Really bad gig experiences?

[shredder85]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

we were playing this at this chicks b-day party that we knew from work. she was cool enough and paying us (can't quite remember what happened to the money [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] ), so, we decided to do it. first off, matt (who is a member of this board) and i show up there w/ all of the equipment and had the pleasure of setting it all up. our other two members? enjoying a nice ride home from Lake Powell. [img]graemlins/images/icons/mad.gif[/img] so, they get there, and we start playing maybe a half hour later. everything starts off nice: we sound good, the croud's into it, everyone is cheering us on. so, we get to about our 3rd/4th song... before i go on, let me tell you what we were set up on.

we talked to the girl, and she told us that we will have to play outside. we were ok with it, since we thought we would be playing on a solid stage...not so. we show up there, and take a look at our stage. it's fucking pegboard set up on concrete blocks! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] i don't know why we agreed to do this.

so, anyway, we got to our 3rd/4th song, and, right in the middle of the song, my kit takes a dive. all of the stuff to my right (floor tom, cybmal, cymbal stand) goes flying off of the "stage." everyone hears the crashing and looks back to me wondering, "what the fuck?!" so, we had to stop so i could set up my drums again and reinforce the stage. my kit didn't get messed up too bad, but man, was i pissed!

kevin

[Genebaby]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

I'm trying to remember really bad experiences. Plenty of annoying ones like the guy who was drunk and wanted to see my Gibson Flying V and spilled his beer on it. The drummer knew him so he paid to get it pulled apart and checked over.

I tell ya, if you want your equipment to be pristine and look nice, don't gig at clubs and bars with a band. My wah and footswitch are filthy, filthy, filthy, but they love it. The biggest danger is drunk people dancing near you and then falling on your pedals (big bottomed girl broke the input on my wah doing that). People also like to put their drinks near your pedals while they dance so I get them to move them.

Oh, a bummer of a thing was once during Detroit Rock City I started off the solo and during the break before it I switched my toggle on the V off and then forgot to switch it back so I played, but nothing came out! Man that was death. Funny now, but death then.... [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[micha]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Originally posted by RacerX:
Ha ha, you meanie! [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] [/QB]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">that girl was a disaster!!!
she must have had some problems somehow...
the first months or so I wasn't allowed to LOOK at her when she was singin, coz she felt ashamed or something, bu on the other hand she wanted me to make the music "alive" and to interact, but try doing so without looking at each other... [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
and all these people she brought to rehearsals, like we did a cocktail night...
this was just my fav in a long story with her that ended that night... [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
beautiful voice and person, but frickin crazy.
I'm glad it's over.


at genebaby;
something similar happend to me too once.
I forgot to get the volume on my neck PU up (must have touched it again, it was off) and when I switched, there was nothing.
it took me a while to get it since I was loking for the fault in my bad soldering and blamed the three way for that... LOL
nice to see I'm not the only one playing this kind of airguitar on stage... [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[fr0sty]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

I played out a few times in college. One of the guys who helped us setup brought his girl friend along. She was up front during our part of the show, slammng jack daniels. Unknow to anyone else, she was also on some prescription meds that didn't like to play with alcohol. Right at the end of our show, she bascially stopped breathing from the alcohol and drug mix. The paramedics came and revived her.

Wow, rock and roll...

Oh yea, at tha same show my then girl friend (now wife) had her leather jacket stolen.

[lerxstcat]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Wow, you guys were a killer band! [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Chuckracer]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Good lord. I could write a novel on this topic.

[mudkicker]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Our first seven or eight shows went off without a hitch. We had started to build a small following and gaining confidence in our perfrmances. We landed a gig at a club in Richmond, Va. actually it was an old warehouse on the James river. Setup and sound check went smoothly. Our drummer had purchased a new cymbal he wanted to try out. It was a china hat?(not a drumer so i don't know)One of those upside down looking cymbals that sounds like a trashcan lid whe you hit it. He didn't have a stand for it yet so we rigged up an extra microphone stand as a cymbal stand. He tried it out during our sound check and it was stable. During the show, I guess his adrenaline was flowing he knocked it clean off the stage. Hitting a group of girls.
If that wasn't bad enough, the next set I would slide my guitar across the stage to one of our friends that would travel with us. Well this time the singer stepped on the guitar cord popping it out of the guitar and sending the guitar cartwheeling off the front of the stage. It knocked a 2" chunk of paint off of my Aria.
As we were packing our van up ready to head home, one of Richmonds finest saw my drummer stick a syringe in his shoulder. He is a diabetic. He didn't believe us and had everyone of us cuffed and sitting on the curb until he and several other cops unloaded and searched our van and found nothing but insullin and a bottle of aspirin. They didn't help repack the van. We had other moments but nothing like that night in Richmond. Needless to say that club never asked us back nor did we ever play in that city again.

