• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

What Was Your Worst Gig Room

#43
Underground garage that normally held golf carts. Simply a concrete bunker with a driveway going down into it. The club had turned into an Oktoberfest Beer Hall, but it was still a concrete box.
We took one look and knew it would suck, it did. Best thing we did was keep the volume down. Being 2nd of 3 bands, at least we got to hang and party after our set.
 
#45
Good old Esso.... the bar away from the rest of the bars. (graduated from Clemson)

Worst for me would be a house party we played when we were first starting out. We set up in the basement that was VERY crowded with cinder block walls and a low ceiling. Combine that with full PA system and industrial / electronic music and well ears were bleeding. The sounds just kept bouncing throughout the small space until people had to step outside where it sounded better.

So it goes.

Another bad one!

Played a gig in Greenville SC where the monitors completely shorted out after the first song. All I could hear was the drums. No synth, no keyboards, no vocals, no guitar just drums and bass. Wow, talk about playing by memory. Apparently we still sounded good (we've been playing the same songs for some time now), but damn that was not fun. Of course the monitors kicked in again in our next to last song.
 
#46
1) New Year's Eve gig in a freshly-completed, non-heated airplane hanger with the outside temp just above freezing. We played wearing parkas. Concrete floor and sheetmetal sides, so you can imagine the sound. The low cloud of concrete dust stirred up by the 75 or so people there got into all our gear - we carried the dust around for months afterward.

2) Hard Rock Cafe, Dallas, TX - high ceilings, glass and a hardwood wall/staircase about 30 feet in front of the stage. One of the guys in the band used to say, "You can hear everything and nothing simultaneously."

3) Remember roller rinks? I played one in the early '70s. It had an actual stage that was insulated to point you couldn't hear your amp standing three feet in front of it - and these were the days before monitors. We kept turning everything up so we could hear on stage - not realizing that we were blowing everyone out of the back of the room. Good times.

-- Dan --
 
#47
Define "worst":

Sound - Hard Rock Live, Orlando. Large stage facing a wood-floored dance area, balconies above, all hard surfaces. Multi-million dollar PA run by dunces that think getting a "degree" from Full Sail makes them geniuses at live sound. :rollno:

Had such a bad experience with the monitor mixer in that place once that I almost hit him. I thenceforth would tell him whenever we played there I did NOT want his monitor at all as it would just make my job more difficult. Seriously. :scowl:

Comfort - NYE 2000-2001, EPCOT Center, Orlando. Main stage (if you've been there, the one past the "big ball" where the two main sidewalks rejoin on the way to the World Lagoon). It was 28F outside. There was a steady 20 mph breeze blowing from behind the stage (there is a HUGE fountain behind the stage...).

Yeah, that was unpleasant, but it was fun to play to ~100K people...
 
#48
The gig was a Rotary Club pig-pickin.' The room was a large rec center with a tile floor and painted cinder-block walls. We kicked off comically quiet, about half as loud as the quietest we've ever played, and the event director immediately ran over, telling us to turn down. Apparently the rotarians wanted musak, and soft musak at that.

Later my guitarist said, "In 35 years of performing onstage I've never had the amp so quiet that I heard my pick against the strings of my Strat!"
 
#49
No question: Barfly, Glasgow.

Bear in mind that this place prides itself as a gig venue - we've played there 3 times over the years and most of the staff are unapproachable, unfriendly, unhelpful and unmotivated. The general attitude seems to be that you're an inconvenience (even if they're hosting the gig and they invited you to come and play at it!).

The last time we played there we set up our kit ... then our drummer taught the pa guy how to set up his kit (because he couldn't figure out how to get it to work)! Then on to a soundcheck over the top of the cd music that was being played (which no-one seemed inclined to turn off, despite requests and the fact that the venue doors were still closed). The staff then put a foosball table in front of the stage with a spotlight on it (at 50p a go, presumably so they could make maybe an extra £2-£3 that night!)!!

I've played venues which were technically far worse, but still enjoyed the gig a lot more because the staff didn't have such a crappy attitude!
 
#50
I played a show at Mr. Smalls Theatre in some podunk little suberb in Pittsburgh. The place was actually an old church on some dead end street. I was incredibly disappointed because they crack it up to be like the Hollywood Bowl. Being it was a church, the sound was terrible-echoed off the walls. The sound crew didnt know their @$$ from a hole in the ground! They said we didnt have to worry about anything, they had it taken care of. Sure. Our rythym guitar player alternated between an electric and acoustic. Well third song he picks up the acoustic, starts strumming and...NO SOUND! We both looked horrified, wondering what was going on. I yelled to a guy on the side of the stage that he wasnt hooked up as he scrambled to fix it. Then when they did plug his guitar in it sounded like an explosion. Everyone in the place, including us started looking up expecting the ceiling to cave in on us. The CD of the show was mixed terribly! All you can hear is me and the singer for the first 2 songs, then after that they buried the bass and rythym guitar so all you can hear is the lead guitarist and vocs. We looked like jack@$$es! Plus we had to get our hands stamped to get in the backstage area, and when I walked up to the guy and he just looked at me. I said I needed my hand stamped, and I assume only because I dont have a c@%$ he said: "oh but you're not in the band are you?" I say proudly "Ah, yeah I AM in the band!" Then later that night him and another crew guy were sitting at the side of the stage and when I showed him my hand and walked by, he leans in to the other guy, winks, pointing his thumb at me and wispers: "She's in the band."

