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CHURCH GIGS FROM HELL STORIES

#121
Only problem I ever had was caused by myself. The ring tone on my phone is the opening synth sound from Tom Sawyer by Rush. Once during a prayer in between songs, my phone rings...."Boooommm....shhhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeeeooooooooow, a modern day warrior...." I reached in my pocket, opened the phone and then closed it to stop it ringing, figuring the person wouldnt call back immediately. Guess again...."Boooooooomm, shhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeoooooooooowwwwww...a modern day warrior...."

Now I turn my phone off as soon as I enter the building.

I'm pretty lucky in that we don't really have any problems on Sunday mornings. We do have a fill in leader that isn't as fun to work with as the normal leader is. If we could just get the sound guy (yea, a volunteer) to stick around until we are done rehearsing then things would be pretty much perfect.



BnB
 
#122
I see a lot of "yer too loud". ( anyone remember Huey Lewis in "Back to the Future"?)
Anyway, the ONLY time I ever get " yer too loud" is from my wife!
If I turn it down too much everbody else tells me to turn it up .....this IS in church!
Well, we do have a piano, bass (me), 2 gits(BOTH playing rythm) and a mandolin, and I do tend to play more than 1,5. In fact I play the Jaco version of Amazing Grace ..... lead bass .... lol.

:bassist:

Matt
 
#123
I've got a few things about church gigs which really annoy me.

Firstly, the main rhythm guitarist. He simply doesn't seem to know where he's supposed to fit in, and as far as I'm concerned, is just lost. I could play a better rhythm guitar myself and that's saying something. He also struggles with the handful of songs we do which need a dropped E string (some songs we do use DADGBE tuning).

Also, on that note, a lot of the musicians who play in the teams I've been in simply don't want to try anything new in terms of progressions and chord changes. All the songs we do are as written in the songbooks. When I've tried suggesting stuff, it was usually shot down.

Also, I've never understood why we have a keyboard and a bassplayer in some services. It seems like complete overkill, partially because 99/100 the bass is using the sheet music the keys player is using.

Another thing that also irritated me was that whilst everyone else was ran into the PA, I wasn't. Now the bass amp is under the balcony (which runs along three sides of the church) meaning that (to me anyway) that the bass was being bounced under the balcony and I was losing a lot of tone. It also meant that I was getting swamped under the sound of the guitars and other instruments, simply because a 500w amp cannot compete with an 8000w PA.

A couple of personal ones which also hack me off.

I was running a student service, where the students in my church (all 60 of us!) ran the music, sermons and that. Now I was playing at being Buddy Rich and was on drums and was also bandleader. Now the guys who volunteered were completely shocked when I suggested the possibility of a mid-week practice all the weeks until the service itself, despite me having just three weeks to teach a group of guys to play songs when they'd never played in a worship band. They seemed a lot less motivated to play and I wish now I'd just asked some of the regulars to do it instead. But we got there, even though I wasn't really that happy with it.
 
#124
I have lots of terrible church gig stories. Thankfully, I just don't go to church now and that solved the problem.

One of the worst though, was when I played bass for a young college/career age group for a large-ish church in Southern California. I did not attend said church because it was a bit out of the way so I didn't know the philosophy of the pastor about how music "should be done." We were asked to play for a special event and they requested that we play softer "acoustic" music (ie; no real drums, djembe or some other crap like it) because it was going to be a smaller crowd and it didn't need to be raucous or anything.

Well the thing is, even though we were playing for a smaller crowd, the stage is still big so we were far apart from each other. We were having a LOT of trouble hearing one another but the sound tech refused to turn up the levels in the monitors because they "wanted the sound to be about the level of a dinner conversation." What that has to do with the monitors I don't know, but obviously neither did he. It didn't help that we had to also choose songs where we were playing quietly. We hacked our way through the set and I was tempted to punch that dude in the face afterwards. We got invited to play for that church again and our band leader was polite and said he'd ask everyone. I practically flew into a profane tirade when he suggested it. Go figure, it turns out nobody else really wanted to do it either.

One of the sillier things that ever happened was when I went to a conference for church musicians and one of the guys who played guitar for this big church lectured us about not overplaying. He said if we needed to play solos and stuff like that we should find an extracurricular band in order to get that out of our system. This band then proceeded to play a song where that very guy played a guitar solo.
 
#125
I guess I'm lucky. Get along great with the sound guy. Leader wants more bass, not less, two fantastic drummers that really make it easy, fair to good musicians all around. I run a headphone monitor deal which helps with those cymbals and the rest run wedges.

Only negative I have was my bass getting knocked off the stand a couple of weeks ago. No harm, but scary. The rest of the stuff I let go. Play without drums on occasion as they are college kids and head out (along with half the congregation!) which is a challenge on some tunes.

