Ever Bring The Opening Act From Hell

[88ric2030]

I know most bands, especially in their early stages have been in this situation at least once. You get a show that is an all nighter, don't have enough material yet to cover the time, and all your good musician friends aren't available to share a bill with you that night. So you go with someone who is a little iffy, and it turns into a disaster.
Want to hear your stories. I'll kick it off with the funniest one I can remember............

In 1996 my band at the time played a benefit show for the homeless at a big hall downtown. The theme was a Rolling Stones tibute called "Gimme Shelter". It was probably at least twenty performers, each covering a max of 3 Stones tunes. There was one guy who performed, only did one song, "Factory Girl", solo acoustic. My two bandmates recognized him as a guy they hung out with when they went to Woodstock '94. Our guitarist/vocalist thought the performance was pretty cool, but I wasn't too impressed.
Fast forward a couple weeks later, we get a show at a very small bar where we like to hang out, that has a pretty cool original band scene at the time. We've played there a couple times already and had these two chicks open up, who aren't bad, but there isn't much money in this place, and they are no longer intertested in doing shows there. Most of the friends we ask are busy, and we are hoping to keep the opener solo acoustic due to the small space and gear changeover, etc.

So our singer/guitarist, Jay called up Charles, the guy who played "Factory Girl" at the Stones tribute show, and asks if he'd like to open. Charles informs him that he just started playing guitar, and that's the only song he knows. Instead of just moving on, Jay encourages the guy to learn four or five more songs, and tells him he can do it, and he's got a few weeks to practice. Charles is willing to try, but seems really unsure about it all.

So it's the night of the show. We set up and soundcheck, then get Charles set up for his opening set. It's a small place, a city rowhouse type bar, but all the seats at the bar are full with a few folks standing. Charles starts out by saying, "I normally just sit in with blues bands playing harp, so I'm going to start out my set playing a little harp." He proceeds to blow his harp while stomping his foot hard in time on the stage. He's not playing anything that resembles blues; it just sounds like a sick, pissed off donkey in pain, going eeeee-awwww,eeeee-awww, eeee-awww. This goes on for a minute or so. I'm observing the faces of the people at the bar from the side of the stage. All faces are turned towards the stage with a look of both horror and confusion. But they politely applaud at the end. This place always had a cool , polite crowd, which is one of the reasons we loved playing and hanging out there.

So then he picks up his guitar and starts talking, he says "My girlfriend bought this guitar for me. It used to belong to a traveling teacher. So I think it's got a lot of heart and soul".
Then he sits down on the stool. He's got song sheets on the stage at his feet, and he's having difficulty seeing them, and you hear him whisper in the mic, "ohhh maaaan", like he knows he's in trouble and this is going to be really hard. He starts the song; it's really unsteady and he keeps looking down at the papers. He leans forward and knocks the micstand off the little stage. The plastic clip that holds the mic gets broken (and it happens to be MY stand, lucky me).

We duct tape the mic clip back together somehow and get him set up again, then he restarts the same song. Every song was the same; he struggled while looking at the papers on the floor. The only one he really knew was...........you guessed it......."Factory Girl".
At one point it all got so painful to watch and or listen to that I went in the back and hid until it was time for our set. I felt sorry for Charles though, because Jay did push him into doing something he wasn't ready for.
During our first set, he decided to jump onstage with us and jam on harp to one song. It was more blues like, but not exactly in key; he went on too long and he didn't know when to stop and let the guitar take a solo.
Then a couple weeks later we got booked to play the side stage at a blues festival. Our stage was inside a bar, while the main stage was outside by a dock. Guess who is scheduled to go on before us........................... Only this time it wasn't us that brought him. It was booked by the same people who ran the Stones tribute event.
What made matters worse here was, the door to the bar was open, since this was both an outside and inside event, and it was windy, so his papers blew all over the place. His performance chased everybody outside and cleared the place before we went on. When we got up and played, they all started coming back in. He wanted us to back him doing "Wang Dang Doodle", which we had never played , and we declined, telling him we had a carefully planned set, which was true. Afterward he said to Jay, "I suck, don't I". Of course we were kind to him and explained that he needed more experience, and should just keep trying. However I don't recall of ever hearing of him playing anywhere else after that.

