The WORST Gig I've Had Yet

[Stingray_EB]

God I dont know where to start with this one.

So we had this gig last night at a venue we play at frequently except this time there was a different guy organising it. This guy who my guitarist only spoke to over the phone informed us that he was having trouble getting hold of a drum kit, so we kindly said you can use our kit as the house kit. So that was all fine. He called us up to say it would be great if we could sell some tickets, so we said yea no problem but it might be difficult because of the lack of support we get from our very non musical town.

So we got the tickets through the post.....£7 each to see 5 bands play for 10 mins. We discussed it and realised they just werent going sell but we still tried and ended up maybe selling 10.

So we go for our Sound Check on the day of the gig, and i dont feel well at all, being sick and never of the can all day long. But I didnt give up and stuck at it for the sake of the band. The guy asks how many tickets we sold, and hes not impressed and basically tells us we're aload of crap without even hearing our musc. This pissed us off considering the fact that we gave him a drumkit, without even a thank you.

We get on stage to play a very very small set, our singer was away on a stage and drama course for 2 weeks leaving all the pressure on the guitarist to sing...

We played straight after a death metal band and opened with a huge Hendrix medly Hey Joe into Purple Haze and into Voodoo Child. It didnt sit well with the metal heads.

Our drummer breaks the kick drum skin

So we change the skin and are informed that we need to take 2 songs of our set, leaving one more so we play Boys Are Back In Town as we were restricted to covers because of the singing situation.

We were all put off and made sloppy mistakes, and every time I looked at the empty crowd it made it worse.

We get of the stage and pack up our gear, the guy completely ignores us doesnt say well done, thanks for the kit not even tough crowd eh.

He comes up to me and askes me with a very nasty tone " How was the bass rig" ( GK 800RB into a Hartke Stack) I said yea it was brilliant nice and punchy. He turns around and says " maybe you should have brought your own then " ??? I was like ***.

Never have I met a guy so arrogant and judging in my life.

On the bright side we had an excellent sound guy.

We always say a gig is a gig but we refuse to deal with this guy again.

Sorry about the huge rant guys im just so pissed off that I stayed for 9 hours with a stomach bug all for nothing.

[Baird6869]

I have had a couple of bars treat me like crap in the past and I will never play there again.

Cool thing is that my band is starting to get a bit of a following and these 2 bar owners both have called me recently asking us to play. I told both that they could stick their $$$ up their a$$es as I don't need their money and would never play in their dumps again. It was nice to get back at the ba$tards. I have a great daytime job and play just for fun. The $100 I make isn't going to pay my bills and I really won't put up with much from idiot owners for that kind of $$$.

[coxeymcqueen]

We've done things like this before. At best it goes off okay and the audience don't mind that band A is metal, band B is indie and band C is folk - probably because they're too drunk to care...

At worst you're left standing around all day wondering what the hell is going on. You've provided the full backline because your band is the one with the most/best/loudest kit. The audience is bored because they're all emo kids who've only come to see the band that's made up of 4 other emo kids in their year at school and they don't want to listen to metal, indie or folk...

Last Saturday we were supposed to play a 30 minute set at an all-dayer. We should have been on at 4. I got told the day before that we had been moved to 9. We turn up at 8 to find out they're running at least 2 hours behind. At 10.30 our singer has to leave because her babysitter wouldn't stay any longer. We told the promoter that we weren't going to be able to play. Luckily it wasn't far from home, but it still sucked.

The problem in the UK is that even in really small towns there is such a high turnover of bands that promoters don't have to give a s***. So what if they p*** off half a dozen bands? There will be a load more beating the door down next week!

Like you, my band always said 'a gig is a gig' but there are a couple of venues that we'd never play again and promotors we'd never work with.

[peaveyuser]

Originally Posted by Stingray_EB

We played straight after a death metal band and opened with a huge Hendrix medly Hey Joe into Purple Haze and into Voodoo Child. It didnt sit well with the metal heads.

thats odd over here while a mosh pit won't start the metal heads are usually pretty respectful and enjoy those classics. I don't know though there are some ignorant metal heads out there always seems they usaully have a broad taste in music and are open minded, or the most close minded thinking its the only worthy genre.

[Matt Till]

Why didn't you walk out with your drum kit? I wouldn't have taken that ****.