Your most embarrasing stage moment......

[floridagatorfan]

Originally Posted by Jason Wilson

Ha ha, yup, been there, the worlds shortest & most embarrasing bass solo

Been there too, LOL

[rtslinger]

Originally Posted by Russell L

Dontcha hate that? Happens to me sometimes at the jam. I'm in the house band, been playing all my life, but by dang if sometimes it's hard to hear the key. Either that or someone wants to do something I'm unfamiliar with, and I just stand there trying to figure it out, feeling like an idiot. Ya know, guitar players, keyboard players, horn players, you name it, can get away with slinking around in the background when they don't know a tune, but not us bass players. And, just when you've never gotten ANY attention at all all night for all the good playing you've been doing, THEN they wanna look at you. "Hey, what's going on over there?"

Yup I just couldn't believe it was happening to me it fact the very next show we played I wore a V for Venditta mask ( not a halloween gig) I joked I did not want to people to walk out before I could prove I could play better than the guy in the band they may have seen the Sat night before our gig

[chris4001asat]

Horn players! Ugh! Brings to mind my 21st birthday. Myself, guitarist and drummer are out on our riverfront. Big party bar on the shore, They know the sax player in the band playing. Sax player invites us up for a song. Hang on sloopy....no problem in the condition we were in. Then he says Eb.....!!!! We start, and it sounds AWFUL. Guitar player looks at me and yells "Eb". I look at my left hand, and actually had to count frets up the neck.... I yell back..."I am in Eb"...guitar player looks at his hand, yells back "sorry"

[James Mobius]

a few tales from the road...
I too had an intoxicated lady cop a feel of my package on stage once. not really a stage, just the corner of a ski lodge. back in the spandex 80's too. I was playing and managed not to lose my cool, I was rather flummoxed. "did that just happen?" I thought. she winked at me over her shoulder as she disappeared into the crowd. if our genders had been reversed that would have been quite a different scene.

actually just last week when I saw Monique Ortiz playing in Boston, a drunk girl who was all over me, groped Monique's butt, on her way out, mid-song.

there's a club called Edible Rex, or was, which had PA speakers hanging from chains in front of the stage, one of them really bit into the performance space, and had a sign on it saying "hit head here" because so many people hit their heads on it. I did as well. d:

one of my teachers trying to get his drummer to wrap up a solo, hit a cymbal with his bass neck, sending it flying like a ninja star towards another band member, he managed to catch it just in time tho!

I had a bee sting me in the neck at the beginning of a very fast complicated song, playing outdoors once, had no idea what was going on, but I managed to keep going, I guess I've been lucky on stage. played one very bad note on a ballad, (live radio concert!) quickly shifted up to the correct one (it was so nearby too!) it was a whole note, so it stood out, felt like it lasted forever, but when I listened to the playback, it went by so fast you barely noticed it.

once in a club, wearing my older bro's vintage 70's platform shoes, with rubber soles, they chose that night to slowly disintegrate. I was 2 inches shorter by the end of the night and had to use some band's bumper stickers to hold the remains of my shoes on my feet on the walk to my car. at least it wasn't snowy out!

[Rebecky]

I lost my tuner at a gig the other month, and my spare wasn't working, so I borrowed someone elses to tune down just before my set... We were in a bit of a rush to make the band changeovers as smooth as possible so I used the tuner very quickly.

I had never used that kind of tuner before... So I just saw the green light on D. G C. F. and thought that was it! So we started the set... We didn't have monitors and I guess most of the bass was going through the PA so I couldn't hear anything for the first two songs, but as I kept turning my bass up I realised something was very wrong! In between songs I kept checking my tuning - as far as I can tell it was all ok so why did it sound so wrong? "It must be someone else" I thought. Then the guitarist started saying "dude, check your tuning!" and I was getting pretty annoyed as I kept checking it and it always said it was right.

So I managed to hear that one of my strings definately sounded ok, so I played a song solely on the A string (which took some brain power and quick hands, but I was quite proud that I coped with that so well)!

But then I checked the tuning one last time and yeah... The little dot next to the letter that I didnt notice at all meant sharp - so instead of D standard, I tuned to D# A C# F# for half a set! I can't believe how dumb that was, if I was in the audience watching and hearing a bass player do that I would think they were so bloody stupid...

You probably all knew what was coming with this story as you probably all use that kind of tuner... But the moral of story is to ALWAYS take your own working stuff... Don't be afraid to ask exactly how something works and ALWAYS trust your ears over technology!

But in what stupid universe does a full stop mean sharp?? Gah!

[James Mobius]

I had a tuner that had 2 buttons on it to tune it up and down out of "true" tuning, for some reason. I accidentally bumped them and found myself tuning out of tune essentially, to prevent this happening I physically cut the rubber buttons way down with an exacto knife so they couldn't get bumped (but could still be used if you stuck a pen in them or something. later someone stole it at a gig. never turn your back on your gear.

[4dog]

Waay too many to mention,, or remember for that matter.

[RadioactiveGuy4]

I was playing with a cover band and it was our first show out as a group. 2 songs from the end the 2nd guitar players strap comes off and his guitar starts to fall but he was able to save it by dropping to on knee. He never missed a note. I was really impressed with him because this was the first show he had ever played. So after the song is over i get up on the mic and start telling the crowd how awesome that was. Well the poor kid's nerves where about shot by that point and that just put him over the edge. He just dropped his guitar and walk out of the place in tears. I felt like the biggest A**hole ever.

