Advice needed about Unprofessional moment(s) from Guitar player

[Double D]

So I finally spoke with him and showed him a clip of the "event" he feels bad and is chalking the incident up to a complete and utter brain fart. He was extremely shocked when he saw how bad it actually looked and sounded.

All is good in the end and I am glad I calmed down first. As far as the lateness to the stage it won't happen again I've been told.

We got a gig an a week and a half so we'll see how that one goes!

toDD

 

[hrodbert696]

Sounds like a decent outcome, then. I would have said that everyone gets to have a bad day once in a while, but if this is a pattern you've got to deal with it. If this is a working band, he's fired. If it's buddies who play together for fun and do the occasional gig, you can cut a lot more slack but should still talk to him so that he won't be ruining everybody else's fun all the time.

One time my singer/rhythm guitarist in a prior band broke a string in rehearsal the day before an open mic, comes in to the open mic with the same guitar restrung and the thing would not stay in tune. Kept apologizing between numbers for it and taking long pauses to retune and basically killing any stage presence we might have had. He has three guitars at home; why he couldn't have simply brought another one is beyond my comprehension.

 

[groove pump]

Too familiar - my guitar player has a stable of gear at home and only brings one instrument to gigs. It gives me a much greater understanding of just what this guy doesn't know when he says, "I've never broken a string." Very inspiring...

Can't say I'm impressed with this dude not really reacting to what happened at that show until he say how it looked and sounded later on. I've had atrocious gigs where I was really spent from a long day/week, couldn't concentrate on anything, and it showed in both my singing and playing. I was apologizing throughout the whole gig though, as well as after we were done. I felt responsible for not contributing to a decent show 'n all that, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that from this guitar player during that show. Everyone has off days, but when they do and act like a walking extended middle finger in the process, that's bad.

I wasn't there to see it, but my first impression is that this guy may be detaching from the band, but not have enough empathy or character to say so. Instead of admitting that he's moving on, he's whimping out and leaving his exit up to everyone else. Like I said, just my first impression, but I've seen this in guys I've played with once or twice before.

Tread lightly and keep tabs on this guys willingness to contribute in the near future. Hopefully it turns into nothing more than an unfortunate speed bump in your success story.