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...Embarrising Moments At a Gig?

#62
I've never forgot to plug my bass in. One time I almost forgot to take my SVT off of standby. I have had some things happen which were out of my control. My old early 70s SVT had an internal fuse which was hard wired in place. It blew during the first set of a 4 set gig. was running direct so the audience could hear me but nobody in the band could. It was a little challenging to play without really being able to hear myself. At another gig the battery in my wireless went dead. Luckily, I always keep a cable on top of my amp just in case this happens.

In one band, the guitarist picked up the wring guitar so he was playing in a different key than the rest of us.

Recently, my lead singer who is a recovering alcoholic decided to start drinking again. We didn't realize it until we were on stage and he couldn't remember lyrics, his pitch was all over the place and he was stumbling around. He did it again at the next gig and is no longer in the band.
 
#63
I play typically with my legs very splayed. It was during a pretty complex song which required two handed tapping. Place is packed. A nicely waxed stage/dance floor.
Well right during the difficult part of the song my shoes are slipping and my legs are really spreading apart. I mean like ripped groin kinda spreading apart. I couldn't last much longer. So I do this jump down to one knee kinda move which helped but now I'm leaning back and loosing my balance. Ended up with my a$$ in a monitor kinda laying on the drum riser. I didn't miss a note. Some chicks thought it looked cool cause I was rockin out so much but a few people new exactly what happened. There was a stabbing in the parking lot right about the same time so the attention quickly moved to that. I felt like a total a$$
 
#64
I was doing a jazz gig in a swanky establishment - lookin smooth in my new suit. We're half way through the second set and I see the other guys wetting themselves laughing. After a minute or so of this the drummer points at the cuff of my fretting hand. The Salvation Army sale tag is hanging from my cuff. Ten bucks...... And until the end of the tune- there was not a damn thing I could do about it.
 
#66
Our latest gig our first two songs are drop d well after those songs the singer keeps talking to the crowd while me and the guitard switch guitars then we start the next song the singer realizes he is still in drop d then tries to play through then even at the end of the song he anounced to the crowd that he was out of tune! Oh well I just kept jammin till the set was over.!

Then last February same thing again only all of us were still in drop D and we had started the song! We completely stopped tuned back up then started the song again!! A big professional no no but we just plowed through the set and no one cared!

Another time me and the drummer were to start an original song together then everybody else joins in! Well the singer tells ok guys start it up and the drummer sits there with a dumb look on his face and says I can't rember what to play !!now flash back a day earlier ....Drummer: hey guys I had a dream last night that I totally forgot my part for our gig tomorrow!! A premonition!! lol well any way I just started it with just bass and a death stare at him and luckily he remembered how it went and just joined in with everybody else!

Another time again a drop D story! I decided to have two basses but with each bass their own cable so I just have to swap plugs on stage as I pick up my guitar. Well that didn't work the way I planned. I had in pluged my drop D guitar only to plug it back in and be holding my standard tuned bass! Well by this time the song had started the rest of the band had noticed I wasn't playing but kept going I finally figured it out and jumped in at a point that seemed some what planned.. Well after the gig the guitarist said man that was the smoothest **** up On Stage I ever seen!!
 
#68
here are a couple - In the 70's we used to tune up on stage - the drummer would wait till we got to a ' b' or 'e' string and then snap a rim shot off - the band instinctively ducked cause we thought a string snapped.

Once during the beginning intro I kept the rhythm player distracted while the band switched his mic with a toy mic. he started the song and went cross-eyed looking at it
just good natured fun -
 
#69
There have been so many! I'll give you the first one:

Apologies in advance to all you from the British Isles...

Approximately 100 years ago, I participated in my first regional Solo and Ensemble Contest. I was a decent trombone player, and while I did not expect to win, I wasn't scheduled for making a fool of myself either. I was playing something quite simple, although it did have an F above middle C at the musical climax of the piece. For a young player this is not the easiest note ever.

