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Most Embarrasing moments/problems/accidents on stage

#41
yem said:
Due to a severely drunk band member, we play the heads of three tunes before turning off, apologizing, tearing down, and walking out.
Click to expand...

Ouch…

My drummer likes to drink, but he’s pretty responsible, He’s strictly a beer drinker, though, and anything else just hits him in a weird way.

Anyways, afraid of having to go pee during a set, he started drinking other stuff, getting more messed up, but still pulling it off.

Then a couple private gigs over the summer, they offered us good money to play another set, so naturally…

Well, it was beyond his threshold, and needless to say, he was not having a good time.

Now he’s strictly back to beers. Just last week he had to stop middle of a set to go to the restroom, haha… but we happened to be in a corner (no stage, really tight, but a good venue and good pay) and there was a little pisser right where we were set up, in fact he had to climb over my rig to get in.

And a couple times we had to stop along the highway so he could relieve himself.

But hey, it’s better than having him not be able to play, haha.

:)
 
#42
For me, the worst experience is when I got food poisoning while playing an Irish bar in London. 3 songs into the first set I felt ill, suddenly followed by projectile vomiting directly behind the rhythm guitarist, at least 3 times and gushingly bad, my body was rejecting and cascading, whatever that crap was attacking my gullet, and throwing it out quick, ewwwww.

After the first set I was in a bad way, shivering, hot and cold, running to the toilet, when that was being used running to the ladies, brother I tell you, it was rough.

After being sick again outside in the yard the lads asked me if I wanted to quit, I couldn't, I wanted everyone paid up, so I sat on a bar stool at the back corner in the shadows of the little stage with a bucket underneath me, counting time until I could go home. When we finished, the singer retorted 'fair play, all that and you didn't miss a note' :D

He wasn't concerned about me, just about what was going to happen with the groove, typical singer, but I liked the thinking.

I didn't think I'd be able to drive after, it knocked me for six, it was a bug from hell and no error, I still don't know if the 200+ people there thought it was part of the show :)
 
#43
at the time was playing in a SKA band.

it was Skanksgiving, and we were playing with a bunch of other bands. I believe the Pietasters headlined.

anywho, its a 1,500 person venue, jam packed, we are about to rage our first song and heres the high hat! CHE CHE CHECHECHECHE

BAM!

NO FRIGGEN BASS. theres no bass coming out of my amp OR the monitors in front of me. Im literally hearing my bass from the house PA about 10 feet over my head!

CRAP! I can barely hear anything!! Im looking on my left at the sound guys screaming "theres no F-cking bass!"

so bad. to make things worse, the band CHANGED the opening song without telling me. so i was playing wrong song too AND couldn't hear myself.
 
#44
back in high school my band's first gig was pretty embarrassing. It was my first full gig with a band and i was "pumped"
the gig was a 40 min drive out into the country- a teenager's birthday party that our guitar player's mom got for us. :help:
anyway, our first song has a somewhat lengthy guitar intro that me and the drummer hit a big downbeat on. I guess i had my chi flowing, because when i hit that note(low e string) my bass exploded. E string was shredded. Who breaks an E string? and this was on my geddy lee, in great shape with fairly new strings. Being my first gig and all, i hadn't learned the importance of having a backup bass or even spare strings. I drive about 15minutes each way to the nearest store with strings, happens to be a walmart, and string up. Then we rocked out. :bassist:
 
#46
I was singing an Incubus song at my high school grad party (10 years ago) and flipping my mic with the wires when the mic declipped and hit my bassist in the head at full speed. I was very confused when I started to sing again and the mic wasn't at the end of the cable. haha!

Another high school grad party 4 years later, I had to sing with a strep throat, I could barely talk, found out 2 days later that I had gaz poisoning from the gaz tank in my car leaking. Anyway, did the show while drinking some caugh medicine syrup between songs and sometimes between passages and my bassist helped me fill in some passages I just couldn't sing.

Another time, 2 years later, we're playing in this bar in Montreal and had a 24pack of beer before the show... we drank it all... and then bought some more... ended up being served a full pitcher of coffee during the gig by our manager because we were all too drunk to play. We got better as the night went along, but we were embarassed afterwards.

