Major disasters at gigs

[bevel19]

I forgot one!

Just before a major Christmas party at a five star hotel. We were loading in and our singer decided to go to my car and get my EV 4x10 cab (VERY HEAVY). Walked into the room carrying this thing solo, and rolled/broke his ankle on the bevelled edge of the moveable dancefloor. He soldiered on through the evening but dont know how.
He was off work for about three weeks and no gigs for six.

[pklima]

My band starts this one song with everyone except the drummer in these big plastic pods. Looks very cool and sci-fi. After the first few bars the pods open and we come out. Well, this one time my pod got stuck... No, not really, but I couldn't read this thread without thinking about Spinal Tap.

[knumbskull]

guitarist = beaten to a pulp by the bouncers, carted off to hospital
singer = arrested for D&D (in a seperate incident)

thankfully we'd finished playing when it all happened....

another time while i was drumming for a band the singer was jumping around, tripped and landed head first in the drumkit. cue drums and singer all over the stage.

then there was the time i got drunk and fell off the stage at a jazz gig.

[Wal Pawlik]

Happened back in the early seventies. I was young and not long married and it was the time of the go-go dancer. We were playing this venue where these go-go dancing girls would come on the stage and do their thing, you know, waving arms and shaking and gyrating their tops.
This particular night, one of the girls comes out in the briefest of bikini tops I had seen in my young naive life, and positioned herself in front of me and began doing her thing.
As she gyrated she kept falling out of her bikini top and turned around to face me as she tucked herself in again.
Being young and naive and not long married, after a few of her in my face adjustments, I lost it, and just stopped playing. She also had had enough and ran of the stage to cheers from the audience.
Problem was, my wife was at the gig and saw the whole thing and stormed off taking my car leaving me to contemplate my reception on getting home after the gig.

[Joel S.]

Forgot one,

Playing a hotel party. Few bars into a particular song the singer breaks a string. He keeps on playing, but the sudden change throws off the rhythm guitarist who starts playing off key and off time. Drummer gets confused and stops for a second, then keeps going. Only problem is there's a part of the song of just the singer, but the drummer just kept on playing. I kept telling him to stop but he's like "no, we can't just stop!" We get back in and end the song quickly. After we finished the drummer tells me we shouldn't just stop a song, I had to remind him that I wasn't telling him to end the song, I was telling him to stop playing for that one part.

"Ohhhh... s***."

[Brittain]

Originally Posted by Joel S.

Few bars into a particular song the singer breaks a string.

What's your singer made out of

[thantos_kalev]

Originally Posted by ggunn View Post
Let's see, there are so many of them...

OK, here's one. Our lead singer had just gotten his brand new wireless mic, and he was using it to prance all over the venues, flirting with the girls and such. He did notice that it drained the batteries fairly quickly, though, so one night when we were playing a song with a fairly long jam section (no vocals) in the middle of it, he left the stage to pee, and while he was in the bathroom he had the bright idea to shut off his mic to save the batteries. Unfortunately, next door there was another band playing whose lead guitarist was wireless and on the same frequency.

Suddenly there was a third guitarist in the mix, playing VERY LOUD and a different song. Of course our vocalist was in the can and didn't hear the effect of what he did, and the sound guy had left his post, so it went on for a while.

Originally Posted by peaveyuser

hahah thats great, what would be better is if he had a singing part and went to the bathroom, singin while doing business

haha
A scene from The Naked Gun movie comes to mind, with Lt. Frank Drebbin urinating and singing over a wireless mic...

I played a musical in a large venue a few years ago and one night during intermission the sound engineers forgot to turn the cast's body microphones off. The loudest flushes I've ever heard!

[ggunn]

Originally Posted by peaveyuser

hahah thats great, what would be better is if he had a singing part and went to the bathroom, singin while doing business

Well, that brings to mind another story...

My wife used to work at KLRU TV, which produces Austin City Limits. During ACL rehearsals, the production staff would send the video and audio out over the closed circuit system in the building, so all the KLRU and KUT folks could watch it at their desks.

One day Willie Nelson was rehearsing, and he was wearing a wireless lavalier mic. He excused himself to go to the bathroom and left his mic on, and soon the whole RTF building echoed with the sound of Willie Nelson Peeing.

