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Major disasters at gigs

B

bevel19

Aug 13, 2005
103
1
Hobart Tasmania Australia
#1
Ever had a MAJOR disaster happen at a gig? Caught up with an old FOH guy/friend and were reminiscing about gigs gone by. Used to use triple four way PA and 50 can light show at our regular gig. Employed seven crew whenever we played. Had a call from the pub on a Friday arvo to say that our entire light rig had toppled over and punched a hole right through the wall of the coolroom.Dumb lighting guy hadn't spread the legs of the tripod fully and the whole thing fell sideways.This guy was only paid to lug ,he didn't own the lights.Didn't get any work after that....with anyone!!!

Also had some stupid knobhead think it would be "neat and tidy" to roll up the three phase power lead suppling the stage and PA. Melted the cable about halfway through the gig!!

Another roadie managed to drop a mike stand off a fire-escape onto the bonnet of a Porsche,a distance of about 25 feet. Thankfully I was already heading home when that one happened.

Another night our singer's girlfriend was hit from behind by a guy who she had been trying to politely say "go away ,I'm with someone" Stupid fool hit her right in front of our singer while she was dancing. Next thing the assailant has four very pissed off musos coming at him from everywhere. Our poor drummer didn't see the incident and was wondering where the hell his band had gone!

Did a gig on a sunday arvo in a suburb between two 'rival' suburbs. All the 'boys' from both suburbs showed up and we knew we were in trouble. Halfway through the gig a chair found its way though the air to the other side of the pub. All the shutters came down on the bars and it was on.We took off with our guitars ,left the rigs,and got out. Waited for the bloodshed to stop and the cops to arrive. Cops did arrive about an hour later,one 50 year old,overweight nearly retired slob. What was needed was a S.W.A.T. team! Never been back there since (20years ago).


So that's some of mine from the last 30 years ,let's hear some other disastrous stories :)
 
#2
WOW-good stories.I just gig occasionally,just little things.Worst that happened to us was played at a church for recovering addicts one night.Guy in charge had us lock our gear in a room so we can eat.Guess what-no key.Real thick security door too,it was late,and a huge blizzard was rolling in.After about 2 hours of calling everybody who "might" have a key,he broke into it-cut a hole in the wall to reach in to unlock door.
 
#4
I'm sure this has happened to other people besides me but...

When I was about 14 I played at this big community centre like place, which pulled in about 100 or more people, and everything was going fine, until the last song when I, understandably excited, got a little too over enthusiastic and did one of those cute little spinny thingys that guitarist or bassists do sometimes, and eventually realized I was no longer making a sound because the wire had slowly wrapped around me and pulled out the jack ¬¬

It was a good lesson to learn though as I'm now much more watchful of my wires =]
 
#5
Brittain said:
I'm sure this has happened to other people besides me but...

When I was about 14 I played at this big community centre like place, which pulled in about 100 or more people, and everything was going fine, until the last song when I, understandably excited, got a little too over enthusiastic and did one of those cute little spinny thingys that guitarist or bassists do sometimes, and eventually realized I was no longer making a sound because the wire had slowly wrapped around me and pulled out the jack ¬¬

It was a good lesson to learn though as I'm now much more watchful of my wires =]
Click to expand...

Or get a neutrik:D
 
#6
Oh geez, where do I start? :p

Had Brian Howe of Bad Company throw a mic stand at the monitor engineer and storm off stage (I was mixing FOH) because he didn't like his wedge mix...30 SECONDS into the first song! Some threats to his health from the motorcycle club who was paying for his appearance got him back on the stage shortly thereafter. That was earlier this summer...

Had 5+ gallons of water dump into a monitor board in the middle of a show when a canopy gave way. I was at FOH, and the only thing I noticed was, "Hey, all my condenser mics just went away!" The only thing that went down on the monitor board was the phantom power. That was 2 years ago.

Had a goat bite me on the butt as I was doing a soundcheck in the middle of Iowa for Black Oak Arkansas. Random goat, just wandering around the festival. :eyebrow: Didn't break the skin, thank goodness. About 5 years ago. Only reason it was a disaster was the holdup while I went to the hospital.

I'm sure more will come to me...

-Mark
 
#10
Went through soundcheck alright, got a nice sound going on my bass and I was pleased and waiting for our turn to get on stage.

Our time comes and my cocky frontman goes and maxes out his volume (plays guitar too) on his amp making us sound really bad (hes not much of a guitarist).