I had my fair share of gigs since I was a teenager. The most fun were the open air parties in the woods. Now I prefer the small one in a packed bar.
 
#47
mine almost became the most embarrassing moment-and on the very first time ever playing with a band.
The strap to the bass had pulled part of my shirt down and I ALMOST had a wardrobe malfunction. It was funny, cause one of my dear friends came to meet me on the side of the stage when I was done and here I thought she was gonna say something like "way to go girl! woooieeeee!" instead she said "Miko, your boob almost fell out of your shirt!"
see? thank GOD it didn't!!:hiding:
gig.jpg


almost captured an embarrassing moment!
9.jpg

I was laughing cause the guy who used to sing and play guitar there ( friend of mine for years, but never heard me play bass before that night) had bowed down at my feet after I was done.
 
#49
just had a good and humiliating one tonight. So I'm in the arctic (NWT Canada) as part of the house band for the next 3 weeks...been here for 2 weeks already, 3 to go...First two weeks have been fantastic, supportive crowd, good sound, good vibes. Last night, there was the first of 4 town wide power failures and we couldn't play...to compound this our drummer had to be taken to the hospital for chest pains. (No worries everyone, torn muscle in his chest, but his right arm is all but useless). So tonight we had to go on. Busted up drummer had to set up the drum set like Rick Allen from Def Leppard, which in itself was not a problem, and considering Rick Allen is our Drummers favorite...drummer, he set up his kit very similar. For those of you who don't know, Rick Allen has one arm and mounted a snare low to the ground and played it with a pedal. This is a fine setup for Rick Allen, but not so good for our drummer who hasn't tried to play that way since he was 9 and wished he was in def leppard... This would work for many music styles, but we play a lot of country covers that demand a lot of fancy snare work, as well as a ton of top 40 covers that don't sound fantastic without loud, awesome drum fills. not happening. again no fault of his. Basically we were limping to start with.
So as the night progressed, the band leader missed several important cues, and I f-ed up several important lines. None of us were drinking, it was just one of those nights. The power failures the night before that closed the bar had the locals tonight in a pretty aggressive mood, and we could do no right. 4 sets of being yelled at for playing too much country, not enough country, and too much rock, not enough rock all culminated in an older lady (50 plus at a guess) coming up on stage and saying to me, "your band f!@#ing sucks", after our last song. At that point I totally agreed. We were a mess, although in her case it was due to us playing too much top forty, it was still really embarrassing. Rough day at the office to be sure.
 
#52
So many gigs and so many mishaps but my fondest embarrassing moment was back around 1990 my band drove through a blizzard 6 hours from Buffalo to Cleveland.

We get to the bar at The Flats around 5pm for a 9pm show. We all have about 3 beers or so over the course of a few hours while we are setting up (not getting drunk but we all had a few).

The crowd starts showing up around 8. Now we were an all original band with sort of a Rollins Band/The Cult kind of sound used to playing for people getting wasted and banging their heads.

The crowd is all Straight Edge kids... no smokers... no drinkers... no drugs... it was "Teen Straight Edge Night" (which we were not aware of or we may have warned them we wouldn't go over very well).

These kids gave us blank looks as we got on stage... Our singer has a momentary lapse of reason and does one of his normal crowd greetings and yells

"Hello Cleveland... I hope everyone is ready to party...is everyone getting wasted tonight"... there was about 3 seconds of silence and then one kid yells back "just the band"... and then more silence. (I was laughing in my head)

I swear to god to top it all off our spot on drummer who never screwed up starts fumbling the beat in the opening song and for the first and last time we actually had to stop a song and start over...

20 years later I still have an echo in my head of that kid yelling "just the band"
 
#53
One from the "serious" music world... which was decidedly not so serious that night about 15 years ago!

I was playing assistant principal (2d chair), filling in w/an orchestra I'd never played with before.

One movement began with with an abrupt upbow... (Now keep in mind how the db's are usually sitting in an orchestra) ... and the principal launches his bow into the 1st row of the auditorium.

