Keira-WitherKay
? worst gig moment for me was early in my career after working for a whole month performing with a trio at a restuarant ,fabulous gig , BUT the cheque bounced ...... never taken another biz cheque since that day,
vic
Keira WitherKay wrote:
? worst gig moment for me was early in my career after working for a whole month performing with a trio at a restuarant ,fabulous gig , BUT the cheque bounced ...... never taken another biz cheque since that day,
..the cheque is in the mail..... ?
V8
Vic wrote:
Keira WitherKay wrote:
? worst gig moment for me was early in my career after working for a whole month performing with a trio at a restuarant ,fabulous gig , BUT the cheque bounced ...... never taken another biz cheque since that day,
..the cheque is in the mail..... ?
Heish...reminded me of this
?
Arno-West
My worst gig-moment was self-induced. During the early '90s I used to watch bands at The Roxy almost every night. There were some great bands back then. Tananas, Highway Jam, Count Ash, Diamond Dogs and Backwater Blues Band comes to mind. The Dogs were the ultimate for me and I wished I could join a band like them.
Lo and behold, in about '96 I got a call from an agent informing me that Greg (Dogs guitarist) was leaving the band and they would like me to audition. It was arranged that I would play a few tunes with the band at their next gig. The next Friday nite I arrived at the Jolly Roger in Parkhurst armed with 2 Strats and a Marshall combo. I met the guys in the band and it was decided that I would play the last 5 songs of the 2nd set with them. I was friggin nervous so decided to relax a bit courtesy of mr Jack Daniels. I relaxed a bit too much and when the time came to play I made a total fool of myself. My big chance had been blown. I was too well-oiled to play. Needless to say, I never got a call-back.
About a year later I walked into the Big Easy and the Dogs were jamming without a guitarist. I had my gear in the car and asked if I could jam along. It was a great nite and I've been playing with them ever since.
FruitarGeek
Well, My Amp had a mini explosion on stage ???
I had angled it so that the amp speakers where facing a little up as opposed to straight, however, the shoddy chair I used to lean it against fell away, my amp fell off, made a giant KRACK!! of a sound, took a good 5 minutes to get back in working condition. 5 minutes of dead silence = 1 hour of dead silence
Alex-B-Broadway
Arno West wrote:
My worst gig-moment was self-induced. During the early '90s I used to watch bands at The Roxy almost every night. There were some great bands back then. Tananas, Highway Jam, Count Ash, Diamond Dogs and Backwater Blues Band comes to mind. The Dogs were the ultimate for me and I wished I could join a band like them.
Lo and behold, in about '96 I got a call from an agent informing me that Greg (Dogs guitarist) was leaving the band and they would like me to audition. It was arranged that I would play a few tunes with the band at their next gig. The next Friday nite I arrived at the Jolly Roger in Parkhurst armed with 2 Strats and a Marshall combo. I met the guys in the band and it was decided that I would play the last 5 songs of the 2nd set with them. I was friggin nervous so decided to relax a bit courtesy of mr Jack Daniels. I relaxed a bit too much and when the time came to play I made a total fool of myself. My big chance had been blown. I was too well-oiled to play. Needless to say, I never got a call-back.
About a year later I walked into the Big Easy and the Dogs were jamming without a guitarist. I had my gear in the car and asked if I could jam along. It was a great nite and I've been playing with them ever since.
At least you got another shot and things worked out for the best. I've tried the same fix, hoping it would steady my hands a little. It didn't. Needless to say I learned from that one.
Adrian Rogowski wrote:
Well, My Amp had a mini explosion on stage ???
I had angled it so that the amp speakers where facing a little up as opposed to straight, however, the shoddy chair I used to lean it against fell away, my amp fell off, made a giant KRACK!! of a sound, took a good 5 minutes to get back in working condition. 5 minutes of dead silence = 1 hour of dead silence
Ouch! ??? I always fear something exploding...