[BigOldHarry]

I've actually never done this... if we don't have enough original material, we fake some cover tunes...

[plankspanker13]

It's a good thing when one knows one's limits, and one's place. The stage is not for everyone, despite what karaoke, open mic nights, and American Idol are trying to sell you.

Reality programming has taken over the local stages in a good many urban areas. Instead of having to need an opening act, bands are scrounging for what gigs that they can get, in a tight economy, where open mic nights are becoming the cost-effective option for a lot of venues. It's easier to pay the host $150- $200 than a band $500 + a bar tab, and the variety of performers implies that the music won't get stale. Of course, there's no guarantee of quality, either. The American public likes to see train wrecks, from the bad performances on Idol to the whole Charlie Sheen mess. It's no longer about the talent, or the possibility of good new original music, but about how spectacular the flame-out, and how viral it can get. Andy Warhol's notorious assertion about 15 minutes of fame has been prooven correct.

[singlemalt]

Everybody starts somewhere and it usually ain't pretty.

We walked in to a place early one Friday night to set up for a gig, but here was a band already set up and playing. Not one of the band was older than 10. The place was packed. They had bitching gear and some serious MILF roadies to carry it. Cougars and their cubs. When they finished, everybody left with them.

We set up in an empty quiet bar. It was hours before the Friday night crowd arrived.

Food for thought.

[svtb15]

Back in the 80s i played the NY tri state area with a well known band. We carried a 4 man road crew with HUGE triamped system... all crown and BGW power.. Soundcraft 24 channel board.. etc...Real big rig for then and you never see that in club acts these days.. So much PA and lights that the crew regularly had to tap into the Service Panel and we used our own breaker panel to supply our gear..
Anyway,we had an opening act at times allowing new bands to get out there..

One night the Opening acts lead screamer proceeded to LIGHT drop an M80 explosive into a trash can on the side of the stage.. then lowered The mic into the can.. It went off... All the meters on the amps went to RED as did the Soundcraft mixer.
My sound crew guy said that's it. He went to our break panel and flipped the 100A breakers to off.. They were done..
I know for a fact in that day you could get away with an ash beating.. And our crew beat them into crying girls...
Looking back it was real funny.. but then it was crazy!

[88ric2030]

Originally Posted by BigOldHarry

I've actually never done this... if we don't have enough original material, we fake some cover tunes...

We palyed a mixture of covers and originals, but there just wasn't time to learn more. We were in the middle of recording our first CD and had multiple gigs, normally one set showcases every week.

[hdracer]

Originally Posted by singlemalt

Everybody starts somewhere and it usually ain't pretty.

+1

[Tom_RCJ]

5 hour gig, 8 bands, everyone is an ego case insisting on using their own drums and amps and wont let anyone use their gear to reduce setup time.

Ever had one of those? To this day I still knee jerk whenever I'm told we have an opening act.

[88ric2030]

Originally Posted by Tom_RCJ

5 hour gig, 8 bands, everyone is an ego case insisting on using their own drums and amps and wont let anyone use their gear to reduce setup time.

Ever had one of those? To this day I still knee jerk whenever I'm told we have an opening act.

I hate multi-band shows. I guess I'm getting crotchetty in my old age, but if I can't play the whole night, I almost don't want to be bothered anymore.

The only problem is, nobody goes out just to see some band anymore. They only go to see their friend's band to be polite, and it's a popularity contest. 95% of the bars have zero walk in crowd for bands here (Baltimore) If you aren't in a band with some kind of huge following,forget it. If you have a couple bands, it can increase the draw.

[fenderhutz]

We were an original band with a good 50-100 people draw every local show we did at small clubs. Needless to say we kept the club owners happy and we played for the door so it was all good.

We let upcoming bands play with us as long as the could play a 8-10 song set. No other strings attached, we provided PA and they got no pay.

I worked with a guy that always talked about his band. Had a keyboard player, back up vocals, and were a rock experiment project. He gave me a tape of older material and it sounded like bad doors meets bad golden earring. It wasn't horrible and the songs weren't offensive so we gave them a chance. He was excited to play the NEW material not on the disc.

