My band played a Halloween gig at a local club and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. After negotiating with the club owner for a couple months he agreed to our terms (we are a 5 piece band with a sound/lightman) We got to the gig and found out that he also hired a DJ. We were told he does this at all his clubs so he has music playing when the band is on break. We setup, did sound check and were told by the club owner that the DJ would tell us when we were to start. We were originally told we were going on at 9:30 when we booked the gig. Well 9:30 rolls around and we ask the DJ if we can start, our crowd is there and waiting. He says he is waiting for the club owner to give him the word for us to start. an hour rolls by and we are still not playing and the DJ is playing disco type music, we are a rock band and our crowd is all about rock, not disco. our crowd started leaving after waiting for over 2 hours for us to start playing. Finally we get the word that we are to go on and do a short firs set. We play about half our first set, the crowd is dancing and having a great time and everything is going well. The DJ comes up to us and tells us its time for us to take a break, we only played for about 30 minutes. he went back to playing disco and the crowd emptied out of the bar. Finally after almost another hour we are told to play our next set. We do and well over half the crowd has already left to go somewhere that wasn't playing disco. We play most of our second set and again our told to take a break before we even finished the set. So again we are pacing around like caged animals waiting to take the stage.
At one point I was walking across the stage after putting my ice water on my amp (I don't drink at gigs) as I was walking back outside I tripped over a cable that wasn't taped down properly and took a bad fall. I went outside embarrassed from falling head first onto the base of a mic stand. The owner came out to check on me and ask if I needed any help and I told him I was ok, just embarrassed and wanting some cool air to clear my head. he knew I was only drinking ice water and was completely sober so it wasn't an issue. as I'm sitting outside clearing my head the lead guitarist comes to the window and motions to me that we are wrapping it up, no more playing. I just looked at him like you've got to be kidding me, I wanted to play more. So I finished my smoke and went in to start packing up. I started unplugging my cables and packing them into my bag. I unplugged from the snake and everything was getting torn down quickly. next thing I know I hear someone saying something about the snake being smashed, it was fine when I unplugged from it 10 minutes earlier. Next thing I know I am getting blamed for the snake damage because they heard I fell on the stage. I was no where near the end of the snake when I fell (it was right in front of the kick drum) I would have had to fall on the kick drums mic stand to even get to the snake and I was way over by the one FOH speaker, no where near the snakes end. No one was saying anything to my face or even asking me if I fell on it but they were all talking among themselves and when I got near they got quiet. I felt terrible but know I didn't do the damage and just kept packing up and loading gear.
The next day I called the lead guitarist 3 times leaving him voice mail messages to call me, he never called until this morning while I was still sleeping and just left a message that he was at work and to call him later. If I did the damage to the snake I would have no problem paying for it to be fixed/replaced. But I honestly don't believe I did it. the whole top of the snakes end was smashed in where you plug in the cables, is it possible that the cord I tripped on could have done this much damage? I didn't see any damage when I unplugged and when I saw it later the damage was very noticeable, like I said, the whole top was smashed in something very easy to see. TO make matters worse, the club owner shorted us severely saying we didn't pull a big enough crowd when in fact we had well over 50 of our friends there and that didn't include all the bars regulars. The place was pretty much packed but the disco drove off the crowd, not us. So instead of getting our $100/man we got $40 a man and we paid more than that for the costumes we bought to play the gig.
Now I have this sinking feeling that the fun band I was in is now mad at me and I may be getting replaced. I can't believe that adults (we are all in our 40's) don't have the decency to even talk to me about this. I mean really, man up and talk to me if you think I did something and lets get the issue resolved. Now I'm sitting here in limbo wondering if I am still in the band or if I even want to be in the band any more. It's like all the fun just got sucked right out of the band in seconds. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, I don't know what is going to happen and just needed to vent this out.
At one point I was walking across the stage after putting my ice water on my amp (I don't drink at gigs) as I was walking back outside I tripped over a cable that wasn't taped down properly and took a bad fall. I went outside embarrassed from falling head first onto the base of a mic stand. The owner came out to check on me and ask if I needed any help and I told him I was ok, just embarrassed and wanting some cool air to clear my head. he knew I was only drinking ice water and was completely sober so it wasn't an issue. as I'm sitting outside clearing my head the lead guitarist comes to the window and motions to me that we are wrapping it up, no more playing. I just looked at him like you've got to be kidding me, I wanted to play more. So I finished my smoke and went in to start packing up. I started unplugging my cables and packing them into my bag. I unplugged from the snake and everything was getting torn down quickly. next thing I know I hear someone saying something about the snake being smashed, it was fine when I unplugged from it 10 minutes earlier. Next thing I know I am getting blamed for the snake damage because they heard I fell on the stage. I was no where near the end of the snake when I fell (it was right in front of the kick drum) I would have had to fall on the kick drums mic stand to even get to the snake and I was way over by the one FOH speaker, no where near the snakes end. No one was saying anything to my face or even asking me if I fell on it but they were all talking among themselves and when I got near they got quiet. I felt terrible but know I didn't do the damage and just kept packing up and loading gear.
The next day I called the lead guitarist 3 times leaving him voice mail messages to call me, he never called until this morning while I was still sleeping and just left a message that he was at work and to call him later. If I did the damage to the snake I would have no problem paying for it to be fixed/replaced. But I honestly don't believe I did it. the whole top of the snakes end was smashed in where you plug in the cables, is it possible that the cord I tripped on could have done this much damage? I didn't see any damage when I unplugged and when I saw it later the damage was very noticeable, like I said, the whole top was smashed in something very easy to see. TO make matters worse, the club owner shorted us severely saying we didn't pull a big enough crowd when in fact we had well over 50 of our friends there and that didn't include all the bars regulars. The place was pretty much packed but the disco drove off the crowd, not us. So instead of getting our $100/man we got $40 a man and we paid more than that for the costumes we bought to play the gig.
Now I have this sinking feeling that the fun band I was in is now mad at me and I may be getting replaced. I can't believe that adults (we are all in our 40's) don't have the decency to even talk to me about this. I mean really, man up and talk to me if you think I did something and lets get the issue resolved. Now I'm sitting here in limbo wondering if I am still in the band or if I even want to be in the band any more. It's like all the fun just got sucked right out of the band in seconds. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, I don't know what is going to happen and just needed to vent this out.