Another gig ruined *sigh*

Not much compared to some of the more entertaining replies here but it's my only worst I think.
 
#13
NO funny bass stories, but I have two that come immediately to mind while playing drums...

1) Halfway through the set, I broke the batter head on my bass drum. Lesson learned... always carry spare heads.

2) Just this past week, we decided to throw in a new song to start off with, that I had never played before, and I didn't really know that well, We rehearsed it right before we were to perform it. I concentrated so hard on not messing that one up, that I totally blanked on the next song, even though I had played it dozens of time on drums and bass. All I knew was that drums led it off. What came next was a train wreck. Needless to say, we had to start that one over. Very embarrassing, but funny in retrospect. The looks on my band mates faces were priceless!

MattO
 
#15
It wasn't a MAJOR disaster but it did ruin our last song, the one everyone remembers after the gig. I'm in a progressive rock band that sounds a lot like a mix between Yes, Kansas, Marillion, and Rush, so there's quite a few little syncopated parts to our music. It's very important that we hear everyone so we know when to play certain parts.

Well anyway, we were at an outdoor gig where there was another stage playing at the same time. We were playing a pretty important part of the song when the keyboards just cut out completely. In that certain part the keys were the only thing playing at the time and we had to listen for a certain note as a cue to come back in. Well needless to say, we didn't hear it, the song was a train wreck from that point on, and I felt embarrassed afterwards, even though we got quite a few compliments. What they don't know won't hurt them I guess. I guess it was the sound guy's first gig with a keyboard player and he had no clue how to mix them in.:rollno:
 
#17
The worst thing I've ever had happen at a show was when I was playing a punk show with my pedals for the first time. First, I got a slight short in the cable going from my bass to my pedals, and didn't have a spare, so I had to loop it around my strap just to get it into a position that it would make a good connection. Of course, the extra pressure of the cable caused my strap to unhook itself while I was playing, and I dropped the bass onto my pedals before I could catch it. 3 of my pedals went into the middle of the mosh pit, and I couldn't exactly get to them until the song was over, so I just plugged straight into the amp and finished the song. By the time I got the pedals off of the floor, one of them was smashed(plastic case), and the plug from a patch cable was lodged in the output jack of one of the others, but the rest of the patch cable was nowhere to be seen. I learned my lessons that night about strap locks, spare cables, and not putting pedals so close to the edge of the stage.
 
#19
I was playing a gig last year at a large pub with a 3 foot high stage and their own expensive PA/speaker system. This completely blasted woman I have never met seemed to like me and/or the band and bought us a 60oz pitcher of draft. She walked to the stage to hand it to me, stumbled and poured the ENTIRE pitcher right into my stage monitor. Luckily for me it was owned by the bar. Needless to say, speakers don't like having almost 5 whole beers poured into them.:D

This Friday, a completely hammered (really cute though) girl was dancing while we played and started to really be in my face. She eventually started hugging me while I played as well as rubbing my back and a$$! I pulled away as my wife was in the front row. It COULD have been a disater as my wife was a few seconds away from ripping her head off.:smug:

Lastly, I always remember the time my guitard started a really easy song in E but the song is played in G (it is GCF, he played EAD). It was a disaster as the song is really easy until a complicated bridge part about 2 minutes in that can't be played in E easily. It was really uncomfortable knowing you were about 2 minutes away from a complete train wreck. Wasn't the best we ever played that song to be sure.:D
 
#20
Think my worst so far was earlier this year at my regular gig. I ended up getting there slightly late to soundcheck because of majorly bad traffic on the motorway, soundchecked okay, went for food. Went on stage for the show, and half way through the first song my bass starts crackling and subsiquently cuts out completely. Got the keyboard player to cover for me as I checked all my gear, couldn't figure out what it was, got rid of all pedals, and went straight to the DI box (the amp I was using had a terrible DI and we play too loud for it to cope on its own unfortunately). Eventually got some sound, albeit with massive crackling and fuzz coming from the bass after another 2 songs btw. had to just get on with it and hope it didn't fuzz too much, or stop again until the end of the first set. Came of stage managed to discover the battery was completely dead (it was brand new a couple days before, hadn't gigged the battery yet) found a half used one that the sound engineer had for a radio mic, which managed to last untill the end of the gig, just. Never used that brand of batteries since, and try and take a spare bass when I can, not always possible unfortunately cause I don't own another decent bass.
 

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