What's the most epic fail of a train wreck you've ever witnessed? Plus a lesson.

[FenderBassist]

The epic fail was having this guitarist in a rock/alternative cover band who did all the booking. He got a lot of gigs, no doubt.

However, he would drink every gig. Just two or three beers and he was "gone".

He'd play rhythm/solos in wrong keys, and sing harmonies off key by 1 and 1/2 steps. I ended up removing his microphone off the stage before we kicked. It was bad enough that he used a small bass practice combo as his amp. The "band leader" couldn't handle dealing with conflict.

The most epic fail was when we played in a cool little mountain town called Crown King. Someone gave him a couple shots of tequila and 30 minutes later he staggered forward, did a complete forward roll (like Judo guys do) and came back up on his feet...

...and speared the belly of a poor girl dancing on the floor with the headstock of his Charvel guitar. Fortunately he didn't hurt her badly, shocked her more than anything else. But that was the major embarrassment of the year for the band.

Lesson learned: there (more often than not) is one person in the startup of a band that doesn't belong there (for whatever reason) and will bring the band more trouble than good. If the band leader won't address it at some point, leave. I did.

[gre107]

Last nights gig! I'm in the "Reflecting on why do I play with these guys..." mode right now.

[afzoomie67]

Originally Posted by paparoof

Saw the Replacements several times.

HAHAHAHAH, ouch.. Were they that bad live?

[rtslinger]

Originally Posted by Freight Train

Well, you'll find no bigger Zep fan than me. I saw them 5 times, first in the summer of 1969 at the Texas International Pop Festival about 4 months after the first album was released. They were so phenomenal at that festival I can't even describe it - they were so loose and easy and nearly every song worked into some kind of improvisation. And they played almost all of Zep II as well, which was released later that winter. The other 4 times I saw them from 1970 through 1978 they ranged from mediocre to outright suck. The only one of those four that's memorable to me was the Presence tour, where Bonham and Jones were totally spectacular and completely drove the show, even though it was one of the worst I saw for Page and Plant.

Yup I was so devastated they were Rock Gods, Heroes, the only chance I would ever get to see them live 1977 and they sucked your words not mine but true! How could the mighty Led Zep. sound like a garage band on the stage at MSG! Sloppy Lazy, lyrics in the wrong place just awful. Rolling Stone Mag later came out with a review that pretty much nail the coffin.I read in an interview that Page did in the 90's he claimed "his playing on the 70's US Tour was laughable." One thing I will add though when Page played the acoustic he was flawless? The only thing good I can remember about his performance.

[Tractorr]

This one has probably been posted on some forum before but it is a good one. Even Van Halen has incompetent sound people sometimes. This is what happens when the DAT player contain the keyboard parts is set to 48K when it should be on 44.1K. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx_GjyXCs4

[smeet]

Sometime in the mid-80s I saw Stanley Clarke play, and they were doing School Days, which starts out with an extended (I mean, really extended, like, really really long) bass solo. After about 10 minutes of this, Stanley steps up to the mic and tells the band to stop playing. They come to an embarrassed halt. Stanley says to the crowd "That sucked. We can do better for you people." He starts the song again, right back into the 10 minute bass solo. It sounded exactly the same.

I heard from a friend that Roger Waters did a similar thing in a recent Wall show. I find that incredibly unprofessional, but hey, I'm neither Stanley nor Roger and they are, so .

[aronnes71]

Originally Posted by DLKasim

My band tried that (E vs Eb in the same song) about three shows ago. It is an awful sound that no audience should ever be subjected to.

Haha, my band had the same insident, only we played Perfect Stranger by Deep Purple in d, e and, wait for it, c. We have sort of a rule of newer stopping a song when it has started... But this time, looking back, we should have stopped... I felt sorry for he singer, but he managed to keep the key, the right key.

We learned a valued lesson, always check your tuning before starting a song.

Cheers
Tore

[The Owl]

One in person: Drunk idiot I USED to be friends with grab the mic from a singe in a friend's cove band during "For Your Love" and totally butchered it. After that night, I no longer considered that jerrys kid anything of a friend. (this was a habitual thing for him, he turned out to be a total drunken loser and just thought it was all a big joke everyone was supposed to laugh at).

