- Jan 27, 2010
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- Endorsing Artist: Genz Benz Amplification
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What was your/band's worst screw up while playing live?
- Thread starter Dr3thepooner
- Start date
I was laughing keyboard and used a small synth for the lead in Swing Town. On the back of the keyboard was a running knob. It was on the edge of the stage. A week endowed young lady leaned in to request a song and hit the running knob. When I went into the solo, it sounded like big foot strangling pigs. I got looks from the other band members that ranges from puzzlement to "I'm going to kill you."
Please remember that there are children using the forum. Try to keep it clean.
Your point is well taken. However, in the particular case I described we were playing outside with no reverberation or other factors to interfere with anyone hearing the pitch. She just had that pitch in her head. It was actually very impressive. I don't think I could do it on purpose.
I was in a power/prog metal band a few years back and we were playing our first show. Mid set we were playing one of these crazy proggy originals written by the guitard. Anyway midway through the song we all stopped (we weren't supposed to) and the drummer and I locked eyes and he gave a 4 beat and we all jumped back into the song. If people had been paying attention to us they may have noticed we looked like deer in head lights, but because we all stopped at once and started together it looked like something natural in the song.
Early on we had a situation where a song was called out that the guitarist starts Gimme 3 steps and he started Call me the breeze instead the band jumped into Gimme 3 steps and he continued to play give me the Breeze for a few bars before he realized his mistake those two songs are not even close me.
- Sep 5, 2011
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- Uncompensated endorsing user: fEARful
Hehe - We did this once in studio. Total blackout while recording, but the STOP and START was so tight that we kept it and played the song like on the record from that day on!
We had a keyboard player once, who had quite some impressing rig with MIDI and MAcBook and an own mixer for all channels - It happened sometimes in rehearsals that one of his MIDI notes got stuck but at this one gig, he did that ON STAGE - and for the worse, he didn't even hear it!! I never figured out if he really didn't hear it because or the room-sound, because he was totally wasted of just because he didn't care, but (because show always goes on) we continued playing with this gigantic, reverbed synths-tone. At least, it was the root and not some fancy prog-blueNote like he played most of the time. It felt so good to kick him out of the band later.
There is a video of that particular accident! The gig was quite good, but that song sounded baaaaad!! all the audience could hear it and you see all of 'em (including us from the band) constantly looking (and yelling) at the keys player who really didn't get it
There are 2 that I can remember vividly!! One we were starting a song and our percussionist decided to count it out. He was a junkie, so you know how that went. 3 times we had to restart the tune!! We all kind of laughed it off and had fun with the audience over it, but he only played 1 more show and was out...
The other time the band was having a bad night. Our new percussionist (8 years now) and our drummer were just not jiving together. We were into the middle of a tune and the leader of that tune just stopped playing. The song was done. We stopped... I about died of laughter. It was so funny watching our guitarist stare down both drummers. I was just glad it wasn't me screwing up the song that badly!! We have yet to play that song in a show since.
The other time the band was having a bad night. Our new percussionist (8 years now) and our drummer were just not jiving together. We were into the middle of a tune and the leader of that tune just stopped playing. The song was done. We stopped... I about died of laughter. It was so funny watching our guitarist stare down both drummers. I was just glad it wasn't me screwing up the song that badly!! We have yet to play that song in a show since.
Are you one of them?Please remember that there are children using the forum. Try to keep it clean.
Sometimes we cant seem to nail what we need in the monitors before downbeat. Had to restart a couple times cause we couldn't hear eachother.
Learned "boys of summer" for a sub gig. They gave me the Ataris version to learn. It's in E flat tuning , as was the cover band. We start playing the song and I realize something is terribly wrong. The rest of the band was playing it half a step down as far as position, like the Henley version. That first chord hurt my soul. I figured it out 10 seconds in, but that just shattered my confidence, and I had to transpose it for the rest of the song rather uncomfortably.