:hiding:

I figure "screw this, he can't have mine!" and keep grinding away as if nothing happened. By now several people in the orchestra are giggling, as an elderly patron is leaning over the edge of the stage, holding up the bow & waving it to return it to our hapless principal. Even the conductor cracked up.

Good times. :D

GT
 
#54
My most embarrassing gig:

I actually didn't play in this particular concert, but one of my pieces was in it. (Student electroacoustic composition recital.) At this time, we had a somewhat famous distinguished visiting professor at our university. We'll call him Dr Sharpzundflattz for the purposes of this story.

Concert went well, or at least I thought so. Afterward I'm walking through the parking lot with my GF, and we run into Dr Sharpzunflattz.

"Mr Thump!" he greets me. "I really liked your piece - well done!"

"Well, thank you Sir." Can I mention that I was surprised and thoroughly tickled by this?

"Hmm, shame they weren't all like yours. There was one that was just awful...."

Here Sharpzundflattz goes into an extended rant and a very detailed description of a piece he hated.

He gets about four sentences into this rant and I realize *he's talking about my piece!*

Oops. Obviously he mixed me up for some other student.

So, I got this 10 minute harangue about how my piece sucked. All the while Sharpzundflattz not realizing I was not the guy he thought I was. He wraps up with, "well, it was a piece of crap. Good thing your piece saved the day though."

I thanked him & went home.

I was mortified at the time, but now I find it funny as hell & tell my students this story.

Besides, he was right - my piece did suck. :)

GT
 
#55
For me, it was at a very large outdoor party with several bands, and having our drummer at the time pass out & fall backwards off his throne after our 3rd song - he'd had too much to drink, and after he fell, he was out for hours. We knew the drummer from the opening band, and he filled in & got us through the gig. When our drummer finally came to, he wanted to know when we were going to start...

My most humorous memory from playing live is from when we were playing a big outdoor BBQ. Our guitarist (who had very poor vision, but wouldn't wear his glasses on stage because he thought they made him look like a doofus) went to hit his overdrive pedal for his solo, and instead stomped his cheeseburger (which was half eaten & sitting next to his pedalboard) into oblivion! He then proceeded to play a flawless solo, all the while smearing liquified cheeseburger on his pedalboard & all over his side of the stage, while the rest of us were laughing so hard we were barely able to finish the song.
 
#56
I remember playing at a real dive in Allentown, Pa. The mens room had no door on it kind of place. Our front man broke a dental appliance and he had no front tooth. He didnt want to sing the next set without it.. I said: "We need you to sing. Keep the mike in front of your mouth so nobody will notice, or get the hell out of here and go home. I'm not going to play instrumentals all night." Well we got into a big fight in the parking lot and the club owner came out to break it up. We were both beaten up and puking from fighting... but... had to go back on stage for the next set. He sang after all.. just weird beating the hell out of one another and after a 15 min break, we're up there playing like nothing happened.
 
#59
HA!!! Our drummer did that last show. I thought it was crazy. He didn't start the wrong song. It was a guitar intro song.. she started (guitar) I look at him so we can come in together and he starts waving his arms and yelling and stops her playing. I don't even remember why. :confused: At least it was the last song.
 
#60
My second gig playing bass in a jazz group. I am one of 2 bassists(we have certain songs claimed) and I was very late catchig the band van to leave for the show, looked at the song list and concluded that I didn't need my electric so I just grabbed my upright and skidaddled to the van.

The other guy plays his first song, then I grab my upright and go out there play mine. Then he goes up again for his other song and finishes up no problem. Then I hear from the director "well the brass players say that their chops (lips) aren't blown yet, so here's another tune!!". The particular song he picked was an incredibly fast one that I used electric on..... So me being full of bassist ego grabbed the other guys bass forgetting that it was FRETLESS!!, plugged in and gave the director the thumbs up. I had never played fretless before that so as I stumbled around on the flat fretboard the director gave me the death stare and I almost died from the embarrassment but the band held it together without falling over laughing.

Now I bring BOTH basses to every show no matter the setlist.
 

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