I figured I'd share a story with you lot.
This happened a couple months back. My band got offered a gig in Perth. It only paid £40, between the 5 of us, but we weren't doin it for the money. Our drummer's from Perth and for months his family/friends have been beggin him to get us up to play. So finally, we landed a gig there and were doing it for him. Nice eh?
So everythin goes well to start with, we all get the bus up, takes about an hour, we check in to our hotel, leave our clothes and then take our gear to the venue. It's a pub called the Malt House. Tiny place but we were told it was gonna be packed and we'd get some free beer.
Nothin excitin really happens between us arriving and the soundcheck. The 'stage' was absolutely tiny. Me n the drummer were squashed into a corner, the other three were equally as cramped, especially since there's a full size keyboard on stage...
It was honestly the worst gig we've ever played. Sounded absolutely horrible. I could only hear the drums, couldn't hear vocals, keys, guitar...or even myself at times! We even had to stop a song halfway through. It starts off just guitar and vocals but the guitar was out of tune and we knew when the other instruments kicked in, it'd sound disgusting.
So that was that...we got off stage, everyone's being nice(the place was actually packed, took me ten minutes to squeeze my way from the stage to the bar which was only about 10-20 feet away), saying that we sounded great. Typical niceties.
So 2 of the guys decide that they've had enough and just go back to the hotel for a smoke and go to bed. Fine, their call. The other 3 of us go out, go to a club, get rather intoxicated. Our drummer introduces us to some of his friends who are havin a party in their flat. So we go there, drummer hangs back a bit but will get us there later, he had some other people to see.
So myself n the guitarist go to the flat, drink more, listen to some good tunes...then all of a sudden, our drummer appears and slaps a bit of paper on the table. Yeah he got fined £40 for gettin caught takin a leak in an alley.
So obviously, being the good friends that we are, we all laughed at him the entire night about it:P
So fast forward to the morning after...mainly because I'm drawing blanks...drummer's staying at his fiancees parents house so it's the 4 of us in the hotel room. 3 of us wake up, the other one's sound asleep so we decide to go get breakfast, after getting rid of all evidence of the 2 guys smokin in the room.
As we're sitting in McDonalds eating our grease, the sleepin beauty chargers towards us with a face like thunder. Nothing out of the ordinary for him really, he's a moody.........person
He comes in and tells us that we've been kicked out cause they were smokin in the room. At this point, I'm starting to panic. The room was booked with my credit card and there's a £150 fine if you smoke in the room. So me n one of the other guys go in to get the rest of our stuff, ready to argue the fact that there's no evidence of us smokin. Bits of tobacco were on the table, yeah but there's nothing saying you can't roll in there. The place smells of smoke? Yeah 3 smokers were out all night...smoking...obviously they're gonna stink of it. So we think we may be able to get off the hook. Then the house-keeper says the dreaded words...
The police have been called, people were smoking illegal drugs in that room.
Obviously...we don't even bother trying...we go in, get our stuff, throw the key at the reception desk and get outta there.
So then we go to a cafe to get some tea/coffee while waiting for the pub to open so we can get our gear and head home. We made it clear to them that our bus home leaves at 3.35, so we'd need our stuff by 2.30 at the absolute latest. They say fine, we'll be open at 12, stop by whenever you want.
So, we show up to the pub at about 12.30, 1pm. Place is closed isn't it...
So our drummer calls everyone he knows, trying to get someone who can get the place open. No luck. So we're faced with a dilemma. The bus tickets are non-transferable. None of us drive so it wouldn't be easy to get our stuff back if we just left it and got the bus home. Plus there's no guarantee it'd all still be there...So after a bit of a debate, we agree to scrap the bus and just wait until the pub opens and we get our gear. I alone had about a grand worth of stuff between my bass, pedals, cables etc with me, no way in hell I'm leavin that behind.
So we go to another pub that is open and just wait until we get word the pub with our gear opens. It finally does open at about 4, we go and grab our stuff then walk to the bus station, which was about a 45 minute walk. And of course, we just miss a bus. Next one isn't for an hour and a half...
So, we go to yet another pub, have another couple drinks and one of the guitarists starts lookin...well...green. He goes into the bathroom and spews for a good 10 minutes straight. By this time, we have to leave so our drummer goes in to get him and finds the entire bathroom(it was a small one to be fair...) covered in his vomit. As bad as guitarist felt for messin the place up, there was no chance we were all missin this bus so we left.
Finally got on a bus headin home. Of course we had to buy new tickets. And just to rub salt in the wound, the driver says 'oh you guys should have bought your tickets online...woulda been way cheaper for you'.
Never been closer to slappin someone in my entire life...and I'm not even remotely a violent person...
So, the happy ending, we finally get home, I get greeted with a massive dinner, a cup of tea and I swear...layin down in my own bed has NEVER felt so good.
Wow that's a lot longer than I thought it'd be. Thanks for reading! Just had to get it off my chest
