what's the worst thing that's happened to you onstage?

[BigRedX]

I've told this one before, but it fits perfectly with the thread so apologies to those who already know...

Back in the early 80s there was quite a demand for bands at Nottingham University where there were many halls of residence and it seemed as though at least one of them had a do on every weekend during term time. It was a chance to play in a good location with a decent PA, in front of an enthusiastic audience (who might be tempted into town to see you play again) and to get paid a sizeable amount in the process.

My band had spent the previous year jumping through the various hoops required to get us onto the list of bands approved and recommended for these events and finally we got our first hall party gig. Unfortunately it was pretty much doomed from the start. It was one of the smaller halls and we were tucked away in a back room while the disco in another room ran all night. A week before the gig we were told that the University PA (which was excellent and run by some very good people) would be unavailable as it was already booked for another event. "Don't worry" said the Ents Sec "Hire one and we'll pay for it". We got in touch with one of the local PA hire companies we'd used before and sorted out a PA for the evening.

Sound check was mid-afternoon. That's when we discovered that there had been a miscommunication with the PA hire and they had only brought a large vocal PA rather than the full big rig we needed as an all-synth band with no back line or drum kit. No wonder it had seemed such good value at the time!

Sticking everything through what had been supplied resulted in a surprisingly decent sound although somewhat quiet. The biggest problem was the foldback which was nowhere near adequate. Still after a bit of experimentation with monitor placement we could all just about hear well enough to be able to play in time with the backing and sing in tune.

Feeling reasonably confident, we decided to to go back to one of the band member's house to relax rather than hanging about at the venue. Just as we were about to leave, two friends of another of the band turned up and he decided to stay at with them.

We returned about 45 minutes before we were due to play to find this band member and his friends completely pissed. One of them had already incurred the wrath of the PA engineer by poking in the exposed cone of one of the speakers. Our band mate could barely stand. On reflection what we should have done is bought him another drink (or two) until he passed out and played without him. However we attempted unsuccessfully to sober him up in the short time we had before going on stage.

His entire performance consisted of playing about 1 in 10 of the notes he was supposed to and alternated between hanging off his keyboard stand on the verge of collapse and celebrating wildly each time he played something that was in tune. At one point in the set he had to leave the stage in order to take a piss announcing it loudly before he did. There is a single photo from that evening showing the rest of the band hunched over their instruments desperately trying to hold the song together while he is seen leaping wildly into the air having just played a right note. His friends spent the entire set shouting for one particular song (which was the last one in the set) and generally pissing off the other members of the audience.

At the end of the evening we actually got paid despite the appallingness of the performance was. However there was problems getting the money we'd been promised for the PA hire, and we were saddled with a bill for the damaged speaker that ate up any of the profit we would have made. Needless to say we never got any more gigs at the University.

[billfaro]

Brilliant stories. C'mon there must be more. I'll go and practice some chords in the meantime. Bloody fingers sore now though.

[DaveFry]

Worst ?
The night the hotel manager approaches us on stage and says ; " The wife of the guy who has hired the place for tonight wants to sing a song . " ........

Cue midget mail-order-Thai-wife screecher who makes Yoko Ono sound okay . Doesn't know the song or indeed even the lyrics and convinces the husband that we were trying to make her sound bad .! .

[blue]

A few weeks ago in the 2nd set of our show I lost just about all my volume. I play wireless with a pretty extensive pedal board. And I was thinking this is going to be hard to trouble shoot.

Sound guy comes to help and I got a bit testy with him.

Come to find out, by accident I had turned the volume just about all the way down to Zero on my bass. I remembered I went up to my mic and looked at him and said;[i] " I guess you actually have to the volume on the bass engaged in order to hear it"[/i]

Blue

[goonerjoe]

1. strap gave way on my brand new Fender Paisley P Bass...
2. Same bass as above... stood on the lead and yanked a connection out of place. Didn't have a spare bass (I lived on the edge, you see) so had to watch half the gig from the bar...
3. Didn't happen to me, but my ex-guitarist... A string breaks in the first song... Goes to grab the spare guitar and doesn't realise it's a 1.5 steps out of tune... Needless to say the next song sounded pretty awful.

[White Cloud]

So, so many to choose from.

I would say that the worst was when we were hired for a surprise birthday party - the surprise for us was that the room was full of OAP's. After several non polite complaints about the noise we ended up playing at a barley audible level (it was still too loud!). The icing on the cake was when two extremely elderly gentlemen in the front row directly in front of us produced an electronic chess game and proceeded to play it for the duration of the night.

