Gig Mishaps or Disasters!

Nifty · June 2009

Thought this might be a fun one guys

I had a good one at the biggest gig we ever played, in a band I was in years ago.

We had played many pubs and clubs but we finally got a gig at the Stairways Rock Club! This was THE place to play as they had some amazing bands play there through the years.....Magnum, Gillan, Faith No More, Little Angels......even Iron Maiden in the 80's

Our set started with all lights out....smoke.....a police siren stated to wail!!!

I was then supposed to rattle the back of my guitar neck whilst slowly turning up the volume....then...BANG! We're off!

I was rattling and turning like mad but nothing was happening! :shock:
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh! :?

I hadn't plugged my guitar in! :oops:

After what seemed like a lifetime scratching about in the dark for my lead
I finally found it, plugged in to a pop-squeal-bang....finally we were off!

Didn't need much lighting after that as I'm sure my face lit up the whole stage! :oops: :oops:

You guys got any good ones.....or is it just me!

Pity the fool!

Later folks

jamminmj · June 2009

Well I have pulled my cord out a couple of times. Had a strap button
pull out once which also pulled the cable out of the end of the jack because the cable was of course wrapped through and over the strap button so I wouldn't pull it out of my guitar to begin with. Stepped on a OD pedal once for a solo only to hear the battery go dead because I didn't check it before the gig. Those are the highlights for messin with guitars for 40 years. No It's not just you.

gtaus · June 2009

A couple of years ago, I was playing with other guys, trying to get a band together.... Anyway, playing at a local venue, the lead singer (the one with all the experience) brings in a young female \"drummer\" for the night. Although he may have checked her out, he certainly had not checked out her drumming. We get into the first song and in no time, she loses the beat. The rest of us keep on playing, but she just stops dead and doesn't pick it back up. The singer gives her a death look and she tries to get back in the song but completely messes up the song because she is totally in shock. The song ends with a mercy killing. The singer looks at us in the band and walks off the stage in a hissy fit, acting like we were the worst band ever. Although the song was a diaster, I learned alot about our lead singer that night, and it was not good. Although he was the one member of the band with \"experience\", he acted like the amateur while the rest of us stayed on stage and tried to pick it up on the next song. Although he thought that he actions would make it look like the band was at fault, everyone knew the song was a disaster, but his actions really made him look like a jerk for leaving the stage in a hissy fit. Needless to say, our relationship with the singer was soon dissolved and I have never missed him or his attitude towards his bandmates. The young female drummer I never heard from again. She was not stage ready and it was not her fault that our lead singer put her in that position untested (on drums). Anyway, I went on to bigger and better things and took my lesson from that experience on how not to treat your bandmates when things fall apart - not if - but when they fall apart live.

I can honestly say that I have never been in a situation where the song has gone so bad like that since that night. However, if things do go badly, we either play a really easy song to follow up and get our stage courage back, or we make a little joke about our interesting jazz version of the cover.... At any rate, it's only Rock N' Roll, so you have fun with it and move on....

Personally, I have sung backup on complete songs only to discover at the end of the song that my mic was turned off the whole time. I have also played the wrong bass riff or run in a song. We have a couple of songs that are similiar on the bass, but the run is different. If my fingers hit the wrong run, it's embarrassing. A couple of weeks ago, our lead singer started singing the wrong lyrics to the song we were playing. He had a brain damage moment and we had to shout out the lyrics to him to remind him what song we were playing. So we played through the intro a couple more times and he picked it up the second time around. It happens. Nobody made a big deal out of it. And he was able to shake it off and start over.

The more I play, the more I think the professionalism is not just making fewer mistakes, it's actually learning how to support your bandmates, and yourself, when you do make those mistakes.

shredd · June 2009

\gtaus\ wrote:

The more I play, the more I think the professionalism is not just making fewer mistakes, it's actually learning how to support your bandmates, and yourself, when you do make those mistakes.

I'd second that, despite having less professional playing experience than I do dates with Anne H. :oops:
But a truly flawless, perfect show is for the guys who make $100,000 a night and do it four nights a week for 8 months. The rest of us just do our best, have fun, and grope groupies. (oh wait, that's just me. :twisted:).
I recall an old friend of mine who was a real live pro - he'd gone to college for sound engineering, played in a successful 80's hair band, then gone on compose, play, and record awesome acoustic/classical/instrumental albums. One time, while we were recording one of his albums, he was screwing up this one song over n over. About the 10th take, he laughed and said how when he played the song live, he screwed it up just as often, but he'd just keep going, and no one ever noticed.
Now that's a pro. 8)

guitar3456 · June 2009

I've seen guys like EVH botch solos bad and even play in the wrong key. Only ones who notice are musicians. Others think its part of the act or just don't care since it's Eddie.