When he got back to the studio, they told him what had happened, but Willie took it in stride. He said "Heck, if you'da told me you were listenin' I'da whistled 'Whiskey River'."

[Ale]

I guess im lucky, ive never had a real disaster.
From years of playing 4 gigs a week i guess the worse thing happening is cables breaking or effects overheating.

[Mike Shevlin]

Originally Posted by Mike Shevlin

We were 3 songs into a packed gig in downtown Anchorage, Alaska in 1992 which was abrupty halted due to the volcanic eruption of nearby Mt. Spurr. The eruption send a plume of ash miles into the sky and the ash was headed towards the city. Volcanic ash is full of acid that can destroy the inside of a car's engine, so everyone took off to get there cars home. We really didn't have any place to go so we stayed in the club until morning. Here is a photo that I clipped of the net of Anchorage the morning after.

http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/www/teach/...cs/Spurr13.gif

If I may be so bold, I would like to declare myself the winner of this thread unless someone got hit by a tital wave while playing a gig.

Crap - I really thought this was going to be my moment of glory & I got bested by a dude that got bit on the ass by a sheep. I've resorted to quoting myself.

[Brittain]

Originally Posted by Mike Shevlin

Crap - I really thought this was going to be my moment of glory & I got bested by a dude that got bit on the ass by a sheep. I've resorted to quoting myself.

Now now, credit where credit is due, it was a Goat

[mrokern]

I think a few people around here have a fetish...and this is coming from the guy who had the teeth marks in his butt!



-Mark

[Mojo-Man]

Drummer broke kick-drum pedal, first song.
No back up.

I live on Martha's Vineyard.
Coming back from a main land gig. (RI)
We had to take a small boat home.
Our amps, were bunged, to inside of boat.
A big wave hit, bunge broke, no more amps, ( over the side)

I had my bass with me in gig bag. ( or it would have gone over to.)

[chicago_mike]

lets see:

Last tour, east coast. That SWR SM900 that I got used I had fixed. Simply by replacing the bad output board with the good one from my redhead. Identical boards.

I also, like a dummy replace the fan, with a computer fan that has blue leds...COOL! I think.

30 minutes into the set, first night of week long tour, the fan blows up, catches fire and fire comes out of my amp.

So, thank gawd, the soundman is a bassist and leaves his rig at the club, an eden wt500 and matching 410.

Another one, Im on tour, again, this time with the gk1001 210 rb, with a hartke 410 for more volume. I cook a speaker midway thru the tour, 2nd set I think.

I get home and fix the speaker, with..newspaper and elmers wood glue...THAT speaker is still working and has now outlasted brand new speakers that i have blown, AND SOUNDS BETTER TOO!

Hmm, oh yeah...same gig that my swr blows...my solo, I have a morley wah pedal, that I didnt know cause I didnt look, had the volume control cranked...so I go to solo, and do some funky shtuff, when all you hear is WAHHHHHH, WAHHHH, WAHHHH blasting thru the monitors and every crevasis of the club...I end my solo pretty quick, and look down...and I smile to the soundman and point down at the pedal....

Ummm, Goats are baaaaad...


Oh, I get home from that tour where I blow the gk speaker.that night I get a call to play, so...3rd set thankfully, I blow up the gk head...the guitarist, has me plug into his amp..a victoria clone of a 59 bassman. So that didnt go too bad.. My GK is still unfixed, just sitting in my room. And my readhead is still unrepaired as well...I may sell those.

In the course of 2 1/2 weeks roughly I had blown 3 amps, and 3 speakers. Not too bad.

[whitedk57]

I think Great White's Rhode Island gig was probably the most major gig disaster ever. Very tragic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire

[Passinwind]

Tent blew over on the band in a wind gust. A 4 inch diameter steel pole came down squarely where I had originally set up my rig. Good chance it would have killed me if I hadn't decided to move a little before our set. As it was it missed me by a couple of feet. They set the tent back up and we finished the show. It's the Columbia Gorge, which is world famous for frequent high winds. D'oh!

