Sounds to me like some kids snuck on stage between sets and messed with your stuff.
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Gig gone wrong
- Thread starter gregoire1
- Start date
Do you have any video or audio of the show? It can be painful to watch, but useful for identifying and fixing things so they don't happen again.
Ah man sorry to hear that.
Worst I had was around a year ago. First set nailed. Having a break couple friends in the crowd offered advice on the sound. Couple tweaks later and everything my side of the stage went horribly weird. I got a slight delay from the drummers beat and the vocals and could not find my place, try play with drummer, can't do backing vocal, try work front with vox, can't keep rhythm.
It happens. Hopefully not again though
Worst I had was around a year ago. First set nailed. Having a break couple friends in the crowd offered advice on the sound. Couple tweaks later and everything my side of the stage went horribly weird. I got a slight delay from the drummers beat and the vocals and could not find my place, try play with drummer, can't do backing vocal, try work front with vox, can't keep rhythm.
It happens. Hopefully not again though
Nerves can cause a sort of hypervigilance where, if one thing goes wrong, you start to fumble on everything that follows and become fixated on the mistakes you're making.
The best cure for that is learning to laugh it off. If you can pull yourself out of that fixated state, you'll be fine. It can feel like the most terrifying thing in the world to mess up in front of an audience, but audiences are way more forgiving of you than you realize. Just fix the thing, smile, and move on. You're going to have lots of screw ups if you keep doing this and learning to handle them without getting caught in a negative thinking loop will make it a lot easier on you overall.
Also, your string was that far out of tune and you don't know how it got that way? Is someone in your band a prankster? Just remember to check tuning before every set next time and you'll be good to go!
The best cure for that is learning to laugh it off. If you can pull yourself out of that fixated state, you'll be fine. It can feel like the most terrifying thing in the world to mess up in front of an audience, but audiences are way more forgiving of you than you realize. Just fix the thing, smile, and move on. You're going to have lots of screw ups if you keep doing this and learning to handle them without getting caught in a negative thinking loop will make it a lot easier on you overall.
Also, your string was that far out of tune and you don't know how it got that way? Is someone in your band a prankster? Just remember to check tuning before every set next time and you'll be good to go!
Stuff goes wrong, human. Let it go.
Learn from mistakes. That’s what we are wired to do. Don’t go into the next gig freaking out. It’ll be ok. Learning to laugh at yourself goes a long way.
Have you already done step 1? Fire the drummer?
Learn from mistakes. That’s what we are wired to do. Don’t go into the next gig freaking out. It’ll be ok. Learning to laugh at yourself goes a long way.
Have you already done step 1? Fire the drummer?
Maybe it's not very rock-and-roll, but I've always got a pre-first-note checklist (in Google Keep on my phone, fwiw): bass tuned? Tablet set up with app on first song? Water at hand? Etc. I make myself go through it each time no matter how dumb it seems.
Afterwards I take some time to relax, then sit down and make a list of what went well and what went well and what went badly and what I could do to make it go better next time.
If you've got a recording that can be a good reality check--often it turns out that the stuff you obsessed about is barely audible, or there was some other problem that you didn't notice at the time.
Agree with most of the responses here - stuff happens. Just gotta laugh it off, know what (if anything) to work on, and move on - but TBF I've come home from gigs (or even monthly jam sessions) ticked off that I missed 4 notes in that one song. Working on it.
One thing that I've found is that the audience (well, at least the bar audiences we play for) are quick to forgive you if you can acknowledge the mishap with some humor.
Case in point - a couple weeks ago at a gig, we come out of a Drop D tune, and while I tuned back up to E, our guitar player forgot. We get a few bars in and realize it, so we stop. While the guitar player tunes, I say something like "See, folks, what happened there is that Everlong is in Drop D, so Joe and I had to tune down. But this song is in E, and Joe forgot to retune - but hey, he's doing that now, so we're all good!" A couple chuckles and we're off, no harm no foul.
One thing that I've found is that the audience (well, at least the bar audiences we play for) are quick to forgive you if you can acknowledge the mishap with some humor.