Royce77
Did a gig in the sun awhile ago where we had no time for a sound check.
set up my pedalboard but 3 of my pedals lights didn't look as if they came on so i re routed all my pedals to by pass those three.... only to get home and find that they were working perfectly, just couldnt see their lights in the sun :-[
my sound was terrible....
eric-vaxxine
About my post, ending the thread early....no replies at the time.....apologies
A Moment of Most Worseness..!!
One time when out with the audience during a solo
(radio gear, no lead)
a girl played her air guitar along with but then she suddenly
grabbed the neck of my guitar with both hands and refused to let go..
It took me about a minute to wrestle my guitar off her.
eric-vaxxine
Arno West wrote:
My worst gig-moment was self-induced. During the early '90s I used to watch bands at The Roxy almost every night. There were some great bands back then. Tananas, Highway Jam, Count Ash, Diamond Dogs and Backwater Blues Band comes to mind. The Dogs were the ultimate for me and I wished I could join a band like them.
Lo and behold, in about '96 I got a call from an agent informing me that Greg (Dogs guitarist) was leaving the band and they would like me to audition. It was arranged that I would play a few tunes with the band at their next gig. The next Friday nite I arrived at the Jolly Roger in Parkhurst armed with 2 Strats and a Marshall combo. I met the guys in the band and it was decided that I would play the last 5 songs of the 2nd set with them. I was friggin nervous so decided to relax a bit courtesy of mr Jack Daniels. I relaxed a bit too much and when the time came to play I made a total fool of myself. My big chance had been blown. I was too well-oiled to play. Needless to say, I never got a call-back.
About a year later I walked into the Big Easy and the Dogs were jamming without a guitarist. I had my gear in the car and asked if I could jam along. It was a great nite and I've been playing with them ever since.
Great story. Nice one.
AlanRatcliffe
eric vaxxine wrote:
About my post, ending the thread early....no replies at the time.....apologies
Ag it happens sometimes - weekends and Mondays are traditionally quieter and sometimes everyone misses a thread (or sees it and means to go back, but forget). A bump usually corrects things.
I've posted some of my misadventures at length before, but there's a few I haven't posted before...
~~ Cue wavy lines ~~ and a lap dissolve to dim and distant memories being dredged up...
I played drums for a grunge band in the mid/late 90's (name withheld to protect the guilty - but Simon "Fuzzy" Ratcliffe [no relation] used to call us Achmed Papadopoulos, which is similar). One of our regular gigs, which shall remain nameless here due to being a complete and utter dive (although "Newlands" and "railway carriage" might bring up memories for some) had a stage between two rooms, one in front of the stage and the other behind, which basically meant the stage was a simple riser with no wall behind us.
One night I set up my kit a bit too close to the rear of the stage and when we started playing I found I was squeezed in way to close to the kit. There was no way to move the kit forward while playing as it was big and heavy, mounted on a rack and with serious spikes in the kick drum legs and kick pedal. So I did what I usually did in that situation, and moved my throne back a couple of inches while playing... Now this was not usually a problem, but I was already too far back and there was no rear wall and my throne's one leg went off the back of the stage, tilting me precariously over the edge. I coped briefly, balancing and playing, but eventually gravity won (as is its wont) and I fell off the back of the stage in the middle of the song (fortunately the stage was only about 75cm high). I missed a couple of beats and finished the song standing on the floor behind the stage with a stick in one hand (could just reach the snare rim) and playing the kick pedal with my other hand. Best part? The vocalist and guitarist didn't realise this was all going on behind them (although that says more about them than my skills as a hand operator of drum kits). Apparently looked quite impressive from the front of the stage.
DonovanB
I found I had too many bad moments with a particular band. sometimes you just need to cut your ties. alcohol and drugs get in the way.
This was fun though;
=
Sebber
Worst gig moments... can think of a couple...
The first is way back, probably circa 1991: the band I was in at school (in the UK) had been invited to play at a local music festival, about 7 or 8 bands in total were lined up to play, the venue was a theatre with "security" apparently in place to stop back-stage access. We were playing 2nd or 3rd from last, and by the time we got onstage the crowd (of around 400-500 in quite confined conditions) had got quite frisky. We were playing great and having a great time, having mustered (with great assistance from previous acts) a pretty decent mosh pit in front of the stage, when suddenly, about four numbers before the end of our set, I find myself getting shoved out of the way... as members of the crowd had evidently found the door back-stage and obviously the first thought that materialised in their idea-holes was to have a go at stage diving! Quite a few people ended up doing it over the last 10-15 mins of our set, and a number of them didn't give one solitary flying frigg that there was a band playing on the stage, and inconveniently in their way.