Each song was not only met with a stoney silence - but also the sight of the two old dudes attempting to beat each other at chess oblivious to our existence.

It's all part of the rich tapestry of life.

[spinynorman]

[quote name='BassTractor' timestamp='1414139583' post='2586232']
Developing a terrible cramp in my right arm once, I had to finish Ravel's piano concerto in D without using it.
I'm not even sure anybody noticed.


[/quote]

[Geek99]

Blanking out totally in a twelve bar

[BigRedX]

IME most musical blunder on stage, unless they are total train wrecks, go completely un-noticed by the vast majority of the audience.

As an example: I used to play in a band that did mostly covers but in our own style. Our singer/front man, who was also a multi-instrumentalist playing guitar, sax and flute, was a bit eccentric to say the least and frequently did away with the set list, would play whichever instrument he felt like during the songs (even if it wasn't the one he's been playing on a particular song at rehearsals) and would change the order and number of verses, choruses etc. on the fly. Trying to keep up with what he was doing certain kept me on my toes at gigs.

At one gig, playing our version of REM's "The One I Love" for the first time live, I completely blanked what I was supposed to be playing in the chorus and instead played a random series of "notes" on the fretless bass that I using at the time. Desperate to be playing something that was vaguely in tune with the song I looked round at the guitarist to see what chords he was playing, only to find him frantically tuning up. He'd heard my discordant racket and assumed it was his guitar that was the cause...

How we made it to the end of the song I'll never know. However no one in the audience I spoke to after the gig had noticed anything amiss.

[ubit]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1414310303' post='2587989']
no one in the audience I spoke to after the gig had noticed anything amiss.
[/quote]


This is the strangest phenomenon. I have come across this too. We have played nights where there have been bum notes aplenty, argued visibly on stage, had instruments cutting out or stopping altogether. One night I had to play through the PA directly because the electrics in the barn we were playing in would not power my bass head. I could not hear a thing, yet not a soul complained and everyone was dancing around. We even got bookings during our break. I just cannot believe, when you have people who have no clue about music listening to a show. As long as they hear drums and the singing, everything else is unimportant. Countless times we have come off stage bereft and spoken to people who tell us, that was brilliant!

[BigRedX]

Which is why, unless the song comes grinding to a halt in a place that no one could mistake for the end, I no longer bother about musical mishaps on stage at gigs.

[LukeFRC]

[quote name='Billy Apple' timestamp='1414153291' post='2586471']
[b]I once played in a pub in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire.[/b] The first thing that happened was a bloke at the bar threatened me because I was an English guy in his pub. Then as we played (Pogues/Goats Don't Shave/Saw Doctors type stuff) we entered into some Jigs and Reels. Apparently we played a tune that had been hijacked by Rangers fans. Next the entire audience stood up as one and started raining down beer glasses and ash trays on us. We stopped playing and hid in a small room off stage with the door barred by bouncers.

We were escorted out through the mob by said bouncers and hightailing it back to Glasgow
[/quote] that was the main mistake! I lived there for a while....


I once played a venue and for the first half of the song most of the band didn't play a note - I decided to sit looking cool on the edge of the stage with my back to the lighting gantry and foot propped up on a monitor, super casual and then jump up and start playing when I was due to come in....
except I came in and quickly realised that from the reclined position I was in there was no way I could get up without stopping playing and using a hand.... i spent the rest of the song sat on the floor....

[FinnDave]

[quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1414310303' post='2587989']
IME most musical blunder on stage, unless they are total train wrecks, go completely un-noticed by the vast majority of the audience.
[/quote]

So true, though it seems hard to believe when you are in the middle of it. Last night we had a gig in Swindon and were keen to make a good impression as the promoter has control of a lot of the placed there and it is the nearest major town. Our guitarist, whether from nerves as he lives round the corner from the venue and was playing in front of his mates, or overdoing his pre-gig 'loosening up' drink, completely forgot the intros to 4 songs. On one he started playing, then stopped and I had to show him the opening lines on my bass. Once up and running, he payed well, just had trouble getting started!

Yet no one off the stage seemed to notice.

[BassTractor]

[quote name='spinynorman' timestamp='1414281830' post='2587923']

[/quote]

OK, so YOU noticed. Well done!