Case in point - a couple weeks ago at a gig, we come out of a Drop D tune, and while I tuned back up to E, our guitar player forgot. We get a few bars in and realize it, so we stop. While the guitar player tunes, I say something like "See, folks, what happened there is that Everlong is in Drop D, so Joe and I had to tune down. But this song is in E, and Joe forgot to retune - but hey, he's doing that now, so we're all good!" A couple chuckles and we're off, no harm no foul.
This can be a good exercise. Played a show in June where the drummer messed up the segway from one song to the next in a medley. He was mortified and obsessing over his "big mistake." Then some video of our set showed up online and we watched it together. He got to that point and saw that we just glossed over it, laughed, and moved on. "Oh, it wasn't really any big deal, was it?" Nope, it wasn't. You played a good show. We all made mistakes that day.
I will leave you with wisdom I originally got here on TB:
It’s only music, nobody died.
Yeah. And it's a big switch from "practice mode"--listening for what's wrong, stopping and fixing stuff, being really analytical--to "performance mode"--not sweating the small stuff, keeping going no matter what, using your music to communicate with an audience. The switch is something I've become conscious of as something that needs practicing itself.
Cave Puppy
"Humph Bo, he's wond!" - John Lennon
Lessons learned I’m sure. Whatever mistakes were made will probably not be made again. Relax. If no one recorded it then it’s gone. I once completely mis-eq’d my amp (cranked up the treble when I thought it was bass) and got called out about it. It happens.
Cave Puppy
"Humph Bo, he's wond!" - John Lennon
This is such a good point. I have two people in my band who will beat themselves up for mistakes. One (drummer) has a lot of anxiety and the other one is a bit of a perfectionist. I have to caution both of them that practice and rehearsal is where we focus on what we can improve, but a performance is for bringing what we've got and having fun with it.
It's not the place or time for worry or catastrophic thinking, so you have to leave that stuff at home because the big truth is that you are going to make mistakes on stage. If you're not having fun, why are you doing this?
Our job as performers is to bring the positive energy to the audience and you don't do that by being sullen over the possibility of playing it wrong. Leave that stuff in the rehearsal space and come to the show to enjoy yourself!
Those things happen. Forget about it. I do find it odd that the tuning was not checked. I check my tuning at the end and start of each set. I can even quickly check when the singer is talking between songs.
Train wrecks can always happen. It helps that everyone listens and immediately have eye contact to rectify the situation asap. You would be surprised how mistakes are not picked up by most of the audience.
Train wrecks can always happen. It helps that everyone listens and immediately have eye contact to rectify the situation asap. You would be surprised how mistakes are not picked up by most of the audience.
I keep a spare gorilla suit in the car so if things go wrong nobody knows who I am.
Just that gorilla jackin up the sets!
-get the girl leave out the window.
Just that gorilla jackin up the sets!
-get the girl leave out the window.
Herein lies yet another example of keeping it loose and moving on! Folks forget that the clam pops up every so often, but hey it’s momentary and within seconds (provided the train doesn’t derail) it’s ancient history and few if any will remember it. Don’t acknowledge it, don’t even think about it for a moment, just keep cranking. And for Christ’s sake, don’t immediately turn and stare down a partner that might have stumbled… a sure sign of amateur hour, and guaranteed to amplify the event even more. Rather, buckle down, pour on the coals, and draw attention off the flubber to minimize that nasty instant in time. As others have mentioned, folks generally want you to succeed and are quite forgiving. You are your own worst critic, and it’s all in your little mind.
Bad things happen, bad gigs happen, just learn from it. The tuning issue happened so from now on check it, and check it again. Things like that can overshadow all your positive vibes for the night.
Just the way it works. And a bad night makes you appreciate the good ones even more.
Just the way it works. And a bad night makes you appreciate the good ones even more.
LOL I posted a file here yesterday where I made a bunch of obvious clams at the end of one song. I try hard to do a good show, but I no longer obsess over it. If I were being paid a ton of money to play and practice, I'd likely be a little more on-point, but my work is pretty solid, anyway. A clam here or there is just part of the joy of live music
