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Whoops, hot mic....

Recently the guitar player I was working with was telling the patrons about an affliction one of the regulars had. With a sympathetic and concerned tone he said "Unfortunately he's gone blind". Without thinking I said "You know what causes that, don't you?"

I was wise enough to not follow it up with a suggestion that the blind patron should check his palms for hair.
 
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The microphone. It can be your best friend or worst enemy. Considering my vocal range is very limited, the mic tends to be on the enemy side of things. But, that isn't what this thread is about. This is about those times where you wish you had a do-over, a rewind, a "oh I wish I didn't say that" moment. We've all heard the jokes about the singer calling out the wrong city -"Hello Cleveland!", as the fans in Cincinatti shake their heads in dismay. Or worse.....

I'll start this off with a good one. There's a part of town that is always knocked as being a meth hub, some really shady people live there, decent crime rate, etc... just like any other major US city. So one night at a gig in this particular Burg I was introducing a cover tune and said "We're gonna give this one a good 'ol college try, something that doesn't happen often here in _________" :facepalm:

Crickets. Silence. Dirty looks. Golf claps. :help:

Luckily the drummer saw the err in my ways and quickly counted off the next tune. Sure I didn't swear at anyone, or throw a beer bottle for that matter - but it's never a good idea to insult the entire community you are playing for. :thumbsup:

What is your worst hot mic moment?
Could be worse... You could be that news anchor who wore his, still turned on, wireless mic into what turned out to be a long and noisy trip to the little anchorman's room.
 
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Once upon a time while playing Peter Frampton's "Show Me The Way" at a posh wedding with a couple of attractive bridesmaids in attendance, the tune's chorus came out "Oh won't you oo oo, sit on my face?". Hilarity ensued.

A running gag with one old band I played with would have a band member or members yell at another band member who was hittin' on the local talent "Hey (member)! Your wife called. She wants you to bring home some Pampers and Similac."
 
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Long ago, when dinosaurs roamed the prairies and I still had hair, we were doing a show and finished all of our real song list. The audience was still digging us. But we didn't actually have any other songs fully worked up. So we were trying to figure out what we knew well enough to pull off. One of the possibilities was 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. While most of us were huddled in front of the drum kit trying to decide, the drummer decided to add his vote for that song, not realizing that leaned forward like he was, he was facing straight into one of his tom mics and said "I like boys."

The teasing was incredible even weeks later.
 
My high school band director, me, a female singer and a guitar player do this thing every year in our school's library. It's just a little acoustic set for this bunch of old people (snooty, rich, higher-ups) and we usually play about 10 songs for them before their meeting or whatever. Well, my band director was talking to me, not realizing that his mic was the loudest one of the 4 I had set up, and said, "What are they eating? Some kind of rectum rockets?" Dead, pin-drop silence. Followed by hysterical laughter. Thankfully they thought it was just a joke.
 
I Hope the word is the standard "B" word, because "barmaid" doesn't cut it as an embarrassing story. The "B" word can be one syllable or two and a half, it's a fantastic word.

idk why so many people are confused? Picture hooker but much worse.....

I had a friend who was in a band that made "hot mic" jokes a part of their shtick. They would casually say these absurdist things to each other during quiet moments -- between songs, when tuning, etc. -- with the full intention of confusing/amusing the audience. The only did it once or twice per show, and they were pretty good at making it look like it was just functional, intra-band banter, as opposed to staged theatrics.

For example (making this one up myself):

Singer to guitarist (casually, almost off-mic): "Oh hey, did you get that fruitbat returned to the jewelry store?"

Guitarist responding to singer (equally casually): "Yeah, after a new set of spark plugs it tasted great."

My friend swore that these antics made the audience pay more attention to them.

holy $$$$ I'm going to have to steal that idea :thumbsup:;)
 
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There's always the tried-and-tested tape-city-name-to-back-of-bass technique...
 
This was intentional but the beginning of the end for a great but troubled guitarist. We are a band with and old school metal/hard rock vibe with a crowd to match.
Some guy yells out "Skynyrd" and guitaro says "We ain't doin Skynyrd tonight I already f#$%d my sister this morning". We were in Florida where even amongst metal heads Skynyrd is amongst the saints, I was waiting to get murdered.
 
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The microphone. It can be your best friend or worst enemy. Considering my vocal range is very limited, the mic tends to be on the enemy side of things. But, that isn't what this thread is about. This is about those times where you wish you had a do-over, a rewind, a "oh I wish I didn't say that" moment. We've all heard the jokes about the singer calling out the wrong city -"Hello Cleveland!", as the fans in Cincinatti shake their heads in dismay. Or worse.....

I'll start this off with a good one. There's a part of town that is always knocked as being a meth hub, some really shady people live there, decent crime rate, etc... just like any other major US city. So one night at a gig in this particular Burg I was introducing a cover tune and said "We're gonna give this one a good 'ol college try, something that doesn't happen often here in _________" :facepalm:

Crickets. Silence. Dirty looks. Golf claps. :help:

Luckily the drummer saw the err in my ways and quickly counted off the next tune. Sure I didn't swear at anyone, or throw a beer bottle for that matter - but it's never a good idea to insult the entire community you are playing for. :thumbsup:

What is your worst hot mic moment?
We were playing a Relay For Life which is a fundraiser for cancer research where teams walk around a track for 24 hours. we had an hour long slot at around midnight. After the first song, our drummer says " Everybody still alive out there?!?!" An honest mistake.... A good drummer who can play with his foot in his mouth.