Worst thing to happen during a gig

[Johnny Crab]

Having a roadie come outside and tell me "Bra, Crab, you gonna be mad. We tried to stop 'em before they got on stage but it happened too fast". 2 drunks fighting over a girl knock over a 1964 Gibson Thunderbird and a 1967 Gibson Flying V(guitarists). The V survived. My main bass got the infamous "snapped off machine head". The drunks got to meet our road crew and the club bouncer known as "Fridge". They somehow got mysterious bruises and other injuries.....

BUT, the late Jimmy Foster(later to become Foster's Guitars) repaired it better than new and I used it for a decade longer before selling it to a good friend.

[Session1969]

Worst thing ? My bass going out and having no backup. Happened once. Before my next gig I had a cheap backup (squire).

[Dymond-]

Originally Posted by robd

Told by police in riot gear that "tear gas doesnt do nice things to band equipment" and we should stop playing now if we didnt want to find out what.

Okay, theres gotta be more of a story to that.

[shwashwa]

Originally Posted by NortyFiner

Oh my...

I really, REALLY hope it wasn't one of those really old classic uprights. That would be a tragic loss. I mean, we EB players talk about "vintage" instruments from the 1960's; upright players talk about "vintage" from the 1860's! And a real antique upright will run you the price of a decent used car. Seriously, I hope it all came out OK in the end.

well, it wasnt an antique, it was made in 2001, but it cost me 10 grand new. i still play it. i was just looking at the cracks today thinking they may be ready for a touch up

[Session1969]

Originally Posted by Toastfuzz

Gonna get alot of thumbs down at this but its not always feasible to have 4 of everything going to any random gig. I

In a perfect world.

[FrenchAK]

A gig where my stage monitor was limited to a 100W 15" combo that was on the drum riser. I had gotten pretty good at tuning to drop D in one twist of the machine, first try, and it took about two seconds. Little did I know that most of my ability was based on being able to actually "hear" the note... I try to retune quickly and can't hear the low note over the crowd volume.

The rest of the band assumes that I'm ready and starts to play. I have no idea to what note my lowest string is tuned. I fumble through the song trying to transpose the song to the strings I know are in tune...

Long story short, either bring a tuner or refrain from changing tunings halfway through the set.

[Duckwater]

I only have 1 working bass right now and have to borrow my guitarist's 60 watt bass combo for gigs. Nothing has gone wrong so far, but I expect something to happen soon.

[BluesProgMetal]

My uncle let me borrow his precious 1968 Marshall Superlead and 4x12 (stock speakers BTW) and for a gig that required lots of volume due to no P.A support (it was a school talent show). At the time I had no idea that there was a difference between guitar and bass speakers so i just pluged in and played my bass as usual. About halfway through the song I noticed my bass being more quiet and more distorted than before. After the song was done i looked to see what happened and discovered that two of the 4 speakers where destroyed. I ended up paying for the damage myself

[bassbrad]

I've been gigging for over 40 years and many of those were not in the best of places.

Worst thing seen was a murder.

Worst to happen to me was getting stabbed.

Worst thing I've done at a gig was what happened to the guy that stabbed me.

Scariest thing was a tie: being in a building struck by lightning with everyone getting a jolt (St Elmo's Fire) or playing a gig in a building touched by a tornado, 2 ton A/C unit was found 2 miles away.

I'm much older and play mellower gigs these days.

[GreenWithEnvy]

So my two most memorable gigs. I played a wedding where the bride stabbed another woman at the reception who was a former girlfriend of the groom who was paying too much attention to the groom, and a donnybrook broke out with the groom side fighting the bride side (chairs being smashed over people's heads and such) which spilled out into the street. We never got paid.

This other one, long story. But a fuse blew and everything on stage went dead except for our guitar player's rig. So he starts playing a cross being the Jimi Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner and a lounge version of it to entertain the crowd while they work on getting the electricity back. And some vietnam vet biker from a local well-known trouble making biker gang takes offense, breaks a bottle and threatens our sound man and the club manager with death. He says he's leaving to round up his buddies and they are coming back with shotguns to blow us all away. The club manager apprises us of the situation and says if I were you, I'd quit right now and get out of here as fast as you can. It was a record tear down and load out. When I went to the bathroom to change clothes, there was blood all over the place. We were scared ****less. We did get out in time and we did get paid.

Broken strings...pfffffff.