[CodyLX450]

Similar to the "hit head here" story a few posts up...

I'm in my first decent gigging band now. Everything else was more garage band with a 45 minute to 1 hour set somewhere.....play for a few months then the band just dissolves.

The stage lights tend to bother me so I've been wearing a baseball hat to hide my eyes when they start going all crazy.

Anyhow, on one of the last songs we really stretch it out and the singer does the whole introduction/mini solo queue for each of us. It kind of took me by surprise since I've never really even THOUGHT about how to do a bass solo, and all of these songs are still very new to me. I know I paused like a deer in the headlights for a split second and just did my best slap and pray for my turn.

Halfway through I notice it was sounding pretty good and working with the song and as I wrap it up and we come back in to the regular song I hear the crowd cheer wildly and notice I have my own small bass loving group that has huddled near the front of the stage. I'm loving life at this point as I know I've been a little timid in playing our first few shows. I scan the crowd and see a few girls at a nearby table looking my way and bobbing their heads to the music and smiling.

Last few notes.....big ending build up......and we're done! Decent sized standing ovation for this small venue. Lots of attention and applause. I set my bass down and turn off my equipment and head to stage left for the stairs down to the dance floor and bar. On the 2nd to last step I for some reason decide to leap down - probably so much energy from that applause. My dumb ass hits my head on a low pipe that I don't see because of my baseball hat. Damn near fell to the ground as I landed from the shock of it......but just like in the movies where someone makes a bad joke at a party and the record skips and everything goes silent - I hear people say DAMNNNNNNNNNNNNNN and some people laughing. Of course a nearby older couple stop to ask if I'm alright. I hear some drunk dude repeatedly saying "Hey bro........watch your head bro......hahaha........watch your head brooooooo". Of course the table full of girls vanished. I feel like an idiot.....and then to top it off....."drunk bro" is now the biggest bass playing fan ever and appears in the background of every conversation afterwards with such lines as:

"I'm a bass player bro."

"You're great bro........you gotta BENDDDDDDDDD those notes....BEND EM."

"Tune them down bro......slap em........tune em down......trust me......slap em"

Every. 30. Seconds.

[Lazylion]

Told this one in another thread a while ago, but it's my favorite...
My L.A.-based country band was onstage at Toolie's, Phoenix, AZ in the late 80s. We were having one of those crowd-slowly-draining-away nights, and I was getting increasingly grumpy about the dwindling response to our tunes. Hey, we're from L.A., y'all are supposed to be impressed! A girl came up with her arms crossed, I guess she was cold from the air conditioning. She requested a song, and I petulantly answered "I haven't seen you clapping". Bad idea.

She uncrossed her arms, and that was when I saw that she only had one hand. Open mouth, insert foot, right up to the thigh!

Then there was the time I was onstage with world-famous fiddler Byron Berline, the most famous player I'd ever appeared with at the time. He was standing stage left, and I was next to him. I turned suddenly, while looking to my right, and felt my bass neck hit something. Looked back to my left and saw that I'd just smacked Byron's right elbow with my peghead! I apologised profusely, several times, and he was very nice about it, but I still wanted to !

Then there was the time my band was at an Academy Of Country Music Christmas party in L.A. Lots of heavy hitters, of course I had no idea who most of them were. I was chatting with some woman I didn't know, and I cockily made a snotty remark about Earline Mandrell having no talent and riding on her sister's coattails to get a career. The woman responded "well, I work for Barbara Mandrell's organization..." End of conversation! There's that foot-in-mouth problem again!

Then there was the time my band had Emmylou Harris' longtime pedal steel player, Steve Fishell, sitting in for a gig with us in San Juan Capistrano. We were setting up, the female singer wasn't there yet, and somebody mentioned that it was her birthday. Steve said "oh, I think I have a couple of blank birthday cards in the car". By this time I'd rubbed elbows with some famous folks, and some sidemen to famous folks, and I'd noticed that a lot of them get tired of all the suckups they meet. Some of them think it's cool if you display a bit of attitude instead of groveling at them like they're gods. So my smartass button was pushed, and I blurted out to Steve, "Ah! The mark of the consummate brown-noser!"

That was how I found out that Steve is NOT one of those guys! There was a frosty little silence, then he turned and went out to his car. Mouth, foot... is there a pattern here??

But wait, there's more...

[powmetalbassist]

I went to see a buddys band that was the opening act for this tiny venue (100-150 people at capacity). They get through the first bit of their set and the drummer apparently let fly the worst smelling fart in the history of music. This was at the end of the second song from what I'm told. Midway through the 3rd song you see the rest of the band take a casual look back at their drummer who has the biggest **** eating grin on his face. Anyway it drifted off stage and cleared the bar by the end of song three. The band finished their 6 song set though. To this day I don't know how they managed to put up with that stench for a full 15-20 minutes. second band couldn't take the stage to set up for an additional 20 minutes as they waited for the odour to disapate.

[kcole4001]

Saturday night just past.
Been up since 6:00 am, by 11:30 pm I was pretty much toast.

Totally got lost during guitar solo during 'I Want You to Want Me'...my head was about half a bar behind my fingers...


Ugh!