Another one is more recently, a few months back. It starts with the drummer realising that he's left the desk's power supply brick-thing at home (which is north of Fourways) and it's 18h00 on a Friday evening in Sandton, and the venue wants us to start at 18h30. After making arrangements the power supply finally arrives at around 19h15, the venue management isn't best pleased with the delay, so we decide to make the first number in the first set our sound check song...
We were kicking off with a blues-in-E thing, JLH's "Hug You, Squeeze You" I think it was, which has a short guitar intro then everyone's in, so I do the little intro and just as everyone else is meant to come in I turn around to make sure the drummer's in on the whole deal and on that first beat, as I signal with my guitar's headstock so everyone hits it right, I catch one of the cymbals with the headstock (pretty restricted space) and it knocks the D string tuner, quite hard, and suddenly the D string tuning is way out of whack.
Now of course everyone's playing, and I realise my guitar is very low in the mix. All I can hear is drums and the rhythm guitarist. I also realise that something... something... goddamnitsomuch... something in the mix isn't right... someone's out of tune or playing out of key... of course being an arrogant douchebag it doesn't occur to me that it's me, so I turn on the bass player and not so politely remind him that the song's in E, and he nods at me furiously like "I know I know I know", and then suddenly I heard it, my D string gone way flat. Because its tuning was suddenly so far out, and I'm playing lead and vocals, I didn't have the opportunity to try an in-flight adjustment to correct it like I would if it was only slightly out of tune. I just finished the song by avoiding the D string entirely. Anyway, of course, it was our first number, and because we were late in starting, quite a lot of the audience noticed something, whatever it was, had gone wrong, and very likely saw me ripping the bass player a new one... what they didn't see was me privately apologising to him in the first break for blaming him for my cock-up. So +10 extra douche points for me that night.
The rest of the gig went great but I still cringe when I remember that opening number.
VellaJ
We've only played one gig, a Band Battle a couple of months ago. 'Twas my first gig, and was pretty amped. They had lights and all, which made things look impressive, until they got it wrong... ?
While the bands were playing, they'd switch between the coloured lights to match the mood of the music. Obviously the operator decided that the most complicated part in the middle of my most complicated solo of the night was a good time to change them. Problem being, instead of the lights changing colour, they just went off completely, leaving me to feel my way away around the fretboard in total darkness for about 2 seconds (a lifetime!). And I was wearing sunglasses for that song ?
I'm told I nailed the solo, but I suspect that's because nobody knew what it was supposed to sound like ?
ActionArnie
This is more like worst moment inflicted on another band's gig...
My brother-in-law was a budding bass player in a band with some of his high school buddies. Anyway they were at a pub in Maritzburg to watch another band play. The live band for the night took a quick break and my brother-in-law hopped up on the stage to catch their bassist to ask if he could have a go on his guitar. He tried to noodle a few notes and realised the guy's E-string was way out of tune so he attempted to tune it. He started cranking it up and up and eventually the string snapped. The owner of the bass rushed up on stage in a bit of a rage shouting 'what the hell are you doing?'. Turns out he'd tried to tune the top string of a 5-string bass up to E and it didn't like it, he sheepishly got off the stage and left.
vic
Donovan Banks wrote:
I found I had too many bad moments with a particular band. sometimes you just need to cut your ties. alcohol and drugs get in the way.
This was fun though;
=
So Don,....what did your Mom in Law want ? ?
FruitarGeek
VellaJ wrote:
And I was wearing sunglasses for that song ?