Mistake.

So they were setting up and insisted that the female back up singer sing through the keyboard amp instead of the PA. Wouldn't take no for an answer. We said ok.

They used our guitar, drums, and bass amps so no huge deal there.

So I introduced them and it's off to the races.

Everything was off key. The guitar was out, bass was out, lead singer out, piano not in time with drums and the female backup singer sounded like a cat that granny just rocked over it's tail.

The disc they gave me the lyrics were not bad......insert new material.

Song 1- I want roofies

Song 2- Way down south where the Mexicans grow. The chord pattern EEEE FFFF GGGG the entire song.

I don't remember the rest. I cut them off at 4-5 songs. It was painful, awful, and hysterical.

[addylewis]

We've had that before - full pub, new venue for us...our support band were basically mates of our guitarist. They went on and did their bloody awful metally rubbish and cleared the place (of about 40 people), then we went on and played to about 5.

You live and learn don't ya? The thing is we played there a few months later with the OTHER guitarists mates band who were apparently "into oasis and REM" or something like that...you guessed it, emo crap again which cleared the pub before we played!

MENTAL NOTE - LISTEN TO SUPPORT BAND BEFORE BOOKING THEM!!

[MatticusMania]

Originally Posted by Tom_RCJ

5 hour gig, 8 bands, everyone is an ego case insisting on using their own drums and amps and wont let anyone use their gear to reduce setup time.

Ever had one of those? To this day I still knee jerk whenever I'm told we have an opening act.

Who thought it was a good idea to cram 8 bands into 5 hours? Anyone who has set up multi-band shows should know that for every hour of stage time you plan for 1 band. 45 min. set + breakdown/setup.

[rickl289]

Kind of OT but last night we were the third and last band to play. The first band doesn't start until 10. This is going to be a late night for a Wednesday. I'm thinking if the first band sucks, we are playing to the bar help.

The first band is announces one more tune and then they are off the stage. It is 9:40. Wow. I guess they started early.

The second band says 'Thanks' and then plays a one more tune. It is 10:20.

The crowds are starting to roll in and we are the last band. We play a good hour set to a big crowd.

Starting early helps!

[Fishheadjoe]

We had a weekend gig, Thursday, Friday Saturday at a downtown bar. Turns out they also had a Saturday afternnon matinee where locals could come up and jam a song or two with the band.
We arrived at the bar, our stuff already set up from the night before. We played a few songs and we see a guy come into the bar with a guitar... ok, what song do you want to paly with us we ask.
"SLow moving Walter" he says, "do you know it?
Uhmm, no, how does it go...
So he starts playing Smoke on the Water for us... man we had a hard time getting through that one without busting a gut!
Fishheadjoe

[kesslari]

My first gig at the Troubadour, back in the 80's, with a hard rock band fronted by an amazing (if crazy) female vocalist. She had a following and was insistent on bringing her own opening act because "her fans would eat a bad rock band alive."

So she brought a comic that she knew. Standup comic opening for hard rock band.

Let me expand on that. BAD standup comic, bombing, opening to hostile audience (she was right about that) before hard rock band.
Watching a comic truly bomb is one of the most frightening experiences an entertainer can witness, IMO. They dig so deep into a hole, that anything they do just digs the hole deeper, and the panic is palpable.

It was very, very ugly. Fortunately we came on, rocked the house, and the gig went well (for us). But watching him bomb - <runs away screaming like a girl>.

Best part of that gig - we met Sean Connery coming out of a restaurant down the street as we loaded out our gear. He was very gracious.

[bassbully]

We had a weird hippy, acoustic trio open for us a while back and not one of their guitars were in tune and they were tuning them on stage every now and then. This made their songs really interesting and off key by a mile.

[AuntieBeeb]

Well, it would be wrong to call them an 'opening act'; it was a night with four bands on, they were on second and we were on third.

They turned up late - fair enough, they phoned ahead to say they were delayed, and the soundman (who was a top feller, nice guy and really knew what he was doing) was happy to do a linecheck before they started. They eventually rocked up just before the first band finished their set. When told they had 15 minutes to get on stage and set up, I heard one of them remark, "Oh, we've got time to get drunk then." I assumed he was joking but he did actually disappear to the bar.

