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

[oniman7]

We played a show once where we played 2 new songs and a cover of Man in the Box by Alice in Chains. I told the guys to hold off on Man in The Box and one of our originals. 2 of the originals were 6 or 7 minutes and I had spent weeks trying to convince the singer (who wrote them) that they were no good. I can see the audience giving us a glossy eyed star about 3 minutes into each of them as they're just waiting for it to end.

Earlier that day, the strap lock on the guitarist's Schecter came right out of the body (a problem they're apparently known for). He borrowed somebody else's that was the same model. It's a Schecter C-1 Hellraiser, which is active. And of course he forgets to check the batter. He's got that one in D Standard (We played a lot in D Standard, and put a fret on the first fret for Man in the Box), but the volume's going in and out, so he decides he's going to use his Epiphone Les Paul, which has some of the worst tuners in the world. He tunes it down really fast a whole step, and while he gets it on, the combination of being tuned fast in a new room and played hard just knocks the thing out of tune.

So about the 2nd chorus of Man in the Box, he stops playing to tune, assuming the other guitarist (with the thicker sounding guitar) will cover it. The other guitarist notices that he's dropped out and also stops playing! At this point, it's me, the drummer, and the singer. The singer ( a bit of a diva ) gets PO'd and turns around to confront the guitarists. The drummer is terrible in awkward situations and clams up and also stops playing, leaving me playing the chorus. Thankfully it's a little more complicated than root notes and I was able to throw in some fills and play it for a couple of bars before I turned around to the drummer and nodded my head to the beat to signify him counting us back in. We launched back into the second chorus, the singer came in on the verse, and then we played the actual verse (which he repeated) back into an extra chorus before going into the usual solo.

Also during that show, the rhythm guitarist who wasn't having guitar problems jumped off the stage. He was wearing a tuxedo and a Guy Fawkes mask with hair/hat from V for Vendetta (it was Halloween). So he jumped off to try and go dance with the crowd. His foot caught the instrument cable plugged into his pedal and yanked it right out on the way down. He was cool for a couple of seconds before he realized it. He then turned around mid song to mess with his gear (despite the stage being at his stomach level and his amp being pushed back) and took about 2 minutes while we were playing to discover and fix the problem.


Lesson learned? Trust my instinct, practice songs a lot more before unveiling them, and get rid of the D Bag singer that forced us to play songs way before we were ready. I learned that the two guitarists came to all 3 of these conclusions at Denny's after the show, although we didn't fire the guitarist until earlier this year.


The band is now broken up and I miss it, minus the singer.

[Strat Hater]

Originally Posted by TheMightyWoot1

Wait, so does this mean that Stone Temple Pilots were not in fact pilots?

No they do in fact pilot stone temples through the venue...RELAX DUDE!!!

[nickireckless]

A huge crowd attended to see us and we started the show with a G'NR cover Nightrain. It's starts a power chord A. 1-2-3-4 and i plyed a big D ) Sounded awful. Probably wated to play it on string E 5th fret but it doesn't work ) That was a powerful opening)

[Freight Train]

Originally Posted by nickireckless

A huge crowd attended to see us and we started the show with a G'NR cover Nightrain. It's starts a power chord A. 1-2-3-4 and i plyed a big D ) Sounded awful. Probably wated to play it on string E 5th fret but it doesn't work ) That was a powerful opening)

Probably got everyone's attention better than the right chord would have.

[guy n. cognito]

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

Judging by what I saw at the Nashville show, Van Halen ALWAYS has incompetent sound people. I was sitting literally 10 yards from the desk, and the sound was so bad that it was simply a jumbled mess all night. The head engineer.......never took off his headphones.

[krafty]

I have been (and continue to be) into various forms of electronic music - Kraftwerk continues to be one of my all-time favorites. Back in the early 90's it was a good time to be a fan KMFDM. They were pretty popular in the electronic/industrial crowd and being close to Chicago at the time they were pretty well-liked in these parts.

I saw them twice live. The first time I went to see them as an innocent bystander (Money tour) and the second time (Angst tour) I went to see if what I saw was a fluke or not. It wasn't.

The ENTIRE set from start to close was on DAT. Not just a keyboard part, everything except the vocals. They had a stage full of "musicians" who were just playing air-guitar. I swear even the drum-pad player was faking it.

Worse yet was the second show. The first half of their set was the Angst album, track-for-track, in order, again all on DAT. The only thing distracting the audience at the time was En Esch prancing around on stage in nothing but a very short kilt (and, unfortunately, flashing his twig n berries at every opportunity).

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

On a side note, I did see Megadeth on the original Rust In Peace tour blow some of the main breakers to the whole venue during their first song - PA, monitors, half of the lights, lots of stuff disappeared. It was fixed quickly and forgotten about, and it turned out to be a great show - I guess when professionals do know what they're doing and can solve problems things can be OK.

[Vandy]

Originally Posted by dbase

I've never told this story to anyone but . . .
People at the bar close to the band were wondering where that smell was coming from . . .

winner, winner, chicken dinner . . .

I am laughing so hard, that kids down the block are moving away from the house . . .

[iridiumrocks]

Originally Posted by krafty

The ENTIRE set from start to close was on DAT. Not just a keyboard part, everything except the vocals. They had a stage full of "musicians" who were just playing air-guitar. I swear even the drum-pad player was faking it.

Your post reminded me of a show years ago when I worked for a local radio station. We had free concerts in the park and one show had Aaron Neville as the headliner. He showed up alone with all of his music tracks on a DAT tape and NO BAND at all. He stood in the same spot on the stage and sang the songs to a backing track while barely moving at all. It was, without a doubt, the most boring performance I have ever seen in my life.

[kesslari]

Worst trainwreck ever for me is/was watching a comedian bomb. Because there's no coming back, and you want it to end, you want it to end mercifully, but the hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper...

I was backing a female singer who was a bit of a diva. More than a bit. We were going to play the Troubadour in LA, and she wouldn't have "some crap band" open for her, and "bum out her fans". So she handpicked her opening act, a comedian she knew.
And he bombed. He was truly awful. He started going downhill, and when a comic starts to do down, they get scared, their timing goes, and it gets worse and worse.
And her fans were pissed. They were ready to kill this guy.
It was horrible, ironic, funny... all at once.

We did come on afterward, kicked ass, and made her fans happy. But gadz, what a mess.