The song my teacher chose was an arrangement of "Londonderry Air." My mother was my accompanist, and over the weeks of working on this thing, we joked about an alternate pronunciation of the title. We promised ourselves that we wouldn't think about that on the big day.

The player in front of me finished. I stood and moved to the front. My mother sat at the piano. As I was adjusting the music stand and otherwise getting ready, the guy introducing us said, "And now, blastoff99 will play 'London Derriere.'"

Plain as day, he said it. I knew better than to look at my mother, because then we'd both be incapacitated. As it was, I was trying so hard not to laugh that I could barely breathe. My first notes were very wavery, and things didn't get better. By the time I got to the F, there were tears running down my face from holding back giggling. I fracked the note, and that of course made everything all the funnier. I crashed and burned into the final phrase, gasping, crying, and bright red.

The adjudicator thought I was simply very nervous about performing, and tried to 'put me together' by saying kind things about my tone, which I knew full well was horrible along with everything else. My mother, meanwhile, had slunk out of the room. My teacher had the good sense to leave right after I was announced. As the adjudicator kept talking, I completely lost it and broke into a cackle, still crying. At that point I grabbed the paperwork and ran for the door.

Ok, so the botched introduction shouldn't have set me off, but I guess I was just nervous enough that it did. And then the whole thing snowballed fast, and the longer it went, the funnier it got.

Good times!
 
#71
I've had a few, albeit never as a bassist.

I play the drums as well as bass and a few years ago, I was in a regular band that had something of a local following. I had a china cymbal high over to my right that I would use in certain passages. One particular venue (a ten minute walk from my current address) had a particularly small drum riser. I placed my cymbal stand about six inches from the edge, thinking nothing of it.

It comes into the chorus of the third or fourth song and I see the cymbal slipping away, just out of reach, eventually it started falling off the stage. Much to my surprise, it didn't topple but was miraculously held up. It turned out that a young lady from the audience had come onto the stage and was holding it above her head, whilst I was still wailing away on it. I hope she had some ear protection because that was a nasty sounding cymbal, ripe for hearing damage. It got a cheer from the audience but I was embarrassed for making such a rookie error in my setup.

Around the same time, I was doing sound at a local theatre for a Christmas show. The audience averaged around 200 and it was mainly children from local schools - aged about 6-10. Five minutes into the show, I got a call on a wireless radio that we had linked from the band pit (under the set - at the back, as far away as possible from us) saying that the power had completely gone and that all the monitors, powered instruments and amplifiers were dead. The sound system essentially had shut down in a small, confined and tight space where all the cables were taped down. Worst-case scenario.

So, we stop the show. Send the actors into the audience to interact and two of us from the desk run into the auditorium to work out what the Hell had happened (at this point, the show had been through something like 25 performances). After about fifteen minutes of (quiet) swearing, the other sound guy spotted that one of the extension leads had blown. Unfortunately because of the way we'd set it all up (badly because of the poor power distribution options in the space), it'd taken all of the power out. He rips up the cables, re-runs them and solves the issue.

The most galling thing about it all was that in the end it came down to a moment of stupidity from one of the keyboard players. It was a cold winter and it wasn't a warm space, so she had taken it upon herself to bring in a fan heater so that she could play in more comfort.

Unfortunately, fan heaters use 2 Kilowatts of power. Just by switching it on, she had blown the electrical distribution and delayed the show by around twenty minutes. We restarted the show and it went off without a hitch but man alive we were angry with her!
 
#72
blastoff99 said:
The song my teacher chose was an arrangement of "Londonderry Air." My mother was my accompanist, and over the weeks of working on this thing, we joked about an alternate pronunciation of the title. We promised ourselves that we wouldn't think about that on the big day.

The player in front of me finished. I stood and moved to the front. My mother sat at the piano. As I was adjusting the music stand and otherwise getting ready, the guy introducing us said, "And now, blastoff99 will play 'London Derriere.'"