I feel blessed to be part of the group and the leader gives me some space to experiment as the learning process continues.

take care all and keep the strings ringing.:bassist:
 
#126
LedBelli Bass said:
Do we really want to bring up the subject of church volunteer soundmen?? :mad:

We have one guy where I'm not even sure God can hear the bass in the mix. All drums and vocals . . .
Click to expand...

That's my biggest gripe with a lot of churches as well. My latest battle at my church was with a guy, who wanted to run sound, but his wife who only likes low volume praise music of the softest order, ended up walking up to him during the services trying to instruct him to mix sound her way. As he really didn't have a clue to what he was doing, and neither did she, her input made it doubly bad. Her son who plays acoustic guitar for the worship team was well featured in the mix however.:rolleyes: Needless to say the pastor and the worship team leadership had to correct that situation swiftly, and I'll leave it at that.
 
#127
dieselbass said:
Only negative I have was my bass getting knocked off the stand a couple of weeks ago. No harm, but scary.
Click to expand...

I had the same thing happen several years ago. A volunteer helping tear down the stage area (in a setup/teardown church I attended at the time), a little college girl, turned around and knocked my XZ-2 off the stand. It left a small dent in the neck, fortunately nothing else that was more major. I saw it happen but couldn't grab the bass in time. I told her to pay more attention to what she was doing. She didn't say anything, not even that she was sorry. After that, I put my bass in the case first thing after the services ended.

That itself was not a "Church Gig From Hell" story, but the reasons I left that church, which I have recounted elsewhere on TB, definitely do qualify for CGFH status. I don't miss the scene at that church at all, but thinking about it two years later still gives me the shudders.
 
#129
MNAirHead said:
I'll go with a tame one first.

Mega Church.. playing a 7 string..

"Trading My Sorrows" (bass chord start)

I look down.....

"How the $@#$ is this thing tuned ?????"

-- yes the microphone picked it up"


=

Church GigACide
Click to expand...

OK, that's bad, but what's worse is the content of that song being "Yes, Lord" about eleventy million times. I really don't know what I'm supposed to be singing about. It's more like a chant.

And, I've done it in Spanish before. Unfortunately, "Si, Dios" isn't much more food for the mind and the soul. :rollno:
 
#130
I've got a new one from this past weekend...
I play bass for this church gathering on Saturdays, and the main praise leader as well as most of the main praise team are on vacation or visiting family.

The fill-in leader is a bit flaky at times but up until now hasn't left before the service was done. That all changed last Saturday. He knew beforehand that he wouldn't be staying til the end of the service but neglected to mention it to me until the last minute before he was leaving. To make matters worse, the last song that he had prepared was one that none of us knew, and to further top it off, he wanted me to lead... with his guitar. I've played guitar at home, but never in public before in a situation where I didn't know the song with a guitar that wasn't my own.

As you can guess, the perfect storm of sucky-ness ensued. My playing was God awful, which would have been fine if the guitar was in tune to begin with and if the other members were listening to where I was. Instead, they were doing their own thing (acoustic guitar, keys, electric guitar, singers, and drums all not together on the same page) which just made my crappy guitar playing stand out even more. I knew enough to not just storm off the stage, but fighting through it was honestly the lowest point to date of my musical career. It also didn't help that I was essentially laughed off the stage when it was all over, and the laughing didn't stop until I was finished packing up and out of the building.

I'm seriously considering not returning to continue playing at this church anymore because of this. :spit:
 
#131
I'm laughing pretty hard right now. Played yesterday at a church where the room is probably 50' x 100' with 12' ceilings. It's basically space in an office building. Great group of people and great pastor. Drummer has a (counting in my head now) 9 or 10 piece DW kit with every bell and whistle possible. I know this guy he's super nice and plays good enough (like me) but he needs to go basic and get down to 4 piece or at most 6 piece and a couple cymbals. I know the mentality because I can get that way but right now I am playing it simple with a P-bass and I am playing better than ever...

I took my usual TC Electronic RH450 and 1x RS210 and I could hear myself, however my wife who was sitting about 10' from me during the worship was telling me all she could hear was de' drumz! I am playing with my amp up pretty loud and really worried about being too loud. I don't play there often and in spite of the drummer I like playing there because it's literally 5 minutes from home so I do care what they think.

Kind of a story from hell but I do have a sense of humor about it. Not really my place to say what is and is not right. I am sure at some point they will ask him to play less or not at all - who knows.

On another note my real hell is called a capo. I love it when the worship leader just tosses that baby on and want to do his thang. Then they expect you to magically transpose that chart before they play again in 10 seconds.
 
#132
My band's first gig was at a church SENIOR BANQUET. We invited several of our school buddies, but most of them didn't even show up. (Even our parents and my stepmom ended up getting there halfway through the show) So in the end, it was majority 60+. They all aplauded, until 3/4 of the seniors walked out. I can only imagine..."This crazy rock and roll is too loud!" The remaining old ladies hooted and hollered, but probably because they liked us as "such nice boys". I also cracked singing a very loud lead vocal several times. In the end, we got 60 bucks in tips, though, and it was a start to performing in public...
 