First gig my band played. The drummer was playing too fast and we ended up coming up short at the show on time. We had to improv for a minute or two and eventually the guys wanted me to just break into a slap solo that I had been working on. They jumped in and the solo actually came out sounding good. We ended up having the best pull that night, but it was still majorly embarrassing to come up short on material.
Not 5 minutes before we started, our guitar player knocked over is guitar stand and snapped his first string.
He had a Floyd Rose tremolo. So, it threw it all out of whack.
He quickly replaced the broken string and got tuned up.
BUT, he had a set of 9-42 on the guitar and the replacement was an 11........
Intonation was thrown out, and so he was out of tune for the entire evening.
I've never had stage fright. But, stage embarrassment is a whole other thing!!
He had a Floyd Rose tremolo. So, it threw it all out of whack.
He quickly replaced the broken string and got tuned up.
BUT, he had a set of 9-42 on the guitar and the replacement was an 11........
Intonation was thrown out, and so he was out of tune for the entire evening.
I've never had stage fright. But, stage embarrassment is a whole other thing!!
Neglecting to double-check my tuning and playing the best 25% of our set list horribly off pitch.
Both on the same gig:
1. Guitar player starts in one key. My wife, on bass starts in another. As the singer, I can't find the pitch, so I do the unthinkable: STOP THE SONG.
2. Drummer's girlfriend is going to do a guest vocal on "Tell me Something Good." She is out of time with the song, and I am playing bass. I am trying to line up my timing with her, and now I'm off with the drummer and guitar. They hear me out of time, and start trying to compensate. Soon, we are all four doing a different song. My wife is by the sound board, and out of embarrassment, tries to crawl under it, so she can't be seen. She triggers the break music, which is set to almost as loud as the band.
We never played there again.
1. Guitar player starts in one key. My wife, on bass starts in another. As the singer, I can't find the pitch, so I do the unthinkable: STOP THE SONG.
2. Drummer's girlfriend is going to do a guest vocal on "Tell me Something Good." She is out of time with the song, and I am playing bass. I am trying to line up my timing with her, and now I'm off with the drummer and guitar. They hear me out of time, and start trying to compensate. Soon, we are all four doing a different song. My wife is by the sound board, and out of embarrassment, tries to crawl under it, so she can't be seen. She triggers the break music, which is set to almost as loud as the band.
We never played there again.
Bit off topic but hey..
It always seems to be me for some wierd reason.
First one I can think of is at 18 getting to drunk at my office party and waking up later at home with my dad remonstrating with my very unhappy three piece band as they squeeze into our front portch for an explanation, they did the gig with no bass.
Then in my late forties and I'm in bed with a a terrible chest infection. The band pulled up, we got to the gig which was a lovely outdoor medium stage festival do where I proceeded to screw up every damn tune.
The horrendous video play back shows me, a corpse on stage with a bass hanging round his neck fumbling all over the place.....probably the most embarassing feeling I've ever experienced.
It always seems to be me for some wierd reason.
First one I can think of is at 18 getting to drunk at my office party and waking up later at home with my dad remonstrating with my very unhappy three piece band as they squeeze into our front portch for an explanation, they did the gig with no bass.
Then in my late forties and I'm in bed with a a terrible chest infection. The band pulled up, we got to the gig which was a lovely outdoor medium stage festival do where I proceeded to screw up every damn tune.
The horrendous video play back shows me, a corpse on stage with a bass hanging round his neck fumbling all over the place.....probably the most embarassing feeling I've ever experienced.
This happened to a friend. He played in an Eagles tribute and they used backing tracks which he (the drummer) started from a mp3 player. Previously he had a Creative Labs player but the band decided to upgrade to an iTouch. So it's loaded up with the songs in sequence, all he has to do is press the play button and there's a click count-in and the song starts. Unfortunately somebody had switched the player to shuffle mode and my friend didn't know the device well enough to turn it off (or even know what it was). So the band is playing one song while the backing track is giving them tempo, backing vox and keyboards to another song. It was chaos! They had to take an early break to figure out what was going on.