In the meantime, the drummer went up, put his breakables on the kit and gave it a whack. Sensible procedure, you want to make sure everything's in the right position. But after he'd established this, he just carried on playing. Loudly. And not particularly well either. After a few minutes of this, something resembling a bassist shambled up and plugged in, and then I was aware of some bloke rather abruptly asking me,
"Do you play in a band?"
Why, yes, I play in several. Are you asking me whether I'm playing tonight, by any chance, and while you're at it, what happened to "excuse me"? Turned out this specimen needed to borrow a guitar strap.
"I've got one, but it's for an electric. Your acoustic only has one strap pin."
He tied the other end on with his shoelace. 10/10 for resourcefulness, I guess, if 0/10 for organisation. He came back five minutes later asking if they could borrow one of our electric guitars, because theirs was playing up. Thankfully theirs started working again, at which point they started tuning up while the drummer yelled something at them, which I think he'd assumed would be funny. It just made him look like even more of a helmet.

At this point, they'd had about 13 of their 15 minutes, and so the soundman walked over to tell them this. You'd think, if you'd turned up late, had been criminally disorganised in getting your sorry arses on stage and were due to start in two minutes, you'd get a move on, wouldn't you?
"Man, he's f**king tuning up as fast as he f**king can," shouted the drummer, amidst assorted additional abuse.

They eventually started about ten minutes later and were absolutely atrocious. During the second song we decided we'd had enough and sought solace in the bar. But at least they made us look great by comparison!

[88ric2030]

I remember a situation in a band I played with in the early 90's. We got a Saturday night headliner gig at a downtown original club that was kind of clique-ish, hard to get a good show if one at all. We are supposed to be playing with some touring band from Minnesota that cancels the week of the show. We are informed that WE need to find an opener. We call all our band friends that normally do shows with us, and everybody is busy. It may have been Easter weekend if I remember correctly.

So our drummer gets these guys who he and I have seen once before, when we were in a neighborhood, not very hip, blue collar side of town bar, and both were likely pretty drunk. I don't think he or I realized just how bad they were, or how inappropriate they were for the club we were playing. Hey it was the grunge era, and they were a loud hard rock band, but......................

I can still hear/see the "intro" to this one song"The Keeper Of The City", where the lead singer, striking a pose while wearing, big, dark sunglasses is speaking through some kind of harmonizer, making his voice sound low and evil, saying "In the Middle Ages, justice was swift...........", like something straight out of Spinal Tap. The only three guys in the bar, who were upstairs playing pool promptly left the place.

[MatticusMania]

Originally Posted by 88ric2030

I can still hear/see the "intro" to this one song"The Keeper Of The City", where the lead singer, striking a pose while wearing, big, dark sunglasses is speaking through some kind of harmonizer, making his voice sound low and evil, saying "In the Middle Ages, justice was swift...........", like something straight out of Spinal Tap. The only three guys in the bar, who were upstairs playing pool promptly left the place.

That sounds awesome to me!

[Serial Junkie]

I do all the booking in the band and since we're trying to make the originals scene work for us, we usually get two openers to play before us and make it a nice night of original local music.

Well a couple months back, I ran into a friend from high school who mentioned her boyfriends band. I was looking to fill a time slot so I checked them out and everything was kosher until the night of the gig.

We're due to load in at 7:30, I told the bands 7 cause I expect tardiness and that half hour shift usually fixes that...not this time. I try to reach them and nada, I'm freaking out the sound guy wants a sound check and there's no word at all from them. They finally roll in at 8:30 with no explanation or apologies, the sound guy is pissed cause they're late and they're using ridiculous gear (full stacks) for the tiny barroom. Then to top it off half the band is underage even though I had asked several times and made clear this particular bar wasn't keen on underage entertainment.

Their set wasn't good enough for their attitude and stress, they wonder why I don't toss them shows now. If they were even a little humble I would have been fine but I can't deal with "entitled" musicians, get yer own gigs if you're so cocky.