On video - Same exact drunk idiot tries to sit in with my fiend's fusion band, so under the influence of several consecutive shots of tequila, grabs his trombone, jumps up on stage and makes this HORRIBLE racket, gets thrown off stage, and has the nerve to ague with my buddy that the was adding "counterpoint".

[Petethebassman]

Originally Posted by Tractorr

This one has probably been posted on some forum before but it is a good one. Even Van Halen has incompetent sound people sometimes. This is what happens when the DAT player contain the keyboard parts is set to 48K when it should be on 44.1K. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx_GjyXCs4

Ouch, that was painful to hear. Talk about out-of-tune!

[Tractorr]

Originally Posted by Petethebassman

Ouch, that was painful to hear. Talk about out-of-tune!

Mistakes happen, the truly shocking thing is that they don't just stop the song. I understand the show must go on but seriously you aren't doing the audience any favors by making them listen to that.

[Ayce]

What suprised me is that EVH didn't have a roadie give him a backup, unless the backups were all tuned that way as well. In the same vein, I suppose if they were all tuned wrong, a roadie may have been trying to tune the backup. Then again, I get the impression from the vid, it was their final song for that show, and they just said screw it and kept going anyway.

Another thing I find off is, that version sounded extremely close to the studio version, and Eddie didn't seem to notice, possible BS (vidchop) job?

[Tractorr]

Originally Posted by Ayce

What suprised me is that EVH didn't have a roadie give him a backup, unless the backups were all tuned that way as well. In the same vein, I suppose if they were all tuned wrong, a roadie may have been trying to tune the backup. Then again, I get the impression from the vid, it was their final song for that show, and they just said screw it and kept going anyway.

Another thing I find off is, that version sounded extremely close to the studio version, and Eddie didn't seem to notice, possible BS (vidchop) job?

The guitar was in tune the backing track was out of tune. The DAT machine that was playing the keyboard part was set to 48K rather than 44.1K so the track played back pitched up.

[Ayce]

Originally Posted by Tractorr

The guitar was in tune the backing track was out of tune. The DAT machine that was playing the keyboard part was set to 48K rather than 44.1K so the track played back pitched up.

That's the claim.
If Wolfie and Dave could adapt, why couldn't Ed?

[Stinsok]

Evanesence playing live on TV. I don't know what the deal was, but the guitars were way off. At the end of the song Amy Lee said "wow......."

[Tractorr]

Originally Posted by Ayce

That's the claim.
If Wolfie and Dave could adapt, why couldn't Ed?

Well it would only be a little bit faster so it wouldn't affect the Alex that much it would be easy to bump up the tempo a bit.

I can't hear the bass all that well on my laptop so I can't really tell if it is out of tune, but if it is bass players are usually a bit smar...oh never mind.

[Stinsok]

I once saw a gospel group playing along with a sequencer. They all became out of sequence and had to stop, twice.

[Freight Train]

Originally Posted by Stinsok

Evanesence playing live on TV. I don't know what the deal was, but the guitars were way off. At the end of the song Amy Lee said "wow......."

Now that you mention it, Fishbone (probably way off-relevence, but a popular punkfunk band in the 80's) played SNL in the mid-90's, and it was like pick-a-key night. So cacophonous it was almost jazz.

[Single Coil]

Originally Posted by Stinsok

Evanesence playing live on TV. I don't know what the deal was, but the guitars were way off. At the end of the song Amy Lee said "wow......."

It was at the 2004 Billboard Awards.

Here it is:
http://www.videolog.tv/video.php?id=538176

The "magic" starts happening at 3:08.

[P. Aaron]

We have very good singers, a horn section, drums, guitar & me on bass. Lotta cats to herd together. We were playing (trying to) James Brown's 'I Feel Good'. Myself, the guitar player and the singer(s) are in one key, D, we had no idea where the horn guys were but, we kicked those dogs for the duration of the song.

We got it straightened out now.

[MirrorToTheMoon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSCEwlRrAZg

Third song in, his amp ****ed up, after that song, EVERYTHING went downhilll. I accidentally unplugged myself multiple times too, so embarrassing.