Gig from Hell

[PopaWoody]

Holy crap, last night was probably my worst gig ever. Bike night at Quaker Steak and Lube. 4-500 People in attendance. I agree to play and run sound as a sub for some good friends of ours band. We also have a sub guitarist, that i have never played with. We start on time and sound is on until......

Third song, breaker trips. Ahhhhh! All amps are off and we have to figure out the electrical dilemma. Too many power amps on one circuit.

When the power tripped, the drive rack lost all the Auto EQ and level checks that I did pre-gig, I should have saved the settings in a preset....but not thinking I would need them again, did not save them. Fudge! No way I can run the Auto EQ and levels again with this many people sitting there.

The rest of the gig is a slew of requests to adjust the sound. While I am playing......the snowball effect starts to kick in.

I flub a couple notes, singer misses cues, steps on the verse with chorus...the snowball is getting bigger.

Drummer misses timing, then guitarist joins the fray starting a song in the wrong key. I adjust to his key, but still got a few WTH looks.

At this point 10pm cannot come fast enough. We make it to the end without a major train wreck.

Owner is pissed at sound, band loses gig, everyone is pretty bummed out.

Arrogance prevailed here, we all thought hey we can handle this. Each player is a gigging musician. WRONG! I suggested a rehearsal a day or two pre-gig. That didn't happen. I only had to learn 5 songs out of a 32 song set list. The rest I knew

Lesson learned by all involved.

 

[tangentmusic]

Gig from Hell indeed... Sorry to hear it, man. Brutal..

 

[Biggbass]

Been there. Bummer.

Last Friday night went like this for us - not a gig from hell but you get the idea...

Private VIP party for the Mayor, kicking off a weekend long music and arts festival.
500-600 people, mostly all the vendors at the festival, are in attendance, big covered outdoor stage, pro sound and lights. We are the entertainment for the evening.

Load in time 4:30p...it's 95 outside and about 80% humidity. Show time 7p...it's now 94 and 80% humidity. The crowd starts pouring in...they've been on site, outside all day setting up their vendor areas. Despite the free food and free drinks they all look like they're obligated to be there. They are wiped out from all day exposure to the heat and humidity and despite our changing clothes after load in, we are melting under the lights and humidity. We start playing. 3 songs in power failure. Entire placed goes dead. After a few min we're back up and rocking. Crowd lines up for food, sits at the big tables and eats and stares at us like they're sedated. 3 little girls about 4 yrs old run up to the grassy area in front of the stage and start dancing around. One elderly lady at the front table is mind dancing and grooving to the music. (She stayed to the very end- it turned out to be a show for her, pretty much). Several songs later, power goes out again...whole place is dark. Then when we get powered back up and it starts to rain. Crowd actually sits there in the rain, thankful that it's cooling things down. We are under the covered stage so we're ok..keep playing. Sound guys cover the mains with big blue tarps...FOH sound is now muffled by the tarps. They come up on stage and turn all the wedges speakers down to protect the speakers from rain...there goes the monitor feed. Then a few songs later 3 police come running up to the stage and tell everyone that the event is over and that heavy straight line winds are within 5 or 6 minutes away with heavy rain...and tell crowd to leave the area and go to their cars and take shelter. The crowd just sits there, looking sedated, staring at the police. The Police repeat the message, louder, more urgent and the crowd slowly gets up and leaves. Meanwhile we are packing it down like a bunch of thieves leaving the scene of a crime. The straight line winds and heavy rain never occur. Someone hands me the check and thanked us. A guy with a Kawasaki Mule hauls all my gear and me to my truck and I split. I get home, unpack my gear, shower off the sludge and hit the sheets. Next morning I am cleaning my guitars and take a look at the check...it's made out to another band scheduled to play the next day.

But the happy ending to this mess is that we played again the next night at another venue, indoors-with great Tex Mex, fantastic argaritas and chilled Patron shots, and rocked the bejesus out of the place to a standing room only audience that screamed and yelled and gave us standing ovations throughout the night.

So it's kinda like hitting a good golf shot every once in a while despite having a high handicap and generally playing a crappy game....that one good shot keeps you coming back for more!

 

[Waffles and Scotch]

Holy crap, last night was probably my worst gig ever. Bike night at Quaker Steak and Lube. 4-500 People in attendance. I agree to play and run sound as a sub for some good friends of ours band. We also have a sub guitarist, that i have never played with. We start on time and sound is on until......

Third song, breaker trips. Ahhhhh! All amps are off and we have to figure out the electrical dilemma. Too many power amps on one circuit.

When the power tripped, the drive rack lost all the Auto EQ and level checks that I did pre-gig, I should have saved the settings in a preset....but not thinking I would need them again, did not save them. Fudge! No way I can run the Auto EQ and levels again with this many people sitting there.

The rest of the gig is a slew of requests to adjust the sound. While I am playing......the snowball effect starts to kick in.

I flub a couple notes, singer misses cues, steps on the verse with chorus...the snowball is getting bigger.

Drummer misses timing, then guitarist joins the fray starting a song in the wrong key. I adjust to his key, but still got a few WTH looks.

At this point 10pm cannot come fast enough. We make it to the end without a major train wreck.

Owner is pissed at sound, band loses gig, everyone is pretty bummed out.

Arrogance prevailed here, we all thought hey we can handle this. Each player is a gigging musician. WRONG! I suggested a rehearsal a day or two pre-gig. That didn't happen. I only had to learn 5 songs out of a 32 song set list. The rest I knew

Lesson learned by all involved.

Damn, that sucks man.

 

[otherclef]

When the power tripped, the drive rack lost all the Auto EQ and level checks that I did pre-gig, I should have saved the settings in a preset....but not thinking I would need them again, did not save them.

I never use, and dont understand why folks would use gear where settings could be "saved".

 

[sloppy_phil]

just dust yourself off, man. lessons definitely learned. We all have crap gigs every now and again; just make sure you take something away from the experience, so it's not wasted.

But that was a pretty epic crash! years later this'll be a drinkin' tale that'll keep its worth