What NOT to do before a first gig...

[IanStephenson]

It's been a while since i was gigging regularly - a combination of moving around, other priorities, and just not finding the right band (and two years in the wrong one).

Finally a local rock cover band I'm friendly with ask me to try out - their bass player is retiring. These guys are reliable, commited, well balanced (they all have day jobs, but play seriously), and have steady gigs booked for the next 8 months. I nail the audition (three tracks note perfect first time through [Fool for your Lovin' is just on of my favourite bass lines, so luckd out there!], one minor stumble in the fourth), and a month of learning a two hour set.

First gig was at the weekend. I'm all ready to go just polishing everything. As everything is great I take some time off to sort the yard out... Theres some ivy on the garage roof that has to go, so I climb up and cut as much as I can... Then i climb down, go round the front and pull it to the ground. It's pretty big/heavy so I climb up the ivy to pull it down. Huge crash, and I nimbly jump clear just as the hugest ivy tree crashes to the ground... Now get a saw to cut whats left of the roots... I then decide I've had enough for the day and drag the tree round the back out of the way... Suddenly I'm lying on the ground in huge pain. Actually I'm slighty under ground as a drain cover has given way, and I'm waist deep in a manhole with the most incredibble pain in my left ankle, and knee and my right hip.

I dragged myself back into the house, and following a trip to A&E it turns out nothings broken, but my ankle is pretty badly bashed up, and I can't walk in it. I'll be on cruches for a few days.

I phoned the guys up to let them know the bad news - that they would be loading and unloading my rig for me!! I played most of the gig standing on one leg - then my good leg started complaining and I did a few songs sat on a bar stool. All went great - only a couple of screw ups in 25 songs, and everyones happy (even though my leg still hurts).

Theres another gig next weekend - hopefully I'll be able to move around a bit more by then.

Ian

[bannedwit]

Wow that sucks... Yeah definately try to not do potentially harmful or rigerous stuff the day of a show.

[GrooveWarrior]

Something else you should NOT do before a first gig is eat Long John Silvers or White Castle!!

[fr0me0]

way to be a trooper

[Rooney]

The mention of "what not to do before a gig" and "saw" had me cringing!

Good that you were able to play!

[bassbully43]

I saw a blues band once where the bassist sat on a stool the whole nite and i thought...lucky...........i play much better sitting....maybe you can milk the leg thing longer

[Akami]

This post brings back wonderful memories of my JBL 4738's.
I was running them into the restaurant and tripped going over the curb and not wanting the speaker to get hurt allowed it to land on me, which was really bad for my leg.

Finished setting up and the cook asked me why I was limping, then wouldn't take an "I'm okay though", so we looked at it and they made me go to the hospital before I was allowed to play.
I had already been feeling really lucky because at first I was sure my leg would have to be broken by the impact of the bottom edge hitting the side of my shin bone when I hit the parking lot.
As it turned out I only had a pressure wound all the way to the bone. I didn't move around onstage much that night!

[All_¥our_Bass]

Originally Posted by Rooney

The mention of "what not to do before a gig" and "saw" had me cringing!

Good that you were able to play!

+1

And for all the woodchopping Floydians here.
Please...
Be carfule with that axe...

[Munjibunga]

I wouldn't even do that crap after a gig.

[Growler]

I was expecting the punchline to be..

"...and then I realized it was poison ivy..."

[haxality]

Good to see you're dedicated to the music. This reminds me of what happened to Fat Mike before NOFX played in DC. He just drank a large cup of vodka while he played though, nevermind the sitting thing :P

[dougjwray]

When it comes to loading equipment, maybe you could milk this for awhile!

A bassist friend of mine once stuck his hand in a snowblower, and was soon after seen playing a headline gig at the largest rock club in Boston with a tremendous splint on the index finger of his plucking hand. (He used a "good" finger to pluck.)

I once had an agent (!) close a car door on the middle finger of my plucking hand on the way to a big gig. I had a good bone bruise, but nothing worse, fortunately.

Finally, in May 1994 I subbed in a blues band immediately following my participation in Boston's annual 20-mile "Walk for Hunger." Having to stand all night was tough, but I also decided to wear my stage boots, which were uncomfortable on any night when I hadn't just walked 20 miles.

[Sundogue]

A guitarist in one of my first bands was helping to load in a PA cabinet and stumbled on these old crumbling concrete steps.

His fretting hand ring finger got crushed between the PA cab and the corner edge of the concrete step. He had a huge cut all along the finger that required 17 stitches.

But he just wrapped it up in kleenex and duct tape and played the whole night with that taped up finger sticking out off the fretboard.

It wasn't until after the gig that he went to the ER to get it stitched up. What a trooper!

Kudos to you for sticking it out and playing. Hey, the show must go on right?

I threw out my back the day of my very first gig with a new band...I could hardly even wear my bass...and sitting was not an option. My only choice was not play, or play with a crapload of Jose Quervo. I played pretty good for being drunk (though not falling down drunk...just enough juice to take the edge off the pain...and it really only took a bit of the edge off, but I could play through the pain, cringing the entire gig).

Sometimes you just gotta do, what you gotta do!!!

[Woodchuck]

Originally Posted by crhoton

Something else you should NOT do before a first gig is eat Long John Silvers or White Castle!!