#133
A440Hz said:
OK, that's bad, but what's worse is the content of that song being "Yes, Lord" about eleventy million times. I really don't know what I'm supposed to be singing about. It's more like a chant.

And, I've done it in Spanish before. Unfortunately, "Si, Dios" isn't much more food for the mind and the soul. :rollno:
Click to expand...

Our youth pastor (occasional drummer) and myself were asked to play at a back to school rally at his Dad's church last Friday night. We rehearsed last Thursday, and the young lady playing the piano could not make the transition from the D to the Eb (IV) quickly enough, because she was playing the D an octave above the Eb, the way they showed her at Bible college. We were worried about it, and diplomatically suggested doing a different song, but she was determined to do it. So, when we did it Friday night, there was like a dotted sixteenth rest between the D and the Eb.:hmm:
 
#134
I have a couple...

I share bass-playing duties with another bassist, and we both play two weeks in a row and then two weeks off. We have in-ear monitors, and this past Sunday I decided I was going to use the Germ-X in the equipment room to clean off the foam squishy pads that go in my ear. I didn't know that the alcohol would dissolve the material! Anyway, it wasn't totally eaten, but it no longer provided an air-tight seal from outside noise. It kinda worked out because that ear was on the side where the drummer was, so I didn't need to ask for more of the drummer in my monitor. :D

Our church is a mobile church, which means we don't have a permanent building to call home. We rent space from a performing arts center, but there are sometimes we are not able to use the facility because of shows in the facility. On one such Sunday, we used the arts building of the local high school. It's an old building that gets well-abused by the students. Anyway, we have to bring our whole sound system (whereas we use the arts center sound system when there), and setup takes longer and is more tedious. On this particular Sunday, there was an extension cord that the main guitard and I shared (with a power strip). Everything was fine during practice, but halfway through the first song, my amp just quit! I quickly hooked up directly into my DI box out to the FOH. I couldn't hear myself at all for the rest of the songs before service! So while the preacher preached, I quickly went home and got my other amp. I figured I would bring it in quickly and set it up during the prayer before we sing the closing song. Well, halfway through that song, that amp quit! I just walked off stage at that point in total disgust and defeat! I later realized, when checking both amps at home that both amps were fine and must have had a built-in cutoff, that sharing my amp with a guitard's amp was NOT good. The guitard's amp just kept trucking! :rollno:
 
#135
My experience of church gigs from hell are almost always my own fault...I trip over myself, especially when stressed.

It's all fun if I keep the right attitude, but at times it has become a bit much, especially when the leader keeps railing the band like a cheap cymbal.

One experience I recall is one morning we had a good rehearsal, and then went in for pre-service prayer meeting. As we started the first song, loud and very rock intro, something was very wrong on the bass....yep, my bass amp was on but not sounding a note...

I tweaked the volumes to no avail, all whilst playing, as I was still in the FOH (I play into a DI with the link going as an input into the amp).

When the song end I turn my amp off and on....ready for the next song....problem was, with all the messing around I could not remeber the intro....but the bass was very prominent (not that morning it wasn't). Then it clicks into place.....I remebered and fell into it with gusto....

The drummer's eyes started to water...the first few rows lost their hairdo's and the band leader abruptly stoppeed midsentence. Yep, I never returned the bass volume setting to the initial level. I never prayed that hard for a hole that copuld swallow me, or a stray donkey to run through the church.....or something.

The worst is that no-one has said a word in the four weeks since that morning....and yes, I have been rostered again.
 
#140
Worst I had....

maybe my first time playing live...

I joined with NO musical (theory) knowledge , so I kinda rushed all I could to be a so-so player...
a few months later 4-5 aprox. my leader told me , hey there's an event coming so we need a bassist no one else can make it ...so you in or what?.....I said sure!
well they sent me a 20 song list...learnt almost all of them...

well event day:
the first thing they tell me its: hey man were changing the list for this 12 songs which I didn't knew so....you can guess what happened afterwards....I almost cry up there...and of course to add to my suffering my in-ears weren't functioning so i was on my own D:


and well as mentioned before..."trading my sorrows"...with repeating chorus
Sing,sing,sing-passion worship band
take it all-hillsong united

man I have played those songs so much I have nightmares with them

well

I have a bunch of stories , once i forgot to plug my bass, other i forgot to un-mute my amp, another time I was supposed to start a song and missed the first 2 bars...

and also I have many from my fellow worshipers

the drummer ALWAYS loosing his sticks, playing the wrong song... etc

the guitarist breaking a string on the first song and doing a playback THE WHOLE service
also the same playing a solo while we were on a chorus...

keyboardist playing "cover the earth-lakewood" in the wrong key for 2 min D:
 

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