Nightmare gigs / Horror stories

[Dave Muscato]

Getting really frustrated with BS gigs... Let's hear your horror stories!

I did a search but didn't find a thread that specifically addresses this. I think it would be fun to get one going.

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I've just about had it. Not-so-seriously thinking about giving up full-band gigs and going back to teaching, sessions, and playing classical guitar at restaurants for tips and free food.

I don't want to get into too much detail (I'm just burned out on talking about it right now), but I am sick of being double-booked, clubs reneging on terms, losing money every time we play, etc. It just doesn't seem worth it sometimes.

I want to hear about your crappy gigs so I can stop feeling sorry for myself and regain some perspective about my chosen profession I know that many of you have had gigs that will make mine seem like a walk in the park... let's put them all in one place!

Whatchya got?

[bluestarbass]

We played this bar once that was terrible. The "stage" was a freight elevator. We put a drummer, a full bass stack, 2 full guitar stacks and 4 band members in a freight elevator. Whats worse is the elevator could only be seen by the bartender, the audience was to the side, so no one could see you even if they wanted to. It was about 120 degrees inside that elevator. I hated every minute of it.

[Dave Muscato]

But bluestarbass, did you at least get paid?

[mark roberts]

Originally Posted by Dave Muscato

Getting really frustrated with BS gigs... Let's hear your horror stories!

I did a search but didn't find a thread that specifically addresses this. I think it would be fun to get one going.

--

I've just about had it. Not-so-seriously thinking about giving up full-band gigs and going back to teaching, sessions, and playing classical guitar at restaurants for tips and free food.

I don't want to get into too much detail (I'm just burned out on talking about it right now), but I am sick of being double-booked, clubs reneging on terms, losing money every time we play, etc. It just doesn't seem worth it sometimes.

I want to hear about your crappy gigs so I can stop feeling sorry for myself and regain some perspective about my chosen profession I know that many of you have had gigs that will make mine seem like a walk in the park... let's put them all in one place!

Whatchya got?

"...losing money every time we play"...
There it is...and to think, there are even players who subscribe to the "do it for the love of it". This take on things are music to a venue's ears and pocket book...the closer they get to free entertainment, the better their profits. Period. From a biz point of view, in this day of even MORE feverish "drive the costs down" to improve profits..artists have a tough road. With an audience rife with the idea that live musical entertainers at the local/regional level are "a dime a dozen"...with municipalities looking to hammer venues with costs and restrictions...with fuel costs for players on travel gigs eating into any $$ earned, not to mention the cost for up-keep, etc. for the gear. Advancements/improvements need to be subsidized from the day-job savings...if there's any available.

[Diggler]

I don't have much to offer here because we take every step possible to avoid them.

I'm bought and am in charge of the PA, so everything's labeled and we're prepared that way.

We write off any bar owner that inconveniences us more than once. Strike two, you're out. We cancelled a private party a week in advance because we didn't get 50% up front by the deadline. "Yes, we're serious about the down payment."

We don't play for less than $500/night. $400 for the first night/first-date type of thing.

Ground rules, preparation and having a sellable product goes a long way towards reducing or eliminating bad gigs. The only thing we're missing is contracts.

[Dave Muscato]

Diggler, do you play originals or covers?

As far as the contract, I recommend having two kinds: A short form and a long form. Some clubs will be very scared of signing contracts, preferring a handshake. This can be okay or VERY bad. We spent a lot of money to have an attorney draft us a great performance contract, but almost never use it, because clubs say, "What, are you serious? Get out," when we show it to them. We really ought to have something like "Who/What/When/Where/How much" that we can whip out in such cases.

The show that made me start this thread was not contracted (it's this coming Saturday). I can't wait to see what else goes wrong... if we're lucky, playing this will ONLY cost me $75 out-of-pocket... argh.

- Dave

[Diggler]

We do covers.

We haven't done contracts because we haven't been burnt yet and are on good terms with the bar owners.

[bopeuph]

I have quite a few, but there is one that was bad then, but is pretty funny now when I look back at it.

I was in the FSU Salsa Band when I was there. They asked us to play on Lanford Green just before the UF at FSU game in 2000. We were excited about doing it originally, and the music department was going to drop money in the salsa band fund.

The day of the game, it was cold. Uncomfortably cold, for just about everyone. It had been miserable and cloudy all day long. For bass and piano, we couldn't feel our way around the instruments. It was murder on the percussionists' hands. And then there's the brass section. Not easy to play on cold horns.

We played opposite the ESPN set. We thought that would be great exposure for the ensemble. There was a huge salsa following in Tallahassee at the time. But the sound guy was paid to do nothing more than to mute the band, apparently, because that's what he did. The whole time. We couldn't hear each other, and no one could hear us. The amplified instruments turned up, and the acoustic players played louder. We got yelled at for not willing to be controlled.

