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Have you ever just blanked out on stage?

#83
dbsfgyd1 said:
Blanked out??? I totally forgot how to play. Hand placement, fingers, song structure, gone. First set went as usual, went to play the second set, it was gone. It took me almost 6 months to relearn how to play. I have before and after recordings, and it’s like listening to two different bassists. I was about age 22 when it happened. That was the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me in my life.
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whoa, that is creepy. did you get yourself checked out?
 
#84
Do you mean "today?" 'Cause I do. But, you learn how to adjust on the fly and you find that 99% of the time, no one else (even the band members) caught the mistake. It comes with time.

Also, I have a couple of songs that I have some sort of mental block. You ask me "what are the chords" and I can tell you right here, right now. Put me on stage and play that same song, and I will blank out when I get to one particular part. I know the song, I can write down the song, but I cannot perform that one or two chord changes for that song. Weird. You can probably tell that it really, really bothers me. ;)
 
#86
eekamike said:
My band is trying to get some recordings of ourselves and work on our stage performance so we can have samples to send to bars. So we've been taking several charity church gigs, mostly populated by sweet old ladies at our church. I was cool with this because I knew we were working towards something bigger, and we definitely need the on stage practice. But right before we got on stage this last time, our drummer was like "I feel like we're just going to play to old ladies forever, who are going to patronizingly clap no matter what we do on stage."

I brushed it off, we played our first song, I saw old ladies in the audience clapping, and then I totally tilted based on his words, and I blanked out completely. I couldn't remember the chord progression for the next song at all, I couldn't use my ears to pick it back up, I couldn't remember anything. It was terrible. I played a few off key notes, then just stopped playing for the rest of the song while I got my mental poopie together. Have you ever blanked out on stage?
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Totally!
 
#88
Pirate Captain said:
I've blanked out for what feels like entire gigs and was told "that sounded great'...so...
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YES ! ! ! ! !

The great unexplainable . . . . . . nights when I think I played better than I ever played before, nobody but nobody ever said a thing. Then . . . . . . the nights when I couldn't find my ass with both hands and a Q-Beam, nothing but compliments. I NEVER figured that out.
 
#91
It happened once, when I was very young. Embarrassing. Never happened again.
I do make mistakes though, just like every other musician. But a total "freeze"? Not anymore.
I think it has to do with practice.
 
#92
foolforthecity said:
So the big question... did the audience notice? Did y'all keep it up like nothing was wrong and soldier through? I'm beginning to think half of our audiences can no longer hear and the other half aren't really listening... just wondering what your experience was
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A few people noticed..One guy who knows the material said he heard some bad stuff but overall the sound was good he said.
When the singer messed up we just played on...it sounded horrible though. I sort of wish we had stopped and started over.

With the playing in two keys thing, the KB kept trying to tell me to play it in E, but everytime I moved to that Key it sounded even worse so I just hung out in D..
 
#93
Sometimes (please note I said "sometimes") you can power through by playing only muted notes, almost percussively, on your lowest string (E, B, whatever you have in your axe), keeping the groove. At least until you find yourself ready to rejoin the song.
 
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#94
FerK said:
Sometimes (please note I said "sometimes") you can power through by playing only muted notes, almost percussively, on your lowest string (E, B, whatever you have in your axe), keeping the groove. At least until you find yourself ready to rejoin the song.
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I have done that :-) Does not go well with <80 beats per minute songs though ;-)
 
#95
MCS4 said:
This is one of the reasons why I prefer in live settings to play music that is technically difficult or that is complicated for other reasons (such as requiring a lot of singing) and therefore requires more in-the-moment concentration. It doesn't mean you can't space out but it does help to minimize it.
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plus there is a heightened element of muscle memory to me with more intricate lines (ime)
 
#96
dbsfgyd1 said:
Blanked out??? I totally forgot how to play. Hand placement, fingers, song structure, gone. First set went as usual, went to play the second set, it was gone. It took me almost 6 months to relearn how to play. I have before and after recordings, and it’s like listening to two different bassists. I was about age 22 when it happened. That was the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me in my life.
Click to expand...

This story needs more...what do you mean you forgot how to play for 6 months? Did you have stroke?
 
#97
I remember a friend telling me how he landed a gig for an Al Jarreau tour. He rehearsed hard and was well prepared for the first show in front of 10,000 people. On the very first song, during the drummer's count, he completely forgot what the song was supposed to be. Just before the 4 he remembered and recovered.

He said it was the most terrifying 1.5 seconds of his life.
 
#99
Blanked out on vocals a couple of times...now I have a Kindle on stage (scrolling our set list) and only refer to it when I need to.
The only reason I blanked out was I was "getting into" the bass line and guitarist and I were trading runs.
 

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