Bad day at the office

[StringMan50]

Tell me your worst bass gig and or practice.

[Nick man]

Tell me how to get to the "Bass Humor and Gig Stories [BG]" forum.

[Nick man]

Originally Posted by Nick man

Tell me how to get to the "Bass Humor and Gig Stories [BG]" forum.

All you have to do is click here: Bass Humor and Gig Stories [BG]

[eric atkinson]

The worst Gig i ever did was at a small club in Joplin Missouri called champs. I was supposed to sub for a bass player in a band. But they only gave me 2 days to learn about 20 songs including originals! Well even with the fact that all the songs were very easy they all kinda were the same! 2 days just isnt enough! Well it was a crappy show and i thought things couldnt get any worse till i went outside! Well my truck wasnt parked the way i parked it and i was wondering what the #$%& till i got to it! Seems that a drunk driver had plowed into the front of my truck and totally smashed it. It was so bad that the engine was pushed back into my cab. So here i am about 2am waiting for the cops to show up and i am the only fool outside with about 8000.00 worth of bass goods on the side walk! Had to get a cab to take me and all my stuff to my house!LOL Just glad all my stuff wasnt in the truck when he hit it! I would have killed the drunk idiot if he killed my spector.

[IvanMike]

hmmmmmmmmm
one comes to mind, although there are so many
i get a call to sub for a dead cover band that i've subbed for before. should be easy, i know all the songs in my sleep. Well, i show up and it turns out that the drummer is not there. He and i go way back, and he's the best member of this band. Instead on drums are the regular bass player, (who is terrible on drums), and another very good drummer from some eastern european country who doesnt know any of the songs and plays with a very different style. The rythm guitar player is also absent, (another great musician) amd the usual keyboard player they use (a fantastic musician) had another gig. So, they have a backup keyboard player who can't hear me for the entire night, (or he can hear me and it doesnt matter). The lead guitar player just does his own thing as usual. Talk about a train wreck. The best part of the gig were the times where we go into the inevitable jams during songs and the europan drummer and i turn it into the fusion jam from hell. We sounded great, but the other musicians had no idea what to play over that.

[ddicklessbwadj]

bwad

[rluk]

Once it took half an hour for drunken guitarist and soundman to
realize that the guitar amp mic had fallen off completely.

With a 3 piece rockband and a 45 minute gig that is quite a loss

Hey, me and the drummer have the groove, but we re not THAT good :P

[Reverend G-Money]

Had a gig in Mexico about 45 min from the border, and my amp blew right as i plugged in. no spare, no nothing. had to play through one of the guitarists rigs while both of them had to play through the other. it worked, but it sucked.

[stingray69]

Worst gig was 11/26/04. The gig was actually pretty good, but driving home on a back country road at 2:30AM I came across a top of a hill and was in a head-on collision by some dumb*** who was driving on the wrong side of the road. Luckily I wasn't badly hurt and my equipment inside the car wasn't hurt, but my car that was only 5 months old was totalled. I picked up my bumper and my license plate and put those in my car. I found my Dodge Ram hood ornament a few feet past where the front license plate had landed. I put it in my pocket, and now it resides by Velcro on the front of one of my speaker cabinets as a reminder to enjoy every moment and especially gig as if it may be your last!

Peace

[neilslorance]

i'd say my worst gig was back in july in a crappy club in glasgow, it went ok but the thing was i had an abscess in my rectum and could barely move because of the pain. i was actually supposed to be on the operating table while i was playing. i ended up just going down to accident and emergancy straight after it...

..im still recovering

n

[Reverend G-Money]

Originally Posted by neilslorance

i'd say my worst gig was back in july in a crappy club in glasgow, it went ok but the thing was i had an abscess in my rectum and could barely move because of the pain. i was actually supposed to be on the operating table while i was playing. i ended up just going down to accident and emergancy straight after it...

..im still recovering

n

gnarly

[bassist4ever]

well that sounds crappy

[msquared]

Mine happened this past January. I was drumming but part of why it was bad involved the bass player so here goes:

We got called for a last minute Friday night gig at an Irish pub. This is one of my favorite places to play and we always get a good crowd there so we were game. The only person who wasn't into it was the bass player. He had some Everquest dragon to fight and didn't want to miss out.

Since all the gear had been stored at my place and the bass player didn't want to be there, I somehow got roped into carting his cabinets to the gig. Since his amp had died a while back he had been using my amp head for months so I loaded that in as well. Oh, he isn't into playing his bass unless he's on a gig.. so I loaded that up too. Luckily I have a station wagon for all this...

We all got there and loaded in, but no bass player. I set up my kit and he still hadn't shown up, so I set up his cabs for him. After that he hadn't shown up STILL so I tuned his bass for him. Later he showed up and noticed I'd put his cabs on the opposite side of the stage from where he stands, pointed across the stage instead of into the crowd. He usually had them a couple feet behind him, to my left. The pub's stage is triangular and set up in the corner so this was a pretty decent setup from the crowd standpoint.

He asked, "Why did you do that?"
I replied, "Well, you're generally too muddy for me so I thought we'd try having them over there for a night, you know, as a physics experiment."
"You know what? You can f--- off," he stated as he stalked off, and I'd about had it but decided to just make the best of it.

So we played and I could hear him better than ever. I was unbelievably locked in with him because his notes were very punchy and tight. It was one of the best shows we'd ever played from a drums and bass standpoint. But he was in a bad mood and actually stopped playing for entire sections of songs, which is the norm for this guy but it was even worse that night.

After the show he took his cabs and his bass and split, leaving us with the food/drink tab that he and his brother had racked up.

So of course we were all pretty angry about this whole turn of events, but despite the very short notice we'd had a really good turnout for the gig and it went well for the most part. I had a beer, packed up my stuff and helped with the rest of the gear, and we went back to our practice space to unload the PA. Then I drove the guitarist home.

As we were heading through an intersection by his house, we hit an SUV which had run a stop sign while speeding. The SUV flipped and crashed, taking out a light pole and killing the other driver. My car was totalled and my wife and daughter had to drive up and get me. Since I'd had a beer a few hours (and a lot of equipment lugging) prior, they arrested me and took me to the station for an alcohol test, so my family spent a good half hour thinking I was in jail for manslaughter. I blew zeroes across the board btw.

To top it off, the other driver was an ER nurse and mother of three. It sucked losing a car I'd just bought a couple months prior and having some of my gear get messed up, but I brooded for months over the other driver. I've never felt so bad about being in the wrong place at the wrong time in my life.

[Viviuos]

I dont care how bad a gig can be, that has to top them all. A human life is a billion times more important then a gig. Im sorry you (had to/are still) suffering from that one night.