Ok, there is your problem! ha ha ha
Chabenda
I remember my first gig in Mazabuka, Zambia Playing New years Eve with 'C'est La Vie' when I lived in Zim. We were met at Chirundu by a wealthy farmer who had a Land Cruiser VX - With a fridge in the console nog al ( we were real dumbass, deliverance, bumpkins)! Our first Mozi Oa Tuna - uuugh....! That night at their club we saw our first canned beers! They gave us a case of 24 to take to our 'cottage' - a full size house, complete with an enormous scalectrix track. Myself and the bass guitarist walloped the 24 Black Labels, on top of all the other beer and ouzo that we had been generously supplied earlier. Playing racing cars. Our drummer, much older than us, wouldn't drink! I began to develop a brain tumour of a hangover whilst I was still drinking! Boy, was I sick. Our drummer, a seriaaasly rough, tough and hard biker, was spongeing down my head. I was extremely weak the next day but was back to full power by 7pm, New Years Eve. Sadly, it was our drummer's time to misbehave. By the time we were half way through the first set he had finished a bottle of 'Pirate Rum' (this stuff had a caricature of a rather effeminate pirate with an eye patch on the label - there was nothing effeminate about the contents!). Boy, was his timing off, he was playing diarrhoea all over the roto toms and getting really agro when we asked for a bit of snare and bass drum. He wasn't the kind of guy you wanted to get agro with! It was bloody horrible!
On top of all of this we had a gentleman, well over 70 years old, come and request AC/DC's Thunderstruck. It all became a bit too much for me. We battled our way through the gig after a very embarrassing spat on stage.
The next day, at the after party, sure as shiRt, the drummer wouldn't drink. He had organised the gig and as we went to collect our money, at the gates, he told us that he had made a blunder and that instead of the USD1200 each that we were expecting, he had erred and we were only getting USD200 each. As you can imagine we were subdued and ungracious as we received our money.
On lighter note I recall him getting electrocuted when he tried to move his drum stool after plonking it down on top of the extension cable - that was great!
Chabenda
Donovan Banks wrote:
I found I had too many bad moments with a particular band. sometimes you just need to cut your ties. alcohol and drugs get in the way.
This was fun though;
=
Groupies!! :roflmao:
ZarK
Alan Ratcliffe wrote:
I've posted some of my misadventures at length before, but there's a few I haven't posted before...
~~ Cue wavy lines ~~ and a lap dissolve to dim and distant memories being dredged up...
I played drums for a grunge band in the mid/late 90's (name withheld to protect the guilty - but Simon "Fuzzy" Ratcliffe [no relation] used to call us Achmed Papadopoulos, which is similar). One of our regular gigs, which shall remain nameless here due to being a complete and utter dive (although "Newlands" and "railway carriage" might bring up memories for some) had a stage between two rooms, one in front of the stage and the other behind, which basically meant the stage was a simple riser with no wall behind us.
One night I set up my kit a bit too close to the rear of the stage and when we started playing I found I was squeezed in way to close to the kit. There was no way to move the kit forward while playing as it was big and heavy, mounted on a rack and with serious spikes in the kick drum legs and kick pedal. So I did what I usually did in that situation, and moved my throne back a couple of inches while playing... Now this was not usually a problem, but I was already too far back and there was no rear wall and my throne's one leg went off the back of the stage, tilting me precariously over the edge. I coped briefly, balancing and playing, but eventually gravity won (as is its wont) and I fell off the back of the stage in the middle of the song (fortunately the stage was only about 75cm high). I missed a couple of beats and finished the song standing on the floor behind the stage with a stick in one hand (could just reach the snare rim) and playing the kick pedal with my other hand. Best part? The vocalist and guitarist didn't realise this was all going on behind them (although that says more about them than my skills as a hand operator of drum kits). Apparently looked quite impressive from the front of the stage.
:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:
eric-vaxxine
Playing 'Hot Stuff' one gig, the guitar solo was coming up
for our other guitarist....my bassplayer mouthed something to
me...I went 'What...?'
BassPlayer 'Go up a semi tone for Jo's solo....'
Jo launches into his solo and soon senses something is
not right. He looks back at his amp, his fretboard position and
glances over to us....and seeing us holding back laughter, puts
his hands in the air ... saying something like..'You BASTARDS!'
Worst moment for Jo....but a great gig moment.