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Here's one:

http://www.jcfonline.com/ubb/noncgi/...;f=17;t=003517

[skidd]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

I have a couple of good ones:

My mom came to see us play a pack house at the Rocl and Roll Cafe in Fl. It was the 1st time I had been in fla in about 4 months and she has not seen this band yet. Normal stuff, soundcheck, we are the headliner that night so we set up go check in, then I leave to go get food with my mom and see her new place. I get back to the gig get dress etc, we are about to go on and there are close to 350-400 people. Our set was 3 songs-talk -4 songs talk etc. We go into the 1st three songs, and my tech is yelling for me to look down, my pant had ripped wide open, so there I am balls hanging out to the world for 3 songs with my mom in the crowd, I run back change in to my street clothes (dress pants that night for dinner with my mom)oh yeah we kinda looked like LA Guns, so my tan dress pants looked out of place.

Got hit with a live frog once, and hit hard, the thing was the size of a softball, who in the hell brings that into a club,and how bad did I have to piss him off, to get a spot up front to hit me with it. [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[pro-fusion]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Man, these are great stories!

Mine involves alcohol. I was never really in a band, but I played a lot of blues jams at a local bar while I was in college. It was well-organized with really good players, and you signed up beforehand for one of about seven 30-min. sets during the night. If you got one of the last sets, it meant you didn't hit the stage until about 1:00am. Well, I had a late set this given night, and while I was waiting around I met some nice ladies who kept refilling my beer glass while we chatted--for several hours!

Ok, by the time I was supposed to go on, I was so goddamn drunk I could barely figure out to plug (1) amp into electrical socket and (2) guitar into amp. But I managed. I'm strumming away on some shuffle, thinkin' I'm doing ok. I look down, and I'm exactly one fret off from where I should be--and y'all know how good that sounds! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] When it came time to solo, I knew what I wanted to do, but there about a one-second delay from the thought in my brain to it reaching my fingers. I just made a total hash of it!

The only redeeming factor was that by 1:00am, everyone else in the bar was either (a) as drunk as I was, or (b) engaged in a last-ditch attempt to hook-up, so I don't think anyone really noticed. And I had held up my end of things enough at other jams that the powers-that-be didn't really care.

[JacksonConcept]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Another thing that happened to me once back in 1989 (My first ever Band), before the gig the battery in my cheapo tuner went dead so I asked my lead guitarist if he had another tuner I could borrow...he had an electronic tuner that he wasn't using so I plugged in and tuned to 440 pitch and that was that. What I DIDN'T realize was his tuner had settings for different tunings, and his was set to for 1/2 step down tuning! I didn't even think to set it for standard pitch. Well, we fired up with the first song and you can imagine my confusion and HORROR!! He looked at me like I was playing in the wrong key....so I had to bow out and figured out what I had done. I was too poor then to have 2 guitars.That was the LAST time that happened! We had a good laugh after the set. [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[txcharvel]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Gary, now that was funny. BTW, I was the other guitar player.

One that really stands out for me (Gary do you remember this one?) We were playing in Mexia, and our drummer had been drinking all day and then right before the show he decides to take a hit of acid (I think it was acid...)

Anyway, his tempo was so off. Some songs were fast, some were slow, some changed mid song. I was so pissed I kept looking back at him like "what the F are you doin'" and he's looking back at me with acid rage in his face like wants to kill me...Not a good night. I do believe that was one of our last gigs.

[txcharvel]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

OK, another one. This was funny as hell. We used to play this huge country western hall that had a "Rockin' Teen Night" (this was all around '87 - '88)

This place was huge...huge stage, huge dance floor...anyway. We used to do the VH version of "You Really Got Me" and our singer would jump off the stage, run across the dance floor and act like he was humpin' the floor during the part after the solo like DLR used to do (you know the part, hey it was 1987).

This particular night, he didn't see the person cutting across the dance floor holding a tray of drinks and a large nachos with extra cheese. He plowed right into this guy. Nachos, chips, wireless mics, batteries, drinks, and bandanas go flying and they're both lying motionless on the floor. They were both out cold for a few seconds. We finished the song as best we could, by this time our singer was walking back to the stage, bleeding from his head...but ready to finish the set. He never did find the battery to this wireless so he had to use a regular mic...

It could have been a lot worse if his head weren't protected by the layers of Aqua Net hairspray.

ahhh, the good ol' days

[JacksonConcept]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Yeah I do remember a couple of times that happened with KK. I remember you being really pissed off at him once during a show. [img]graemlins/images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

[JacksonConcept]

Re: Really bad gig experiences?

Originally posted by txcharvel:
OK, another one. This was funny as hell. We used to play this huge country western hall that had a "Rockin' Teen Night" (this was all around '87 - '88)

This place was huge...huge stage, huge dance floor...anyway. We used to do the VH version of "You Really Got Me" and our singer would jump off the stage, run across the dance floor and act like he was humpin' the floor during the part after the solo like DLR used to do (you know the part, hey it was 1987).

This particular night, he didn't see the person cutting across the dance floor holding a tray of drinks and a large nachos with extra cheese. He plowed right into this guy. Nachos, chips, wireless mics, batteries, drinks, and bandanas go flying and they're both lying motionless on the floor. They were both out cold for a few seconds. We finished the song as best we could, by this time our singer was walking back to the stage, bleeding from his head...but ready to finish the set. He never did find the battery to this wireless so he had to use a regular mic...

It could have been a lot worse if his head weren't protected by the layers of Aqua Net hairspray.

ahhh, the good ol' days

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Now thats a rock n roll show! [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]