[balton4]

well (hopefully) i wont see a murder at a high schools battle of the bands. last year, dancers were indeed on stage. be ready for that, got it. strings snapping? i organised to use the schools 1958 (i think) p-bass if anything happens to mine. as for the bass amp if that goes the school has a pa system. we have 2 extra marshal half stacks for guitarists. I would love to hear more stories! I have been shocked so far as to what (can) happen during a routine gig lol.

[dmusic148]

Bassbrad ftw.

Worst thing that ever happened to me was driving 60 miles and getting to the club to find another band there. Double-booked. The other band was a popular local, so they got the nod. We got a "gee, I'm so sorry guys, my bad" from the manager, complete with no money.

[balton4]

Originally Posted by dmusic148

Bassbrad ftw.
Worst thing that ever happened to me was driving 60 miles and getting to the club to find another band there. Double-booked. The other band was a popular local, so they got the nod. We got a "gee, I'm so sorry guys, my bad" from the manager, complete with no money.

wow, sorry to hear that! did your vehicle get good or bad mpg?

[KwinS]

Worst thing? Diarrhea. Don't ask...



Buy the sound guy a soda or two about an hour before you guys go one. Maybe some chips or something. You would be amazed how many fewer things go wrong when you're in with the sound guy.

Seriously.

[blindrabbit]

I can probably come up with a few...

- Big dramatic opening song at our CD release party. We come onto stage in darkness and with smoke swirling round, and then all hit the first chord/note as they hit the lights...and POOF, the whole building loses power. The gigantic surge of electricity at that moment blew something up, and the place was deader than a doornail. It took a crew of engineers almost an hour to get us back up and running again, albeit with limited power this time.

- After finishing a gig for the night, the crowd cheered and begged us to go back up on stage, which I think is usually a good thing. However, our singer decided he didn't want to go back on...something about how it was more important for him to hang out with his girlfriend, I can't remember. We fought about it for a few minutes, he held his ground, so we all went back up on stage without him along with a guitarist friend of mine we pulled from the crowd to do a "guest spot" and help us fill out the sound. We played a whole additional set with our backup singer/keyboardist taking over lead vocals. As amazing as it may sound, our lead singer sat there in the bar and fumed. It was a terrible thing to happen, but didn't end up too bad.

- How about before a gig...like discovering the morning of a show 5 hours away from home in a remote location that my bass never made it into the van the night before...that was pretty terrible.

I'm sure I could come up with more if I thought long enough, that's just the few that come up off the top of my head!

[bassbobh]

Lots of similar stories from back in the day, bikers, power outs, forgotten bass... Ouch....bad weather.....worst was probably wife and girlfriend showing up at gig at same time! Don't be stupid, be faithful.

[balton4]

Originally Posted by Kwin Smith

Worst thing? Diarrhea. Don't ask...



Buy the sound guy a soda or two about an hour before you guys go one. Maybe some chips or something. You would be amazed how many fewer things go wrong when you're in with the sound guy.

Seriously.

lol, yeah im in with the sound guys. one offered to pay for my sub at subway a couple days back. i said no and told the cashier to ring both subs up on my bill. my friend(the sound guy) was just sitting there, laughing. as for the other, hes my trombone section leader who gets me to help him play pranks on our jazz band guitarist. he has a fender frontman 212 amp and the gain footswitch thing. we hook up the footswitch and during really mellow jazz solos... you get the picture.

[rickl289]

We showed up early for a gig (we were on first) and a band was already set up. After some talking with all the bands, we realized the band that was setup wasn't on the bill. We decided everyone would play a short set and fit everyone in.

We still went on first, pushed the gear back and our drummer used the other bands kit.

Originally Posted by dmusic148

Bassbrad ftw.

Worst thing that ever happened to me was driving 60 miles and getting to the club to find another band there. Double-booked. The other band was a popular local, so they got the nod. We got a "gee, I'm so sorry guys, my bad" from the manager, complete with no money.

[KwinS]

Originally Posted by balton4

lol, yeah im in with the sound guys. one offered to pay for my sub at subway a couple days back. i said no and told the cashier to ring both subs up on my bill. my friend(the sound guy) was just sitting there, laughing. as for the other, hes my trombone section leader who gets me to help him play pranks on our jazz band guitarist. he has a fender frontman 212 amp and the gain footswitch thing. we hook up the footswitch and during really mellow jazz solos... you get the picture.

Excellent. Keep up the good work.

[eddievanbassman]

Speakers blown and my bass messed up, I swear it was an electrical surge or something, melted my ****. Play this other dudes bass through the pa sounded like crap, who cares this guy kept buying us shots hahahaha so it was a pretty good gig