What was your worst gig expirence?

I feel for ya bro. The worst gig I ever played was completely my own fault.

About five years ago I was playing a gig, hardcore punk show. I was severely trashed (those days are gone) and basically spazzing out on stage having a blast. During one of our last songs I punted an empty beer pitcher over the crowd and across the room. It hit a huge mirror behind the bar and covered about ten people with pieces of glass.

We started taking the drum set apart during the last song while one of our buddies warmed up the van. We go the hell out of there with the quickness. I felt horrible once I sobered up, terrible gig.

 

Mine was a couple of weeks ago.

Arrived at the venue, unloaded the van and we carried all the gear to the stage door, quite a way I might add.
Went round to the front of the club to get them to open up, and they said the band was already there.

Turned out they had double booked us and we had to reload the gear and wait outside for a couple of hours (guarding our gear) to tell all the people who were coming especially to see us that we weren’t now playing.

The venue apologised, admitted it was their fault but said they didn’t have any money in their budget to compensate us.

As we play there about 15 times a year, we couldn’t really make too much of a fuss.
Never had a problem with them before, over the last few years we’ve been playing there.

Don’t you just HATE it when that happens?
Had a new bass to try out as well.

 

Last Thursday. Went to an open Blues jam at a local club called Blues Alley -- happening place.

Got paired up with a drummer and guitarist. The drummer was pretty solid, but the guitarist was a mess -- couldn't play, couldn't TUNE.

Ah well, open jams are ALWAYS an adventure.

Plus which there were two other bass players there that were just really incredible -- made me feel woefully inadequate. I got revenge by watching them carefully to steal technique.

 

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=16806

 

A Phillipino baptism pig roast. All the kids wanted to here the Scorpions, all the adults wanted Freddy Fender. I thought they were going to hack us to death.

 

The one I remember was in the 80s, when I had first become disillusioned with the music business and had decided that "just" being the bass player wasn't going to work and I had to write all the songs and play most of ths stuff myself.

I had had a few gigs as a duo, with a female singer which went quite well and we had managed to get a well-know local guitarist interested - he liked the songs and wanted to play with us.

So we did some rehearsals with him and all was going very well, we did a lot of publicity for the next gig and a lot of people showed up - the place was packed and really buzzing.

Now I suppose I should mention that all the drum and keyboard tracks were pre-recorded on a big reel-to-reel tape recorder that I had then and this was set up ready. But as it was so crowded, people had spilled onto the stage area and while I wasn't looking, someone had knocked the reel-to-reel off its stand and onto the floor and then spilled drinks over it. I tried to get it going, but the reels were bent out of shape and it just wouldn't play.

The crowd were getting nasty by now and demanding some music - I can't remember exactly what happened, but we had to make an announcement and managed to get away intact; but the guitarist was very embarassed as he had invited lots of people and he never played with us again - but went on to several fairly successful bands!

 

Probably not the worst, but the one of the funniest moments I remember was playing a concert at a church here in Atlanta (our style is similar to Third Day, Jars of Clay, etc) and I don't think this place was ready for us. We opened up with a rocking little tune, just nailed it, and it has an outro with a blistering guitar solo. After we hit the stinger, nothing! 150 kids looking at us like we had lobsters coming out of our ears. It was so quiet, you could hear crickets. The guitar player shifted his weight and the stage made a little creaking sound that would normally never be heard, but in the pregnant quietness of the moment, it was deafening. The drummer and I were already looking at each other with that "uh-oh" kind of look, but then we just lost it. We couldn't stop laughing through the next several songs, and I remember him playing the second song with tears running down his face.

Well, ok, maybe it's not THAT funny, but then again, I don't get out much!

 

our worst gig ever involved our singer's frenzied ex-girlfriend, the snapping of *3* bass strings, a broken drum stick and elevator music pumping out the P.A every few minutes. and i wasn't even bent.

 

Hey JohnL, that story is hilarious. I can just picture it perfectly. I'll bet it's even better when you tell the story in person.

 

The worst gig I ever played was...

Oh wait, I've never played a gig yet. My bad.

 

In the mid-70's. Got a last minute call from our agent for a Fri-Sat we had intended to take off. As a favor took it and drove to unfamiliar territory in Mays Landing NJ, down a dark road to The Office Tavern. Played the Fri. nite 9:30-2.