Plain as day, he said it. I knew better than to look at my mother, because then we'd both be incapacitated. As it was, I was trying so hard not to laugh that I could barely breathe. My first notes were very wavery, and things didn't get better. By the time I got to the F, there were tears running down my face from holding back giggling. I fracked the note, and that of course made everything all the funnier. I crashed and burned into the final phrase, gasping, crying, and bright red.
Click to expand...
I was at work today when, out of the blue, "London Derriere" popped into my mind. This scene replayed itself in my head and I lol'ed. Thanks again for sharing this, blastoff99. Kinda made my morning.
 
#73
Back in the 1970s, I played for an Elvis impersonator. I never really looked at the hand written set lists before a gig. One night, he calls out an Elvis song that I had never heard of. I was not very experienced, and so had a hard time trying to fake it. I was new to the group, and we never practiced to song. The guitarist said, "Sorry man, I guess we never practiced that one with you."
 
#74
chuckNC said:
I was at work today when, out of the blue, "London Derriere" popped into my mind. This scene replayed itself in my head and I lol'ed. Thanks again for sharing this, blastoff99. Kinda made my morning.
Click to expand...


Glad it brought a smile to your face. It's one of those situations that gets even better with age, although it was hilarious even at the time.

I am pretty sure I didn't play anything with a name (just numbers - Sonata #3 in C minor, for instance) henceforth. It's hard to screw up numbers.
 
#75
...we finished our last song of the night..it was two sets,30 songs. Small crowd, mostly friends of the band, wanted an encore. Lead guitar starts playing Stand By Me. Great song...only problem, we have never played this song as a group...I mean never.
He turns his back to the house and starts shouting the chords he is playing to the rhythm guitar and me. Total bull **** and totally embarrassing. I'm not that skilled a player at this point in my development to pull this off. I stood there like an idiot trying to fake it. Total bull ****.
 
#76
My very first show in my very first band...guitar at the time....all our friends and my exgirlfriend and my new girlfriend and just everyone we know is there. We're all tuned up, lights are down....other guitarist is starting to feedback.....and I go to adjust my strap and pull my hair out from under it - all cool and metal style- and my strap lets go and my guitar crashes headfirst to the floor.
It snaps in half.
Lucky I brought my back up. Everyone was really quiet as my gf ran to the car and got it for me.
I have used straplocks religiously since.

On bass I've had some band wide atrocious gigs but me personally......we were playing our best show to date in my first real cover band. Rocking it. The crowd was into it. Were kicking the poop out of 'whipping post'. Its amazing...... we do the walk up...the double stops....Singer yells perfectly "sometimes I FEEL"! And I promptly come in on a great big loud A.

I can't explain how completely just right in your face this was. It was like I punched everyone in the bar in the eye at the same time.

I wanted to die.
 
#78
It was my 1st time to play before a large crowd and I had unbearable stage fright. In practice I always faced the drummer so that was the most natural thing for me to do, imagine how embarrassed I was when the singer slowly turned me to face the audience.
Finally I kept my eyes closed and was really jamming to White Room and when I opened my eyes a girl was on stage gyrating in front of me, I decided it wasn't so bad and was O.K. after that.
 
#79
My sister's wedding. I have two sisters younger than me. The one getting married had just graduated from university. The other was in 1st grade. Apparently vasectomies don't always take. The Lord works in mysterious ways. My dad came up with 'synth pad 1' parts she could play at the wedding. Fantastic timing for a kid, or a LG for that matter.

The wedding plans are that the first song is my dad's solo acoustic song and the second is the bride's favorite Beatles song appropriate for the occasion. I got it backwards. First song comes along and I grab the first grader and run her onto stage. My dad explains the mistake and I kill my signal and my little sister's. I've never heard this song before. Better no bass than a flubbed chord change.

I stood up there and played muted for the next few minutes. Nobody could hear me. I doubt anybody noticed. I looked like I was playing.

But I'm embarrassed that I put a 6 year-old on the spot and explained to her how to fake it. 'Try to play along, it doesn't matter what the notes are, and dance.'. She killed. Hands on keyboard and rocking out the whole time.

A 6 year-old faked it as good as I could.
 

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