I saw Al Dimeola. He was playing and then said \"I totally botched that\" and many of us, including musicians in the venue said ....????????

Manitou · June 2009

\guitar3456\ wrote:

I've seen guys like EVH botch solos bad and even play in the wrong key. Only ones who notice are musicians. Others think its part of the act or just don't care since it's Eddie.

I saw Al Dimeola. He was playing and then said \"I totally botched that\" and many of us, including musicians in the venue said ....????????

That reminded me of this quote I got off a Joe Satriani backstage interview video.

[ Joe ]
Its so funny- we've learned to accept when we come off the stage feeling great, that everybody on the crew sort of avoids looking at us,
then eventually someone says...\"oh, too bad about the show tonight.\" [ laughs ]
And we go...what do you mean? that was the best show we did.

Then the one where we come off screaming at each other, its just sort of like saying...oh we just ruined that one!
someone walks in saying that was the best one you guys ever did!
so glad you played that way tonight.
So we've given up just trying to figure that one out.

8)

iliace · June 2009

Worst one that I can remember - I was playing a gig with my regular band at the time. We were doing an elaborate arrangement for our last song, which would last close to 10 minutes in total. Our drummer really had to go, so he calls out to me \"hey Ilia, guitar solo!\" and runs off stage.

Great! Unplanned, unprepared, unrehearsed unaccompanied guitar solo - my favorite. So I started playing some classical arrangements in the key of the last song (D minor, the saddest of all keys)... slowly progressed into an unstructured, free-time improv... and decided to use the wah pedal.

Well, my processor I was using at the time had a short somewhere in its analog stages. So, just as soon as I kicked the wah, it started going in and out.

For the 10 minutes the final song proceeded, it continued to go in and out, and I spent half the time kicking the box so that I'd get my signal back...

gtaus · June 2009

\iliace\ wrote:

...For the 10 minutes the final song proceeded, it continued to go in and out, and I spent half the time kicking the box so that I'd get my signal back...

Sounds like a Spinal Tap moment. At least you were not locked in a giant eggshell.

Mr_New_Heart · June 2009

gig from hell:

Ladies and gentleman \"\"Force of Habit\"\" as the curtain slides along a 5ft high stage toppling 3 mic stands with mics on. PLUNK PLUNK PLUNK.
No stage hands or bouncers would lift a finger. As our singer and I jumped off stage to retrieve of egos and mic stands . We gave it another try.

My singer was good for breaking tension and could supply a laugh or two. So the chuckle was at our expense but the crowd didn't feel sorry for us they rolled with us.

After about 3-4 songs a stage light came loose and fell on our bass players amp head. Well after we got the fire out the crowd had another good chuckle.

We can roll with this. Couple songs later our lead singer looses 99% of his voice. Pushes his mic into the drummers face and the drummer finishes the vocals for the song.

Great now tonite we are a 3 piece band. The bass player and I both sang the rest of the set.

So I figured do long guitar solos to fill time. I know my solos are better than my voice.

So while a blues tune comes up a girl comes up on stage to dance with while I played.. OK cool let it happen and in 30sec- 1 min eye ball the bouncer to get rid of her. He would not lift a finger. She was allllll over me I could barely finish the song. She was sooooooooo drunk. So I walked her to the edge of the stage near the stairs. Turned and went back to play the next tune.

Looked back and she fell headfirst off the stage.

I'll stop here cuz you can guess the rest was horrible too.

good times good times.... lol

shredd · June 2009

\Mr_New_Heart\ wrote:

gig from hell:

Oh lawdy. I'd say that's an understatement.
Did the drunk chick as least flash the band?!?

Revshredder · September 2009

I'm new here and ran across this thread, I can't compete with what I've read so far but my worst fail was in 2007. We were doing a concert at a motorcycle festival, there are about 2500 bikers in the crowd; we opened the set with a great fist pumping \"Born to be wild\"(cheezy, yeah I know) and they are diggin' it, I was supposed to break into this freakish lead run into \"Crazy Train\"...I step up get my best powerstance workin' with a cocky smug sneer and begin my lead run and I dont hear a thing. I was mortified! everyone stopped and was looking at me...I panicked, I didn't know what to do and had no tech to bail me out, I'm frantically tracing, my cables, pushing buttons on pedals and nothing is working....we're loosing the crowd quickly. I threw down my guitar and grabbed my acoustic and started into another song on our set list, that solved part of the problem. I couldn't do the whole set on the acoustic! Near the end of that song I noticed a biker walk up to the stage, he leaned forward and he grabbed my electric guitar cable and pushed it in my wah pedal and I heard it pop! I couldn't believe it, when I stepped up to the front of the stage I stepped on the end of the cable and pulled it out of my wah pedal! All was good and we finished the show. I felt like an idiot! but hey, it taught me to watch where I stand!

Gig Mishaps or Disasters!

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