After about the fourth song, we started packing up. The music grad assistant in charge of booking us came and asked us where we're going. The bandleader told him it's not worth it to come out on a cold day to be muted and just look like we're faking it all the way through. We eventually had to fight for that money.

Nick

[TechZilla]

WOW,

This is a topic i'm sure some folks here could write a novel about. In the last 9 months or so we have had the rare and sought after opportunity to:

* Play for 3 boucers and a bartender. (The previous week there was a massive bar brawl banning most regular and some occational patrons from the bar for the rest of the year) full pay but not the most inspired performance.

* Play one of our favorite bars. (Where a friend of our drummer's was assulted in the mens room and barely escaped with his life. Massive bleeding and multiple facial fractures).

* Play a bar near a huge biker ralley for tips. $38 before expenses.

* Play a private party for the local Biker Gang. (Overall not a bad gig, $100, free booze, and free food). The only catches were: It was so far out in the country there was no Cell service. Fire arms and large knives were NOT checked at the door. and if we didn't go over well, no one would have ever found the bodies.

As I was driving down the spooky dirt road after the gig, thanking GOD that I left with the same amount of holes in my body that I had when I arrived, with our singer and drummer in tow I couldn't help but think (why exactly am I doing this?). It then occured to me. 25 years ago when I was a 15 year old kid sitting on my bed with my little Fender Musicmaster and crappy practice amp dropping the needle on Rush albums pretending to be Geddy Lee, I didn't care about any of this stuff. thoughts of money, crowds or my own personal safety never entered my mind. I just wanted to be a bass player.

Along with these gems there have been alot of great gigs too. My advise, suck it up take the hit, move on to the next gig. If you love to play then play and love it no matter what.

[rodl2005]

Yeah I got 100's of 'em too!
But now we contract MOST gigs & we insist on the MONEY BEFORE we start playing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
INSIST!!! Saves a pi$$ed 'best man' losing $2.5k outta his pocket or anything like that. We've built a really good, reliable name around our state & ppl know we are gonna do a good job-which helps. We play-OUR CHOICE of covers mainly 80-90% -which are along the lines of James Brown, Parliament, Sly & Family Stone, Aretha, Bacharach, Chic, Grace Jones etc... + a few originals thrown in-most don't realize they're orig. but we record 'em &....

But gigs- One YEARS ago 1979 abouts... I was in my 1st band & we got heaps of work-3 piece-pop covers + all of Led Zep & some Queen!!! :-)
we were doing a college leaver dinner which was on a large ferry doing a harbor cruise..... was a bit rough & the guitarist -way back then- had a '75 Les Paul-lovely & a Not lovely Yamaha 2 x 12 combo on wheels-which due to the ferry rocking, was going from left to right & banging into things :-) - We were such idiots then we were cacking ourselves laughing at it!!!-so were the audience-coz the spring reverb unit in it was going OFF every time it bumped into sumthin & makin a Hell of a racket!!!!!! :-)
We weren't a quiet band then either & played a fair few punk type numbers which were popular then too, & the rather old & straight owner/ pilot/driver of the ferry said " you'll never play on this boat again" "too F.... Loud" etc.... Was hilarious!!! We did play on it again....well I did, I assume it had new owners when I did tho.

[Oratorio]

I know where you guys are getting at, it's incredibly tough out there .. But why don't you guys get a booking firm? My band does that, and we get about 2,500$ gross. And we pay our sound guy, and sit with about 850$ if we're really lucky. I don't really have that many horror stories, but we have been wasted at some occasions. It's not something we do anymore (was partly the arranger's fault anywho).

[rodl2005]

I got another:- again on a ferry-different one tho- this was 10 yrs ago, & the ferry this time simply sat at the dock! It was a D & D Ball(Desperate & Dateless..)....shoulda seen it comin...well we did, a bit! But it was desparate enough without this....... BY the end of the night, the floor was inches deep in beer!!! it was sloshing around.. Luckily Most of our ger was on a rise in the decks floor, but the PA's power amps were over on the edges & even tho they were on a 2 or 3 unit rack case they were still VERY close to getting dunked in the 'slodge' & the sound guy was extremely P*$$ed off at having his amps NEARLY blow & having every thing else-leads-soaking wet in it!!
Oh yeah....somethin else( it was 10+ yrs ago , I 4 get) the boat was licenced to hold about 250ppl & there were about 4-500 @ this function!! :-0 we all had a shudder to think how we could've all been sunk!! OOOO YUK!!!

