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Ever Break your equipment on Stage?

B

biohazed

Aug 31, 2008
440
2
48
Philadelphia, PA
#1
Anyone ever break a piece of your equipment on stage? Such as a Bass or Amp or even have something malfuction or die during a show. share your stories :D

I Start with 2 stories I have .. Way back in the Day I had a Show in Randolph, NJ wihch was a big show we drive out there and set up for our turn to play and as i'm doing sound check i'm getting Air-Traffic Control loudly through my amp (Fender BXR 300C) and nothing else ... Had to borrow another band's bass amp to play our set.

and for the second story. I had a 84 B.C. Rich Warlock that met its demise during a show in Philly was getting into our set and got crashed into and some fat guy moshing doing so caused me to fall such a way that i hist the the ground bass frist splintering the he neck were it bolts to the body... ended up doing a quick switch to my Jackson while the song continued and finished the show.
 
#3
Once- years ago, I had my old AUS made "Vase Bassman 120" a 120w Tube bass amp- based on the Fender of the ssame name-Silverface- But it had vent holes in the top of the chassis!!!!!! The Sax player ignored my request to NOT put drinks on my amp- .... beer spilled into amp- was like a DALEK self destructing!!!! Blue "lightning" all over- REAL PRETTY! of course- amp was turned OFF straight away- probly saved even MORE damage. So that was end of the amp for that nite. But after a trip to the tech- she was up & running in a cuppla weeks!!

OUCH!!!
 
#8
Two stories:

Got to a gig about 200 miles from home, Got on stage and had water short out pickups due to leaky ceiling.

Anothing gig, same city. Crowd of about 450 would be expected to catch a musical instrument.... or you would think so. Concrete floors are not a friend to bass guitars.
 
#10
I broke my friend's face at a show once. Swung the guitar around and caught him square. It was the outro of the last song. Took 5 or 6 stitches to sew his face back up. Next time we played for some reason he was standing on the other side of the room?

We did give him a free shirt and put the pic of his bloody face on our site though.
 
#11
I've been pretty lucky in that regard. My stuff has been working very well over the past few years. However, I had a pretty spectacular problem one night...the cable holding the tailpiece of my upright came loose during the first two or three notes of the very first song I played on it, and it made a huge obnoxious noise and scared the heck out of me. Fortunately, that's been it for quite a while, although I fully expect it to happen again one day.
 
#12
Had a couple of amps fail recently. Fortunatly both were in the last couple of songs, where they started to sound band, so was able to just call it a night. One was a cheap repair, and is back in the rig, sounding better than ever. The other had just come back from the shop and had a service! I'd picked it up that night... It went straight back the next day (which reminds me I need to call them...)

Ian
 
#13
I've never broken anything personally, but an old sound engineer from a band I was in maybe 7 or 8 years ago had a great broken gear story.

Al originally came from NJ. Back in the 70's and 80's he ran sound in a fairly popular venue out there. Early in their career the Smithereens used to play this place once in a while.

Well it seems that the Guitar player for the Smithereens had a Mesa Boogie tube amp that he had propped up on a chair behind him. This particular night he was using maybe a 10 foot guitar cable, and the mic stand was maybe 8 feet away from his amp. He turned towards the band while soloing, and was maybe a little late on his cue to start singing again. Al said he turned around, ran over to the mic stand, ran out of cable, and the amp did a complete flip in the air on its way down to the stage. On impact, all of the tubes came flying out of the back of the amp.

He said it was one of the funniest things he ever saw in his life.

Being from Jersey, he told the story so very well I could envision the entire scene. I really don't do him justice.
 
#17
Played a show on a stage that wasn't quite.. sturdy. I always bring two instruments with me - fretted and fretless.

I heard and felt a considerable impact at the end of our third song. I hear my drummer say,

"Uh.. I think your bass just ate it."

I turn around and see my brand new Warwick SSII Fretless lying face down on the stage. The nut was smashed right into the fingerboard. If I ever were to cry over anything material, that was closer than I'd ever been. It was really hard to stay focused the rest of the show.

On the bright side, it was actually a really easy fix with no residual scars (somehow!).
 
#18
I could have murdered this guy...

playing the opening of a new subway (any reason to play, I was young) The strap-button chose to strip out during the third song. Joy, right? Caught the bass and played seated the rest of the show.
Now for the fun part
we were clearing off the stage, and the next band started setting up, the Gui*ard thumped his 2x12 combo down and y shoved my SWR Henry OFF THE BACK OF THE STAGE!!! It hit the concrete with the most sickening crash I ever heard (and i was t-boned yesterday, so that tells you something) Cab was shot and the magnets popped off the back of three of the speakers. which is why I don't buy celestion anymore
 
#19
I had a OneSpot(9volt dc adaptor-powers my pedalboard) die on me right as I was plugging in to play @ Mohegan Sun Arena(10,000 people in the crowd). It worked fine during soundcheck! I wiggled the cable and I was just about to yank the whole pedalboard out of my pre's effects send when the light came on. Good thing because I play the whole set with my Boss OC2 on! I switched out the OneSpot for a standard wall wart and haven't had that problem since.:)
 
#20
the first little show i did at my school with my brand-new GK700RBii and my 112- i set up, tuned up, jammed for a few minutes, then left it muted on stage while the crowd showed up. i come to actually start the show and smell smoke...the output gets sucked to nothing on the first few notes i played... somehow the speaker had blown? nobody messed with it- i was right next to it the whole time. so i just played through the house PA and hoped i was relatively in tune - i only had my fretless at the time and i could not hear myself at all.
to this day i have no clue why that happened, but i have never had a problem with it since.
 

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