[NancyJohnson]

I played in Hackney years ago. A fight broke out at the bar and within seconds the whole place kicked off. I had two guys beating the poop out of each other.

The landlord jumped the bar ans was swinging a pool cue, shouting 'Not in myyyyy puuuuuuub!', at the top of his lungs. All the fighters exited and it carried on out in the street.

I hate to make this sound like a horrible cliché, but honestly, we never missed a note.

[TimR]

We were asked in advance to play When I'm 64 at a 65th birthday for the hostesses friend "Dave" who was going to be 64 on the same night.

It was to be a surprise and to be kept secret.

So we turned up and set up to an empty hall and quickly ran through the tune. Halfway through the tune the hostess and her husband came in. All was good.

Or so it seemed.

Later in the evening the cake was bought out and we played happy birthday. Then the hostess called "Dave" up on the stage. Turns out the man she turned up with wasn't her husband but her friend "Dave".

Ever wish the floor would open up?

.

Edited October 26, 2014 by TimR

[TimR]

[quote name='FinnDave' timestamp='1414312715' post='2587998']
...

Yet no one off the stage seemed to notice.
[/quote]

They never do! Sometimes I wonder why we bother practicing

[TimR]

Played in a church hall once for a dinner and dance. All the playgroup toys were stored in the wings. A few songs into the first set I caught sight of a large teddy bear. It was staring straight at me. From that point in I completely lost concentration. Everytime I looked across at the guitarist or keyboard player all I could see in the background was that teddy bear staring at me.

In the interval I went straight over and turned it round to face the wall.

.

[FinnDave]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1414347413' post='2588503']

In the interval I went straight over and turned it round to face the wall.
.
[/quote]

So wrong!

[alyctes]

[quote name='chriswareham' timestamp='1414156733' post='2586531']

2) Going into a catatonic state for an entire chorus thanks to a strobe light. I black out whenever I'm exposed to fast strobes, and then I get an appalling migraine roughly an hour later.

[/quote]

That doesn't sound good. Have you been tested for epilepsy?

[Geek99]

Looking back at video footage, I don't think it helped that the guitard suddenly starting scat singing and joking with the crowd. I (unforgivably) got a bit lost in the twelve bar at that moment. I'd forgotten that he even did that. The crowd were nice but I felt terrible, not least for letting guitard down as he gave me a shot despite being a new face.

First few turns of the twelve bar were actually ok - I am even pleased with the sound out of my fake stingray and the house ampeg combo.

[Simon.]

[quote name='Spike Vincent' timestamp='1414179596' post='2586886']
Attempted to pull off a Jean Jaques Burnel stylee karate kick, misjudged it and twatted the guitarist in the head knocking him out temporarily.
[/quote]
There have been a couple of guitarists I've worked with where I would dearly loved to have done something similar... accidentally, of course... One in particular where I came with about 5 seconds of taking my bass off and twatting him around the head with it, as he was being a complete tool and ruining the whole show (outdoor festival show, supporting the Quo, big crowd, big deal for the band at that point in time).

Fingers crossed, but I've managed to avoid any major calamities so far - I think the worst has to be forgetting to un-mute a tuner as the bass was supposed to kick in...

[Norris]

Back in the 80s I was playing in a show band at a very posh black tie do. The band leader / keyboard player had been sampling his favourite tipple all night, but towards the end of the night must've had a bad one. As he stood up at the end of the set he wobbled slightly, put his hand out to steady himself and shoved his keyboard off the front of the stage. It crashed to the floor and laid there groaning loudly at the assembled guests. The last set actually sounded better with no keyboards

[DogHammer]

Mike and stand fell directly onto the strings/pickup of my bass, so making a horrible noise from my amp, aswell as a nasty noise from the MIC/PA. Very loud. Very embarrassing.

[seashell]

[quote name='DogHammer' timestamp='1414413160' post='2588991']
Mike and stand fell directly onto the strings/pickup of my bass, so making a horrible noise from my amp, aswell as a nasty noise from the MIC/PA. Very loud. Very embarrassing.
[/quote]

Ha ha. Similar thing happened to me in rehearsal last week. I didn't realise I was nudging the mic stand with my bass, and I kept hearing all these random out of tune notes that I wasn't playing!! Rest of the band started laughing cos apparently I was looking very perplexed like 'where did that come from?' and they all thought it highly amusing.

Luckily nothing similar has happened on stage yet. My mic stand did fall over completely once, but that is tame compare to some of the brilliant stories in this thread