Story of gigging calamities

68 lost souls

Hey everyone was playing slither with a band at my friends 18th lastnight and it didnt exactly go as expected. Nothing major but kinda freaky, I was playing bass and half way through the strap falls off so Im balancing the bass on one knee trying to play on and after I turn to the guitarist and he said that as he went into the solo his strap came off aswel, it was about the same time mine came off, coincidence?

Any ways just wondering if anyone else had kinda funy stories bout them playing live?

Doctor J

Every Old Scratch gig was a calamity of sorts, looking back. The one where we got way too baked, the guitarist couldn't feel his hands or legs and had to sit for the set, I had a horrendous paranoid embolism and the singer walked off and left the band half way through the gig stands out as particularily uncomfortable.

feylya

Not really an Instruments thread. Moved to Bands/Musicians.

Doctor J

That was just my post, the post about strap buttons was quite relevant. I was going to post about instrument incidents I've witnessed which would have been bang on

feylya

It's happy here now.

Doctor J

You've ruined everything, you ruiner you!!!

feylya

One tries.

Doctor J

Too hard, it would appear

Anyway, instrument disasters at gigs are largely avoidable and are usually down to either negligence or stupidity or a distressing combination of both.

Among the most common ones are guitarists/bassists straps coming off, as mentioned, and not wrapping leads behind strap buttons and then pulling the lead out mid song. I can't believe people still allow this to happen. If it happens at a gig you can guarantee it's happened countless times at rehearsals. I recall one gig I saw where the bass player carried a screwdriver onstage for reasons which would become swiftly apparent, as the strap button kept coming out and he'd screw it back in after each song. It popped out at the start of the last song and he spent it (and it was their most epic, longest song) hunched down with the bass on his leg. Also, a good idea is to put the guitar lead through the handle of the amp so that it doesn't get pulled out by a stray foot. I don't know how many gigs I've been to where the bass drum keeps moving forward, it's happened to me a few times too. Pain in the arse.

In my eyes, musicians who have to tune after every song are a disaster. Learning to string your instrument properly and knowing how to keep it in tune is as important as knowing your chords. Worse still was a gig where a lead guitarist went off on a Hendrix bender, whammy bar all over the place on a standard strat. It took over three minutes for him to tune the thing back in (I actually timed it ), while the rest of the band were standing around and the audience were swiftly losing interest. I've no sympathy for drummers who don't bring drum keys and who don't tighten stands sufficiently, resulting in cymbals collapsing onto them mid song.

This is just the tip of the iceberg but I've ranted enough. Son't get me started on bad soundchecks

John

That post sounds exactly like a Jimmy Cake gig I was at last week. The bassists lead wasn't put through the strap so it came out a couple of times. One of the guitarists kept having serious problems with his amp, lots of feedback and the drummer lost one of his toms during one of the songs. It was still a blinder of a gig but I was thinking to myself "These guys have managed to record three great albums and they can't set up?"

Nidge

In one of the gigs, the first band I was in, had, the guitarist's lead came out, we were a one guitar band and it was in the middle of one of our most energetic songs. What was strange about it was; I remember him being the one who told me about the lead through the strap trick and it still managed to come out happened. Another thing was that he didn't realise he was unhooked very quickly and he had to be told by members of the audience. That was a horrible gig, there were enormous amounts of feedback on the mike, we were under-practiced, lyrics were forgotten and and and....

Also at a Shockwaves Battle of the Bands gig in the Village 2 years ago, during our last and quitest song, I was playing an acoustic guitar while singing and half way through the song the acoustic wasn't sounding through the speakers. Aside from that the gig went swimmingly, we didn't get through though.

Yv

I had bottles thrown at me from "affectionately" drunk teenagers at one gig. Ah, to be the only female on the bill. Fortunately the can they threw hit the mic stand & therefore missed me.

Mr. CooL ICE

I played my first and (so far) only outdoor gig for paddys day last year, in shannon town centre. I was in a terrible state, because we played a disaster of a gig the night before, where the singer forgot his cues and lyrics for three originals, except for a few random lines thrown here and there, and the rest was terrible, including my only bass breaking down minutes before we went onstage. But we went to a house party that night and i didnt get any sleep at all.

But at the outdoor gig, i was using the previous bands bass amp, which broke down in the first song. My gear included a terrible borrowed bass, a multi effects pedal which was used solely as a tuner and said bass amp. After it broke down, i just put the pedal into the PA, where i couldnt hear a thing. I couldnt use the pedal to tune because it had an LED display, which i couldnt see because it was sunny, and i couldnt hear the bass through the PA because i didnt have a monitor, but apparently the gig was ruined by me being terribly out of tune.

Nidge

WOW Yv were they throwing stuff at every band? I can imagine being the only girl performing the whole night can be quite daunting, I'd say it's very often that there's only one girl on every bill aswell.

Chessington that sounds fairly horrible alright, I can't believe (even though I am believing them) all these stories about equipment suddenly turning to crap before gigs, it's so unlucky and really disastrous. I suppose if a singer forgets lyrics to an original it's not too bad (depending on the song) because the audience won't know the difference, unless of course the singer looks stumped, which they probably will. Forgetting lyrics to your own song is fairly ridiculous but probably not even as bad as having an instrument out of tune for a whole song or even gig.

I must admit during my time as a singer that I forgot lyrics, but it's not like I knew them in the first place! We didn't practice the songs enough to know them in the first place. There's no way people should be learning their own lyrics off like a poem, it has to be natural. If the band has played through the songs enough times the singer should naturally know the lyrics.

BossArky

When I was 15 in my bands second or third gig we played Israels Son by Silverchair. The bass player forgot to tune back up afterwards and didn't notice until a few songs later :rolleyes:

Yv

Nidge wrote:

WOW Yv were they throwing stuff at every band? I can imagine being the only girl performing the whole night can be quite daunting, I'd say it's very often that there's only one girl on every bill aswell.

Lol no, & at no one else in the band either! I was the only girl in the entire competition (Battle of the Bands - 3 heats, semi final & final) apart from one girl who played a bit of djembe for another band in one of the heats. I'm usually the only girl on the stage at a gig, no matter how many bands are playing, but it doesn't bother me. Until they start throwing stuff at me, of course.

BossArky wrote:

When I was 15 in my bands second or third gig we played Israels Son by Silverchair. The bass player forgot to tune back up afterwards and didn't notice until a few songs later :rolleyes:

Yeah I know the feeling, I find it really hard to hear my bass at gigs because the cymbals totally fill my ears & I can't hear low frequencies properly. Once I'd forgotten to retune after an oddly-tuned song & realised halfway through that it wasn't the guitarist, it was me

Red Soup

I was at a gig once using another band's dodgy drumkit, and halfway through the second song the bass drum was ripped open by the pedal. it was all miked up so it was really obvious there was no bass drum and i kinda had to kick the mike for the bass drum to give and effect of one anyway for the rest of the gig!

Brother A

M'duh, once I went to a gig and somebody forgot to bring the bass amplifier. The other bands wouldn't let us borrow theirs so I had to put my bass throught the P.A. system like Dr Chess.
BUT
Not only could I not hear myself, afterwards I learned that nobody in the audience could hear me either. They must have though I was jumping around doing a mime act. DOH!

nobodythere

Yv wrote:

it wasn't the guitarist, it was me

That's always how it is, isn't it:P