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Have you ever just blanked out on stage?

#121
goldenglory18 said:
This is everything. When the sh*t hits the fan, make it part of the entertainment.

I played in a super active, wildly energetic band once and the lead guitarist did an axe swing right into the mouth of the front mans face. Blood everywhere, not a beat missed, we kept on going. After the set, everyone thought it was a gag and part of the show.

Come to think of it, I think I sheered off a tuning peg that way one time too......
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yeah, when you're able to keep your cool (apart from the blanking out), you can wing it and make it part of the show. If done right, no one will know if it was intentional or failure from your side.
I've had a frontman falling off stage (drunk, but not in an alcoholic sad way but more of a partied a bit too hard way) while singing harmonics with the other frontman - apart from the sound he made on impact, he did not miss a beat and the audience picked him up from the floor and put him back on stage, accompanied by cheers.
 
#122
el murdoque said:
yeah, when you're able to keep your cool (apart from the blanking out), you can wing it and make it part of the show. If done right, no one will know if it was intentional or failure from your side.
I've had a frontman falling off stage (drunk, but not in an alcoholic sad way but more of a partied a bit too hard way) while singing harmonics with the other frontman - apart from the sound he made on impact, he did not miss a beat and the audience picked him up from the floor and put him back on stage, accompanied by cheers.
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The "I meant to do that!" attitude! :D
 
#123
Just played a live set on the radio two weeks ago.
We are in an L-shaped studio, and it's a weird scenario having to play in headphones with control over your own headphone mix, and you are isolated visually from most of the band (especially drummer).
My brain went fart on an entire first verse of a song that we have been playing regularly for years. I couldn't remember, for the life of me, my correct hand position and I just KEPT FLUBBING NOTES!
Panic sets in, even though I've been playing shows for over a decade and have had my share of flubs. I finally recover after a good 30-40 seconds of terrible, off-notes, but cannot fully get back into the song because I'm so shaken.

When I listened back to that recording I wanted to kick myself all over again.
 
#125
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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No ... but I do suffer from stage boredom ... I am playing for drunks who can't tell if playing good or not and then I have played the song so many times that I have lost interest in it.

So I will try to find weird things to do like only using one finger on each hand or put my left hand from the top of the neck instead of the bottom and using a completely incorrect fingering technique
 
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#126
el murdoque said:
yeah, when you're able to keep your cool (apart from the blanking out), you can wing it and make it part of the show. If done right, no one will know if it was intentional or failure from your side.
I've had a frontman falling off stage (drunk, but not in an alcoholic sad way but more of a partied a bit too hard way) while singing harmonics with the other frontman - apart from the sound he made on impact, he did not miss a beat and the audience picked him up from the floor and put him back on stage, accompanied by cheers.
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Exactly. If you've never had a blank moment onstage, you haven't spent enough one onstage. The different between a pro and a not-so-pro is in how you handle it.

I've seen extremely well-established artists straight up forget the lyrics to their most popular song, I've seen people announce one song and start another by accident...I even saw an audience member hand a singer a phone with the lyrics to their song on it to help them out! but the pros either smoothly recover, or play it off in a way that becomes part of the entertainment.
 
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#127
Ric5 said:
No ... but I do suffer from stage boredom ... I am playing for drunks who can't tell if playing good or not and then I have played the song so many times that I have lost interest in it.

So I will try to find weird things to do like only using one finger on each hand or put my left hand from the top of the neck instead of the bottom and using a completely incorrect fingering technique
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Hahaha ... I've been known to watch entire hockey games when a TV is visible from the stage. Spend all night on autopilot.
 
#129
PaulJSmith said:
Hahaha ... I've been known to watch entire hockey games when a TV is visible from the stage. Spend all night on autopilot.
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Hah, a bit off topic, but this reminds me a bit of a Pinback show I saw recently. The bartender turned a hockey game on in the back of the room. Between songs, Rob (the singer) said "Hey man, we kinda have a thing going on over here. I don't come into your living room when you're watching TV and play my guitar."
 
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#133
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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Didn't yet read past the first page of comments (and YES I have, and still struggle with horrible memory issues ... I feel like I've been in the early stage of Alzheimer's since my early 30s!)

But I'm dying to know if the old ladies politely clapped after THAT song???
 
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#135
Lbsterner said:
When I was primarily doing vocals for a prog-fusion band I was in, I once blanked out on the words to a song I wrote in front of a pretty large crowd. That was fun (not).
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You are in good company. Back in 1969 at Woodstock, things weren't quite ready for the next group and there was some confusion on who it was supposed to be. They saw John Sebastian from the Lovin' Spoonful standing back stage and asked him to go out with an acoustic guitar and sing a few songs while they got everything straightened out. He did and in the middle of one of his new songs he forgot the words. Was pretty funny to see him announcing to the world that he forgot the words of his new song.
 
#136
The first time I played in a band in front of an audience we did two songs (I was playing guitar)--I totally forgot the changes to one song (Now granted we didn't have enough practice--group & individual--short notice time wise--so lesson learned)
 
#137
I was playing a four song set for a church. Two of the songs started off with bass only. For whatever reason, I thought the last song was supposed to be played second. The group I was with was so professional, they changed tunings, put on a pad, and switched instruments all within seconds.

On our way to the green room, people kept congratulating me on that song and I had no idea why. They explained to me then what I had done. I was so embarrassed but also couldn't stop laughing. It's one of those callback jokes I use now when people are deciding what to play next. I'll just start playing that song and watch everyone.
 
#138
When I've been playing live and deeply into the groove I sort of go on autopilot and brain starts wandering thinking about all sorts of crazy stuff. Very Zen-like. But I'm always on top of my game.

Although about a year or so ago I was doing a duet of Amazing Grace at my church with this older lady who thinks she's very good (she can play piano and flute very well, and can sing OK- she thinks she's still a soprano so she tries to sing that register and just ends up screeching and warbling trying to find the pitch).

After rehearsing the song 3 or 4 times over the course of 2 weeks it came time to play. I was so concerned about us starting at the right tempo and staying together that I forgot the song started on a D. Played a loud E and right away knew I'd messed up. Cut it off and rejoined on the D, made even worse since she can't strum only fingerpicks her classical.
 
#139
It happens man. Most of us have a million other things going in our personal life, jobs, etc. swirling around before we even get to the gig.....sometimes your concentration just isn't what it should be. The thing is though, when I do draw an occasional blank, it scares my butt back into laser focus.
 

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