[CBBass123]

Played a outdoor gig for a medium size biker rally....We set up a fully arsenal of PA/guitar/Bass stacks...Got sound test done....Then...it started to rain. Many bikers who where there already left, and tons that were suppose to show up did not. We continued to play the gig under a torn canopy cause owner said it would show that the show is still on. Well, owner did got get good business as these small/medium biker fests rely on his business. Since no contract, he asked if he could pay us less for gig...way less and we agreed to be good at heart and keep further business. We usually get paid full and free beer. To end this story...at the end of the gig/night...our (free) beer tab was in the sum of 80 dollars and we had to pay up. We got screwed of a 80 beer tab and got paid way less for gig. We got pissed and agreed we would never doing business with them again...plus got our equipment rained on...

[rodl2005]

We've Never been "Stiffed" for a gig AFAIK or can remember!! ;-) but one a few yrs ago- BIG function- City Hall, the events co. that organised it were supposed to pay us within 30 mins of end of gig. (thats why we changed our contract to now get paid B4 we start!!!!!) they said they'd left the cheque at the office..... yeah right.... so we stubbornly said we'd drive them to the office & get it........ after about a 1/2 hr of umms & errrs they paid us - IN CASH... someone went to a few ATM's IIRC!! HA !

[bluestarbass]

Dave, I think i may have made $10. To further the horror story, im not sure ive ever been paid the agreed amount ever.

Indianapolis is a cover band market. If your not in a cover band you wont make any money. I had a guy from austin come here once and he said something that blew my mind. He told me in austin cover bands dont get in the door anywhere, you have to be an original artist. I thought that was insanely interesting given the situation in my town.

[mrokern]

Got one from my full-time sound days...

I was FOH / PM for a well-known regional show band. The agent booked us into a festival in a small town outside Green Bay, WI. We made the drive from La Crosse (about 5 hours), set up the system, line checked, and waited for showtime.

As the crowd filtered in, I noticed an awful lot of leather and Harleys...

Yup, it was a biker rally. And our band's set lists? Neil Diamond, Chicago, etc...WHOOPS!

First set ends, and FOH is surrounding by large, menacing bikers (I can handle myself just fine, but this was freaky). One of them said, "Your band better learn some new **** quick, boy, or we're gonna shut you down and I don't mean the speakers."

After a quick and terrified conversation backstage, we gave the horn section, female backup singers, and keyboard player the rest of the night off. The rhythm section and lead guitars fudged their way through 3 hours of classic rock. That kept me alive for the rest of the night, at least!

We got paid, packed up, and got the bloody H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of there!

-Mark

[Passinwind]

I've posted this before, but what the heck.

I was mixing sound for a hair metal band in the 80s. Their brilliant agent books us into a Family establishment. Yeah, that Family. The band alternates with the strippers, and shares the same dressing room. One of the (very young and dumb) roadies "handles the merchandise" and gets a gun stuck in his face for his transgression. To make it worse, they wanted disco, not AC-DC and Van Whalen.

Luckily I had arrived very early and made friends with the management. Otherwise it could've been really ugly. We cleared a huge PA in less than 10 minutes, nobody got hurt, and we actually did get paid for the one set the band played.

[NoNoise]

I don't really feel I have bad stories, because I try to keep things in perspective according to my band situations. On the Mastodon CD, they talked about playing to no one once, and I figure if it happened to them, it WILL happen to me. It has twice, I think.

My band also hardly ever gets paid right now. We don't have enough friends willing to pay to go to all our shows, and we're not well known right now. However, that's part of it, too, I think. We just keep playing all the shows we can, and we hope that enough people will like us and pay to see us again and spread the word.

In any case, I only play in bands with original music, so that's a big part of it.

At some point, I want to play with bands that actually make money a.k.a. bassist for hire, but it will still have to be original music, and I do get pretty particular about "art quality." It still won't be "my band/my music," but I can't play for Britney Spears or something. I'd definitely play for some hip hop artists or really good solo artists that just need a band behind them.

[Muckaluck]

My first gig ever was in grade 10 at a high school octoberfest. We learned everything off by heart and lugged all our gear there (bass amps, drums, guitar amps). 5 bands played on our stuff all day long and then when it was time for us to go on the sound guy cut the PA and started packing everything up. He said it was too late for the other band to go on. So there we were like a bunch of schmucks packing all our gear up that everyone else had played on except us. And to think I learned all the words to White Zombie's "More Human than Human" for nothing.

What a rip.

[mike.b]

played a freebie at a biker rally and only ten bikers turned up.the pub was heaving with patrons,then it rained.when the rain eventually cleared we finished gig with a car park full of 3year olds.found out the real rally was about a mile away and the landlord wanted to pinch all the custom to his pub.it was chaos at the start with two bands loading their gear onto the stage and just as bad unloading it all.as the old saying goes "never again."