Came back Sat night, had trouble finding the club. Then we saw it in the shadows behind the police tape. It had burned down early Sat. morning with all our equipment inside.

 

My absolute worst gig can't compare to Bobs. But here it is. First i show up a lil bit early to rehearse-our 2nd guitarist shows up stoned. Then later that night i busted my E string & later my G [on my bass ] . The E usually isn't bad but we were playin lots of songs where as long as its low it fits [i've changed genres & styles since then] . Now the gig thats toted to be the best of the year is on May 31 @ 1:35 PM @ TMS small gym...dun dun daaa....The end of year 8th grade Guitar Show-i play most of the songs-there are 2 other bassists-one has been playin 3 months & 1 is an upright player. thats all

 

The drummer damn near got hysterical; the three of us (was a guitar/bass/drum trio) went to my office and we wrote down everything we had. Unfortunately, we never got anything from the club since the fire was ruled unintentional (though we heard they torched it). The second biggest bummer was that we had applied for group insurance and were still waiting for the guitarist to get his receipts together -- so NADA.

This is pretty much a before/after though you can't see the PA columns, different club of course. Dig them shirts!! And people want the 70's to come back?!?!




Those are two stacked JBL 18 folded horns behind me - what a sound!! The drivers were roasted.

Only the section of the club where we were still stood; fifteen feet away was rubble- you could see the sky. I repaired the PA board, which amazingly still worked, with plastic knobs fused to the front - in fact it was in a Yamaha newsletter. We spent many hours scraping burnt tolex off cabinets and refitting them with hardware, replacement speakers, new tolex, etc. The New Years Eve gig three months later was another "worst gig" story that was just icing on the cake. Sometimes it really sucks!

 

Bob, this is a sad, sad, sad ....sad story.

Well, my "worst gig" story will look totally stupid after that but here it is :
I was in a metal band that was beginning to have "a name" in my town.
With another local band, we had a gig to another town, in a night-club which was progamming "theme nights" (reggae, pop, folk, metal ...).
So, for the metal night, they booked us but the guy in charge of the posters and flyers fumbles and we were booked on what people think the "folk night" (or pop or reggae, I can't remember).
Since, they realized the mistake when we arrived there but it was too late.
So, the club was packed (mmh, at the beginning) and we played in front of total zombies. Everybody seemed to wait for a folk band following us but it never came (we played first, and our friends after).
It was really a sad gig

 

<rant on>

Some guy made me mad, right before we had to play. It took me four songs go get my groove back. I mean, I couldn't remember the SONGS !!! The percussionist kept looking at me funny, and it was all I could do to keep from walking off the stage.

Oh well, you have to learn to put those things out of your mind and get on with business ... but I was PIIISSSSSEEEEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD !!!

<rant off>

Later.

 

This would be mine:


http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13498


FF

 

Last night. And one of the first times I've ever played in front of people. Open Jam night, so of course I didn't know anything the guitarist and keyboardist knew, but even though neither of THEM knew anything that I knew, guess I was the "idiot", since I was a newcomer to this particular jam night. After bumbling through 3 blues / swing tunes that I barely could figure the bass lines too, the @#$%! keyboardist pulls the "hey, can I play your bass?" bull****. God how I hate that. Of course this is done in front of the audience and other musicians, so I'm on the spot, so what can I do? I play the sport and hand him my bass. At which point he decides to play lead "guitarist" for two tunes. I have to sit there and watch this A**H*** butcher bass lines with MY bass. At the end of the second tune, I go up to the stage, grab my bass, throw it in my gig bag. Barely had time to zip up the bag I was so incredibly pissed off. This keyboardist was rumored to be in a band that I would play bass in. Needless to say I won't be in this band, that's for sure. I'm wondering, any of you have a similar exp. and how did you deal with it? I'm kind of a newbie, only been playing a year, but dammit I know a number of basslines and don't think I deserved that.....

 

it's even worse when they use a pick, man ...
or, as soon as they get your bass in hand, attempt to slap away wildly as if they're impressing everyone with their pathetic floundering attempts at impersonating me. i mean Flea.