When bad gigs happen to good people.

richardangel

So in a week or two's time my band will be releasing our debut ep, and we have a nice release show and mini tour organised and we thought it would be fun to play a gig or two before hand, since we havent played in a bout a month and a half.
A phonecall was made to our friendly local club manager and we organise for us to play what is now a very regular friday night show at the venue, we were all quite excited as we'd be playing a new song too - complete with a resh spanking backing track with synths and samples galore.

2 snapped strings (brand new set, nicely stretched in) on my main guitar. 2 snapped on my spare.
Amp cut out at least once per song, every song leaving me playing the most expensive air guitar in the world.
No working monitors.
Working monitor fetched from home sulking and refusing to work.
Something, somewhere catching fire and filling the stage with smoke and the smell of burn. well, maybe that was us just rocking out so hard ?
Dodgy chinese eaten before the gig = me and our lead singer/drummer nearly passing out at various points during the very hot, very sweaty show. singing the chorus hook and trying not to burp heavily is... great.

I wanted to leave without getting paid and hide under a rock for a while.
Anyone else got some nightmare stories to make me feel better :-\

Keira-WitherKay

damn sorry to hear the drama................ but as a fellow pro muso........... please have backups available next show,,,,,,,,,,,, truly i have backups for everything even my amp and guitar in my car just in case (spare leads/extention box's/power cables.......) .... many call me paranoid but i also have had gigs like you just had............ take the adequite steps to prevent it ever happening again ....... and when you do a short 5 min break to run to the car and fetch ....(insert item) .... will be the only upset in the night

and good luck with the EP ...............

AlanRatcliffe

My frequent foolishness is well documented in this thread:
http://www.guitarforum.co.za/general-discussion/new-friday-question/

FruitarGeek

Shame richard. You had it harsh.

whats your bands name? I would like to check you out.

As for me, nothing comes close to your story, although for a good few shows Ive been to, the monitors have been shocking, I can hardly hear what the singer is saying, or what the keys/bass is supposed to be playing. Is it me, or is their a real shortage on good monitors as well as sound engineers that can work them.

I guess, the 'toughest' time for me, was when my amp, would make this horrible crackling noise everytime I played, and moved, but like this crackle was equivalent to a bowl of rice crispies amplified, and then my amp fell off its pedastle, making a big noise, and it took me 5 min on stage to rectify the problem whilst there was this VERY awkward dead space.. arggg. to top it off, we had played right after Dear Reader, so it was kinda a let down.

Broken strings is a common tho, definately agree that you need a backup.

DonovanB

At least you got the bad gig out of the way so your big one's will be better,

singemonkey

Donovan Banks wrote At least you got the bad gig out of the way so your big one's will be better,

+1 All uphill from here... hopefully ?

Great story though. You can ride on that one for a while ?

I haven't gigged regularly for a long while, but I intend to again so this makes me think - 40 year old amp and no backup ???

Good reminder of what Keira's saying. Good luck with the tour and the EP (I'd say it cant get worse, but you know how stuff is ?)