I also had a gun pulled on my roadies at a show I was mixing one time. Nice "Family" joint, where the band alternated sets with some lovely young ladies peeling for our entertainment. The band shared the dressing room with the strippers, and the youngsters apparently got cheeky with the female talent. Guido the Kneecapper gave us ten minutes to tear down -- we did it in maybe 5! I managed to get us paid for the one set the band played too. It pays to make friends in advance with management on first time shows -- in this case it may have saved lives even.

[rappa29]

Dunno if it this counts as a gig disaster since the gig never really happened...

Circa 1990ish, we were to open for A Flock Of Seagulls at a club in Ybor City. We were set up, soundchecked and good to go! Went up the street to Hardy's to eat and change. We were gone for about 30 minutes. Got back to the club and the club was taped off with yellow police tape and barraccaded! There were BATF all over the place in masks w\full gear and the local police too!

Turns out they'd been casing the club for about a year prior for selling drugs, serving minors and other illegal activity.

Obviously the entire gig was cancelled.

No one was allowed in and no one was allowed out. Our soundman and guitarist were stuck in there and had to go through the motions (i.e. face the wall, spread 'em, frisk, handcuffed). We weren't allowed to go inside for HOURS! We were scared sheetless that they were going to impound all our gear! Especially me, I played keys and had a pretty serious multi keyboard rig.

So I don't know if it counts as a 'gig disaster' since the gig never happened!

[Mike Shevlin]

Originally Posted by Passinwind

Tent blew over on the band in a wind gust.

Is THAT where you got your username???? I thought you had a farting problem.

[95svtcobra]

Hmm, lots of good ones, but lets start with one that is funny now, but sure as hell wasn't at the time....

So my regular band gets a show on the local stop of the Vans Warp Tour. We get the gig through a local producer who has label connections as an instrumentalist and just released a cover getting airplay in England. He needs a backing band for his song and likes enough of our stuff that he learns the vocals for 4 of our tunes and we're going to do a 5 song showcase...Sounds like fun and if things go well we get to open for a national act I love a week later at a top venue.

Where to begin...

1. My drummer gets the jitters and hits the Jack D at 8:00 am and passes out the FIRST time by 11:00 am.
2. Our stage breaks down on the way from the previous show and is running late. We get our slot rescheduled for later in the afternoon.
3. My drummer wakes up and keeps drinking hiding Jack in Pepsi bottles so we can't take it away.
4. Confusion with craft services means we're not getting chow, so we're on our own eating $15 burgers and $5 waters....for 12 hours in 95 degrees with no real shade.
5. Drummer passes out again in the truck.
6. Traffic starts to pick up in the area, and one of my friends coming to the show calls my cell and says he passed our stage about 20 minutes ago broken down about 10 miles away.
7. Drummer wakes up and notices his shoes are off. He begins looking for the "lousy bastard who stole his shoes" - which are laying in the footwell of the truck he passed out in....
8. Our stage arrives and we get rescheduled at a time slot opposite a national act on the other side of the grounds killing our crowd
9. We finally get on stage. Backline looks decent. Stage appears sturdy. Wooden floors have lots of holes though.....Hmmm
10. Just before the first song, my "armored" instrument cable gets wedged in between floorboards in a narrow gap. It leaves me stuck in a 12" diameter circle to play - Directly behind my singer (6'4" 340lb - I'm 5'7.....).
11. We get a count off from the drummer and WHAM - he plays the wrong song part. Yep. My singer turns around and we make panicked eye contact - we have 20 minutes of this S^^T
12. I have no monitors and can't reach the front of the stage because of my cable.
13. The band now realizes the guy who got us the gig, who is singing our stuff, but isn't our singer, is not a front man at heart. Pure pucker factor. No stage presence, barely audible vocals....
14. My regular singer steps up and starts doing the performance like it should be except the FOH guy has him buried in the mix (I heard later)
15. Bass backline suddenly goes intermittent in song 2. (we're the last band on the stage tonight and I'm guessing somebody didn't check something) but I can't tell if it's FOH or just the backline (it was FOH also)
16. Drummer almost falls out of his throne off the back of the stage at the beginning of Song 3.
17. After we get off stage my buddy comes up to me and says "nice job" with the same look as someone is caught F&^%ing your wife and you walk in on him.....

But I still think the Goat story wins (Goats can F&^K you up!!)

Not the worst, just one slice of a middle aged bass players gig life....