Needless to say, Im not eager to play there anytime soon!
 
#51
LilMissStrange said:
I played a show at Mr. Smalls Theatre in some podunk little suberb in Pittsburgh. The place was actually an old church on some dead end street. I was incredibly disappointed because they crack it up to be like the Hollywood Bowl. Being it was a church, the sound was terrible-echoed off the walls. The sound crew didnt know their @$$ from a hole in the ground! They said we didnt have to worry about anything, they had it taken care of. Sure. Our rythym guitar player alternated between an electric and acoustic. Well third song he picks up the acoustic, starts strumming and...NO SOUND! We both looked horrified, wondering what was going on. I yelled to a guy on the side of the stage that he wasnt hooked up as he scrambled to fix it. Then when they did plug his guitar in it sounded like an explosion. Everyone in the place, including us started looking up expecting the ceiling to cave in on us. The CD of the show was mixed terribly! All you can hear is me and the singer for the first 2 songs, then after that they buried the bass and rythym guitar so all you can hear is the lead guitarist and vocs. We looked like jack@$$es! Plus we had to get our hands stamped to get in the backstage area, and when I walked up to the guy and he just looked at me. I said I needed my hand stamped, and I assume only because I dont have a c@%$ he said: "oh but you're not in the band are you?" I say proudly "Ah, yeah I AM in the band!" Then later that night him and another crew guy were sitting at the side of the stage and when I showed him my hand and walked by, he leans in to the other guy, winks, pointing his thumb at me and wispers: "She's in the band."

Needless to say, Im not eager to play there anytime soon!
Click to expand...

My brother loves that venue... never been myself though. When did you guys play there?
 
#52
Played in an old municipal swimming pool building that had the water drained and was boarded over with plywood each winter...the walls were covered floor to ceiling with white ceramic tiles and the multiple echo from this was absolutely atrocious. It was a loooong night

Never again
 
#54
Gard said:
Define "worst":

Sound - Hard Rock Live, Orlando. Large stage facing a wood-floored dance area, balconies above, all hard surfaces. Multi-million dollar PA run by dunces that think getting a "degree" from Full Sail makes them geniuses at live sound. :rollno:

Had such a bad experience with the monitor mixer in that place once that I almost hit him. I thenceforth would tell him whenever we played there I did NOT want his monitor at all as it would just make my job more difficult. Seriously. :scowl:

Comfort - NYE 2000-2001, EPCOT Center, Orlando. Main stage (if you've been there, the one past the "big ball" where the two main sidewalks rejoin on the way to the World Lagoon). It was 28F outside. There was a steady 20 mph breeze blowing from behind the stage (there is a HUGE fountain behind the stage...).

Yeah, that was unpleasant, but it was fun to play to ~100K people...
Click to expand...

ive just moved back to ohio from orlando.

actually graduated from full sail as well. recording arts. dont let one bad engineer ruin the schools reputation. a lot of people manage to make it through who really shouldnt. a lot of them with really bad attitudes. but what we go through there is very difficult, and the degree is legit.

i found the hard rock live to be an alright place to see a show. the house of blues worshipped me for all the money i spent there. the social was literally a hole in the wall. my favorite had to be the backbooth.
 
#55
Windows Of The World atop the now gone World Trade Center. I had such a bad stage hum (horrible stage) that I literally had to turn my amp off. I could not hear myself and was pretty grumpy the entire gig! FOH could not dial it out. This was before I knew about the raising the cab off the floor (decoupling) thing. Couldn't wait to get the hell outta there!
 
#56
About 10 years ago I was filling in for another bass player in a band. It was a half-assed blues band. So they booked this gig at a dive bar in Michigan (it was one of those places that never cleaned the bathroom). The bar got a new manager who fired most of the staff and pissed off most of the customers. So we show up for the gig and the manager was staffing the bar by herself. The manager was surpised to see us and said they had no live music scheduled. So the guitar player pointed to the flyer for the band playing that very night. So the bar manager let us set up and play. So during the first set there is one person at the bar and one person behind the bar and 3 people on stage. The one and only customer wanted to hear the juke box instead of the band. The drummer and I told the guitar player that we were leaving. The guitard wanted to stay!?

Anyway that is worst gig I ever played.
 
#57
In 1983, my band opened for Huey Lewis & the News on their "Workin' for a Living" tour. We played in a gigantic fieldhouse (all metal) on the campus of an upstate New York university. The News started their soundcheck in typical fashion, with the drummer playing quarter notes on his kick drum. Each note lasted for -- I'm not exaggerating -- about 5 seconds. I was standing out on the floor with Huey and a few other people, and he said, to no one in particular, "We're all in BIG trouble..."
During our set, it sounded like the guitarist and I were playing in different keys. During the first song, we were yelling at each other: "It's in A!!" "I AM in A!!!" "What?" "I AM IN A!" "Oh..."
A total nightmare.
 
#58
for me it was a small cafe up-state ny. it was like 100 degrees out we were just inside the door. literally. so when the waitresses would go back and forth to the outside tables they would bang into my stand, knocking it over and wafting HOT air up in my face. we had such a small area that I had to keep the headstock of my bass under a cabinet which meant I had to put my weight on one foot all night (3 sets) which is very hard for me - i'm a waddler :eyebrow: just unpleasant.

as for bad sound - that wold be about 90% of the places I've played. with exception to out door shows. i've only done 2, but they were so much better sound-wise. . .
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back