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What Was Your Worst Gig Room

B

bassfrenzie

May 26, 2008
237
1
#1
The worst room I ever played in was in a fly-in community in Northern Ontario.

Population:yes.

It was a party. We played in the community centre. The stage was huge and made of plywood, so were the walls and the floor. And the ceiling. The room was HUGE and the resulting acoustics were THE WORST.

It was like playing inside a drum.

Litterally IMPOSSIBLE to dial in anything resembling good sound.

We chalked that up as one of those "paying your dues on the road" gigs.
 
#2
Back in the 80s, we played this one heavy-rock gig in a very long room with a very low ceiling. To make matter worse, at the far end of the room, the ceiling got even lower! I had a wireless, so after our sound guy did his best I walked back to that low section to check things out.... it was the most complete and total MUD I have ever heard. The absolute worst. I was embarrassed for us and the patrons.
 
#3
Gosh - so many!

For cheesiness, was it the gig at the "Suds & Duds" while staff walked thru the stage with dry cleaning, or for low class the dives in Fuquay-Varina, NC, Bennetsville, SC, or Colfax, NC where time seemed to return to the Confederate South, or for feedback hell the coffee house with a vaulted ceiling over a hardwood floor surrounded by glass, or for heat stroke misery the gig in mid-summer over a rock garden with concrete walls behind, all intensifying the heat?

They did all share crappy sound, but for the worst it would have to be the honky tonk with the huge overhead echo chamber over the stage adjoining a low ceiling over the bar and game room. Every time the band hit an A chord, a huge wall of rumbling low-end feedback kept building until the song ended. A sound man with major hearing loss from 20 years of running sound for metal bands didn't help matters.

After 15 years of gigging out a couple hundred times, I've only enjoyed really good room acoustics and/or a good overall mix a few times. Probably the norm for us amateurs and semi-pros, unfortunately!
 
#5
This one Boys and Girls club, the floors were wood and hollow. It was just a huge bass trap and anything I put through it just sounded like mushy garbage. Hell even a Stingray was mushy.

That was the worst.
 
#6
there is a venue here that used to be a strip club. the stage is very high (maybe 4 ft) and juts out in the center. it's not made for bands.... really hard to get gear on stage, narrow stair wells. also has horrible slap back. it's hard to play when you hear what you're playing now AND 5 seconds prior. however, the venue redeemed itself by giving the band a sizable tab!
 
#7
the worst room ive ever played was a battle of the bands in queens. it was in a school gym with a really tall celing. and the worst part was the house PA was put more then half way into the gym. we couldnt hear eachother at all. it was terrible
 
#8
When Praise and Worship players start traveling out of the church it can get "interesting".
Twice a month we go to a nursing home and play in their lunchroom.
Stainless steel and tile everywhere and every other surface is nice hard and shiny to be easily cleanable.
Sounds in this room don't echo....they riccochet! And they comback sharp, hard and tinny. I ended up putting flats on a pbass and dumping the treble just to sound ok.


Matt
 
#11
I guess the one that sucked the worst was a club we used to play years ago that burned down. I think they bought a pole barn kit when they rebuilt it or something. I've played in more than one pole barn to good effect, but this place was acoustically possesed. I don't know if it was the poured floor, or the layout of the place, but it was a very loud, boomy echo chamber that had a very tinny sound to it as well.

Just yuck!
 
#12
Worst ever was an outdoor stage,theater on the Nebraska State Fair grounds. They'd basically created the concrete bowl thing with rows of seats that could be bolted on and it descended towards a wooden stage. The whole affair was covered by a corrugated metal roof that spanned from stage and over all of the seating supported by steel support beam and pole goodness. When the band I was in back in the 80's played this venue, our best sound processing efforts could only produce a somewhat tolerable giant transistor radio sort of mix. Lets just say that the enormous tin roof and the concrete basin came together to form a unique reflective audio death trap unlike any other place I've ever played. Every band that played that day sounded as if their sound techs had indeed found the proverbial ' Suck Control' and applied it with sadistic glee. I still get a shudder and a nervous eye twitch when I think about that place.
 
#13
There's a place here in Brisbane, went by the name of "Napoleons" or similiar. Live room was downstairs, so every surface was concrete. The stage was in one corner, and recessed into the back wall. They eventually hung up a rubberised banner advertising some beverage or other, but before then it was the Hell of Cymbal Wash (tm). We ended up bringing a big tub of industrial ear plugs for the patrons.

Nice drink specials though...

c-
 
#15
About twenty years ago, we played in a club called the Balcony here in MA. We had to play literally on a balcony on the mezzanine of this place. We could only fit the two guitars and bass on the balcony. The drummer had to set up with his seat in the hallway and his drums on the balcony. The balcony had glass walls secured to the railings so all the sound bounced right back in our face. To make matters worse, the dance floor was under and behind the balcony so we were basically playing to no one. I know a gig's a gig, but some just go a little too far over the line.
John
 
#16
Back in the day we sometimes had to play these air domes, inflatable sports halls held up by a big old compressor chugging along outside. They were the worst in every way, and totally unsuited to any kind of music. A hit on the snare would bounce all around the dome like a huge slap echo and come back to haunt you bars later. Thankfully I haven't had to be inside one of those miserable structures in many years.
 

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