Or Krystal (White Castle of the south)!
Way to troop it out! That's why we're bass players!!!!!

[RyansDad]

I was putzing around my house a few years ago before I got married and I accidentally knocked over the iron that was on the counter in the kitchen. I instinctively reached to catch it and did so...by the heating element and my roommate had just used it and left it out on the kitchen counter.

My roommate came back in the room to seem me standing in front of the fridge, freezer door open, and my hand in the icemaker. The moron asks what I'm doing and I spent the next two minutes swearing at him.

I had blisters on my fingertips that did not go down for about two weeks. Thank god I did not have any upcoming shows in that time.

[dougjwray]

Originally Posted by Sundogue

I threw out my back the day of my very first gig with a new band...I could hardly even wear my bass...and sitting was not an option. My only choice was not play, or play with a crapload of Jose Quervo. I played pretty good for being drunk (though not falling down drunk...just enough juice to take the edge off the pain...and it really only took a bit of the edge off, but I could play through the pain, cringing the entire gig).

Sometimes you just gotta do, what you gotta do!!!

Congratulations!
Back injuries are UNBELIEVABLY painful. I threw out my back last year when picking up my young son the wrong way (twisting, not using my legs) and quickly crumpled to the floor, nearly screaming. I had to be carried out on a stretcher. Morphine injections put a dent in the pain. It turned out that I had (still have) a herniated disk. After some bed rest followed by exercise, I can deal with it now... some days I don't even notice it, and I can jog, etc. But brother, I feel your pain!

[Jimbo]

taking care of business, nice

hope you recover soon and feel better

-jimbo

[Sundogue]

Originally Posted by dougjwray

Congratulations!
Back injuries are UNBELIEVABLY painful. I threw out my back last year when picking up my young son the wrong way (twisting, not using my legs) and quickly crumpled to the floor, nearly screaming. I had to be carried out on a stretcher. Morphine injections put a dent in the pain. It turned out that I had (still have) a herniated disk. After some bed rest followed by exercise, I can deal with it now... some days I don't even notice it, and I can jog, etc. But brother, I feel your pain!

Yeah, it was a late fall/early winter gig. I threw out my back starting my snowblower to make sure it was in working order.

Funny thing is, it's not a pull-start...it has an electric starter on it! I threw out my back just bending over to hit the button...WHAM! Right to the ground. I was thinking, "Oh this is great, I have a gig in three hours and I can't even walk!"

I'd have played the gig even if I would have had to do it lying on my back (which was almost a possibility). I don't normally have back problems, but once in a great while I throw my back out doing something you'd never think would hurt it.

Ian, I really don't think you can ever stop doing what you are gonna do. No matter how careful you are, sh*t happens anyway. I bet if you did the same thing again before a gig, nothing happens to you next time. Still, I guess it's better to not be reckless or careless the day of a gig. But what's musician to do? Stop living?

[txbasschik]

You, sir, are a *trooper*! I'm just glad you didn't break anything, or lose a finger, and that it wasn't poison ivy!

I know how that happens, too. You think, "Its just a little chore, really. I can get it done, no problem." And it grows like some freak, Steven King movie chore, and then it ATTACKS!!! You survived, thank God! ;-)

Now, go read Mr. King's short story, "Kudzu", and don't mess with the ivy before a gig anymore. ;-)

Halloween afternoon...I'm toasting pumpkin seeds and going through my little girl's outgrown clothing, which is being packed away in a big, heavy, plastic box. This box is in my son's way, so he moves it. Directly in front of his sister's door.

Buzzer on oven goes off...I go flying from daughter's room 'cause, you know, burnt pumpkin seeds are nasty.

WHAM!!! Accompanied by CRUNCH!!!

Foot hits box. Box breaks toes. Big one and 2nd were ok, but the rest went from bad to "OMG, that bone is perpendicular to the rest!!!"

Oh, they were big and ugly and blue and red and crooked. Made my husband straighten the worst ones, on the back porch, a bottle of Cuervo at my side. (I *would* be able to wear my French pumps again!!!) Poor man. Must have been very ooky, pulling the bones straight as I cursed like a Mexican sailor. Crunch, crunch. Tex-Mex and Cajun and English curses rang from the hillsides. I think they heard me on the lake.

Sit around Halloween night eating pumpkin seeds, drinking margaritas, with a Vicadin and a doob, and watching scary movies, while my neighbor takes the small kiddies trick-r-treating, and my husband takes the teens to their party.

Next night...I get a desperate call from a band I'm friends with. "PLEEEEEEASE play bass for us!!! There's no one else available!!! Yep, a three hour show. We need you!!!"

Nothing like making a woman feel needed to get her to get up and go do for you.

Hobble my broke-foot little self to the venue, get the desperate boys to unload/load for me, and stand and play all night. No room for a stool, we're on the itty-bitty stage. Vicadin and whiskey and a chicken fajita taco, and I'm good ta go. I can sit down during breaks. People give me kind mota all evening, you know, for medicinal purposes. ;-)

I slept until 1 p.m. the next day, after that gig. Pain was the only thing that could wake me. My little one let me have some of her candy, the sweetie. :-)

Cherie

[d8g3jdh]

Falling in a manhole is never a good idea despite the injury's proximity to a gig.

Way to rock on though.