’s miseries, even if not as catastrophic. I might have mentioned this elsewhere on guitarsite, but I played a three-bander and the bassist for “Furburger” snapped his “A”. He didn’t even have spare strings. He opened up my case and saw it was a lefty. When he opened up the third band’s and saw it was fretless… I wish I’d had a camera. I restrung his bass while he made low humming noises in the mic.

      I sent my above story to “Making Music” when they asked for similar tales of woe, but they couldn’t use it as I was a freelancer for the mag. I remember two of my favourites they did publish:

      A band got a prized support slot for a mega-big band. The vocalist got a bit over-ego and went for a stage dive. No-one catches a support band singer. They just stepped out of the way. He avoided serious injury but (shortarse) the stage was higher than him. He lobbed the mic back on stage (loud “Thunk” at several kilowatts) but still couldn’t climb up. Of course, no help from the audience who were laughing themselves silly. So he took off, going through this door, that door, the other door in a search for the way back onstage.
      Finally, the next door clanged shut behind him and he was in the cold night air. He ran around to the entrance but the bouncers wouldn’t let him back in without a ticket.

      My other fave was the drummer who got a round of applause from four girls every time he did a roll. So, of course, he squeezed in as many as he could; getting enthusiastic claps each time. After the set, he nonchalantly wandered over to the girls.
      “Hi, I’m the drummer in the band.”
      “Yeah. Do you know that, every time you did a drum roll, your scrote dangled out of the right leg of your shorts?”

    • #73449
      lee_UK
      Participant

      I think you win this one hands down Bass, moral of the story? always carry a spare/backup instrument, just in case, i carry spare everything, amp, guitar, leads , strings, but that is a killer story.

    • #73445
      Tim
      Participant

      I was going to post but I think you’ve killed off this thread with that post…what else COULD go wrong!

    • #73447
      1bassleft
      Participant

      Lee, I think you’re drawing another “Bass really is a pillock” story out of me. Still…

      19yo, joined a rock-covers band called “Pariah”. Do a search on what “Pariah” means (I didn’t know at the time). Anyhoo, our first gig was arranged by me. Student’s Union, 600 people (lots of other bands, but still 😯 ). Because there were six bands, we agreed on backline (my bass amp – yey!) and the FOH, PA, soundmen, mics (everything) was provided for by the “name” band playing later.

      Our 2nd cover was “Fool for your Loving” by Whitesnake. A real pick-nose bassline. Once it got to the title line, and that instrumental pause, I decided to jump up in the air, kick my left leg out and whack that open E with gusto. No sound whatsoever from the bass. My cable had got trapped under a lead-weight mic stand so, when I jumped, the whole electrical guts of my bass stayed put while I leapt a metre or two upwards.

      Destroyed bass, briefly considered miming. Four songs to go, though, so I ran off to the dressroom where the next band (“Trick the Jester” – I remember everything) were lounging. “Bass burgered. Gotta borrow yours. Sorry, thanks, ‘bye” The bassman seemed quite cool about it. Meanwhile, the stage soundman couldn’t see that I’d exited, but definitely noticed the lack of bass. He went on a wander (that stupid half-crouch engineers do on stage) and kicked out the extension lead for the two guitar amps.

      Quick as a flash, our singer shouted “Drum Solo!”, which our stickman duly did. That’s when I came back in, plugged in and “improvized”. I had no monitor whatsoever, but got the nagging feeling something was wrong. The E-string (even on a borrowed, upside-down bass) felt flobby. At this point, the rhythm guitarist just had enough and walked off. Suddenly, the soundman on stage flicked the switches and we were back to normal. That was when I realized the borrowed, right-handed bass had been tuned DADG.

      Of course, we didn’t wait for the non-applause and went straight into the next song. Semi-challenging anyway, I was now playing it on upside-down strings and having to move two frets up for the bottom string.

      Absolute ghastly nightmare. I still shiver if I hear that dratted Whitesnake song out of a jukebox or radio.

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