Post your live mistakes and flubs

Stinsok · #1 05-31-2009, 07:47 PM

I'm not the only one that screws up, am I? I have a couple of examples but I don't have a way to get them on here (I really don't want that on Myspace.)

eastcoasteddie · #2 05-31-2009, 09:21 PM

Well, I don't have it recorded, but I was SERIOUSLY screwing up the first night out with a 5-string. I think I had the bass less than 24 hours and made the mistake of gigging it. That low B really cut through the mix...when I didn't want it to.

**baba** · #3 06-01-2009, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eastcoasteddie

Well, I don't have it recorded, but I was SERIOUSLY screwing up the first night out with a 5-string. I think I had the bass less than 24 hours and made the mistake of gigging it. That low B really cut through the mix...when I didn't want it to.

This is actually exactly how I moved to 5 string. After that catastrophic first night, I was so horrified that the mistakes were just burned into my consciousness and I never had a problem again. Of course there were probably 3 people who noticed - our blessing and curse.

Stinsok · #4 06-01-2009, 02:50 PM

What's the rule? Never gig with new equipment!

Vic Winters · #5 06-01-2009, 02:57 PM

I played the beginning of The Bravery's - Believe a whole step higher than the rest of the band. Everyone else kicks in and it just doesn't sound right. The lead singer/rhythm guitarist came over and asked me if I was in the right key. I felt like such a jack*** the rest of the night.

Chad.mundt · #6 06-07-2009, 01:59 AM

I was playing a Cruise Ship gig with guest entertainer Ian Finkle on Xylophone. This guy has a Grammy for best polka album, and he just SHREDS the thing. If you've ever done cruise work, you know about playing full-hour shows with guest entertainers with one rehearsal. There was one tune where I had to instantly solo seque into a new tune at a new tempo, and I just blow it both shows. After the tune ended the second time, Ian yells out to the crowd, "Why don't you give it up for the bass player! Isn't he fabulous!" He just looks back and smirks at me. My face had never been redder.

Nice guy after it was all said and done, but I learned a hard lesson that day.

hellfleet · #7 06-12-2009, 07:09 AM

It’s a long time ago now but I friends band asked me to come up and play a couple of numbers, I used to play bass in that band. I didn’t have any gear with me because I just went to see them play but their bass player offered the use of his bass – so I thought okay. Now the only bass I had at the time was a 6 stringer, its what I learnt on and although the majority of the time I played on the middle 4 strings I was kind of used to the other 2 being there.

So as he hands me his bass my head is going *remember 4 strings* *remember bottom string = E not B*. A few bars into the first song everything is going pear shaped. It took me a good 2 minutes to notice that he had infact handed me a 5 string and not a 4.

My god... I felt stupid :P In my defence I was quite drunk by this point

rfclef · #8 06-12-2009, 11:20 AM

not enough bandwidth.

L-A · #9 06-12-2009, 12:00 PM

Played Talk Talk - It's my life, and I went through the whole chorus a half-beat ahead of time. My drummer was really confused.

3fingerdemon · #10 06-12-2009, 01:02 PM

One of the bands I used to play in tuned to drop B, so my main bass had that tuning, but we had one song where the tuning was D. I tuned my second bass to what I thought was D, but I guess I subconsciously tuned it to E. I knew something was wrong throughout the first bit of the song, but couldn't pinpoint until one of my friends in the crowd mouthed "You're not in E!!" to me. This was before I bought a pedal tuner and I was scrambling to transpose it down a step on the spot. Extremely, extremely embarrassing....

Nevertheless, I have never stepped on stage again without a pedal tuner beneath my feet.