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Worst gig you ever had.

#183
Last night and Friday. We did a last minute Christmas thing at my church. We were not supposed to play at all but at the last minute ... It's Christmas songs right..? How bad can it be. I have never been so... off. Both nights. My ear was off.. it seemed like I couldn't keep my bass in tune.. I couldn't remember the changes to the songs.. my fingers were like wood.. I couldn't focus. I never should have accepted to do it at the last minute... Maybe it is because I have a lot going on in my personal life and I just don't realize how much it is effecting me... I am not a "great" bass player to begin with but I am competent... This weekend I felt like a beginner. I have never embarrassed myself to this degree... I just wanted to dissappear.

My wife used to be our singer and we are recently separated.... I am sure that has something to do with it but I thought I could hold it together.... but last night I was not there at all just my body was.
 
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#184
Sav'nBass said:
Last night and Friday. We did a last minute Christmas thing at my church. We were not supposed to play at all but at the last minute ... It's Christmas songs right..? How bad can it be. I have never been so... off. Both nights. My ear was off.. it seemed like I couldn't keep my bass in tune.. I couldn't remember the changes to the songs.. my fingers were like wood.. I couldn't focus. I never should have accepted to do it at the last minute... Maybe it is because I have a lot going on in my personal life and I just don't realize how much it is effecting me... I am not a "great" bass player to begin with but I am competent... This weekend I felt like a beginner. I have never embarrassed myself to this degree... I just wanted to dissappear.

My wife used to be our singer and we are recently separated.... I am sure that has something to do with it but I thought I could hold it together.... but last night I was not there at all just my body was.
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Oh, my! Condolences... All around. Talk about a string of bad luck. o_O Hope your Holidays will work out for you.
 
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#185
OmNomNom said:
This one was in the spring of 2007.. my friends were in a punk band called Hopeless, and their bassist had broken their hand (or something to that effect). I was never much of a punk guy, but I liked their stuff and agreed to fill in for their final gigs. One was a "festival" on April 20 called "Potfest". Very subtle, I know.

We were built up to believe this was a large festival on farm land in Maryland. The location was right, that was about it.. next to the abandoned chicken house, which had become the makeshift bar, was a series of pallets covered by 2x4s that made up the stage. The attendance was perhaps 40 people. But I must say, they tried, and they fed us beer and we tried to make the best of it.

At one point, the local police department shows up. I assume they caught wind that the event was called "Potfest". They confiscated the keg of Yuengling, the only good beer out of the three. They claimed the keg might be laced with marijuana. Not only did they make this claim, but the owners of said keg allowed them to take it. This is one of the most absurd things I have personally witnessed.. don't even get me started on the chemistry of lacing beer with pot, or the inefficient nature of doing so.

Needless to say, we played our set and got out of there quick.
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Well, I'm in the process of reading this thread backwards, and this story sticks out to me. I think that was less "we think there are drugs in this beer" and more of "you pay us this bribe and we won't start searching people here for drugs."
The cops knew what was going down, the people with the keg knew what was going down, and the promoters knew what was going down. I'd bet money that that keg of beer was mentioned nowhere in any paperwork.
 
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#193
Back in my college days I was still a drummer. I had gotten a call from two guys in a nearby town, they were booked for an annual party but two of their old time jam buddies had moved or whatever so they needed a drummer and lead player for the gig. They gave me the names of the tunes, pretty straight forward 70's CCR type stuff, not hard, paid $50 (this was summer '85 maybe?) so why not.

So we had two practices. They had found a lead player through a friend of a friend or whatever, he was around my age 19-20 so it was all OK. The two "original" members were in their mid 40's at the time and had nad played together as bass / rythym for years so it wasn't too hard.

At the first practice this lead guy had a brand new Gibbie LP guitar. Pretty nice, and he seemed to be good enough to pull it off. At the 2nd practice he had a new amp to go with the Gibby. But in our conversations he didn't seem to have a job of any kind so where did the gear come from? Oh well, that's his issue.

So a week later on a balmy hot Sat afternoon we head to the boondocks to a large farm. Stage was on a big trailer in a very large pole shed. Trucks, cars and lots of motorcycles everywhere. Looks like a tough crowd but everyone was nice enough. So we break into our maiden gig and things are going well. About an hour into the gig two Sheriff's department cars come screaming up the driveway, lights and sirens all around. Our lead player puts the guitar in the stand and starts backing away. Interesting?

Turns out the Sheriff's department had picked that afternoon to bust up a big pot growing/selling operation at what turned out to be the lead player's home. His dad and brother had been arrested and had told the police where to find the missing family member, at our gig. Than it also turned out that the nice new gear was stolen from a store in a town some distance away. They found the wayward guitarist in his truck, which wouldn't start and arrested him on the spot, and took his gear.

After they checked through the rest of the gear to be sure it was ours, we finished the last 3 hours with no leads and got paid. Only time I'd ever been in a band where a member was lost to law enforcement during the gig.

Buzz ahead to about 10 years ago, we were asked to fill in last minute for a wedding reception since their band had cancelled. We didn't know the people, they'd heard of us through a friend etc. We set up on the stage and got started with no issues and without meeting anyone. About 10 songs in they asked for a slow one for a "special" dance. Seeing this couple coming to the dance floor for the song I said into the mic....."now we have a special dance for the bride and her father."

Um, that's the groom. My band friends still laugh about it to this day but it became a very awkward gig at that point. :smug:
 
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#194
Probably an inner city festival in Newcastle in May. Booked to play a decent late afternoon, early evening slot, included it as part of our tour and were looking forward to it because it seemed well promoted and well organised. Weather on the day was sunny and about 25 degrees, so at that time of day people are taking advantage of the last of the sun and drinking outside.

Band on before us overran which is unacceptable on a crowded festival bill, so our first song was the soundcheck. Monitor mix was non-existent and our drummer said his IEM mix with the click and backing was terrible. Can't have been more than 10/15 people in the venue and by the time we were finishing we were playing to the sound engineer and the band who were due to go on after us. Halfway through the second to last song, our drummer and I were discussing whether it would be McDonald's on the drive back to Manchester.

Shame because the venue was quite good. By all accounts most of the other venues were nowhere near as busy as expected and only filled up for headliners at night.

FYI, we got McDonald's on the way home.
 
#195
mellowinman said:
I had a good four-piece band. I liked how it sounded. My guitar player, Arthur, wanted to add his friend, Jim, and make it a five piece, with two guitars. It was difficult to bring in another guitar player, as the sound was just about right. We also had drummer issues, and drummer #3, Ace, had just bailed on us, to go work for the Disney Channel. (or so he CLAIMED) We were using drummer #4, Tim, who hadn't had much time to rehearse with us.

I had just had a spinal fusion, and could not lug gear, or bend at the waist. It was hot. Jim had booked us to play a rock and roll festival in Ohio. I was interviewed by a local station. I thought we were going to an actual festival.

After a four hour drive, I arrived at a shoddy looking camp ground, and heard a band playing through a crappy PA, with the trebles too high, and I could tell they were damaging the hearing of the campers and their children, who foolishly paid ten dollar a head for a case of tinnitus that would plague them for the rest of their lives. My wife, who runs our sound, and usually brings her own monitor system, would soon be arriving, and the thought of her hearing this PA was making me edgy. I wanted to simply get in my car and drive home, but I didn't have money for the required gas.

So I asked Jim who was doing sound, and he told me, "I EQ'd that. Before I did, it sounded like mud." He informed me they had no effects, and our vocals would be dry, unless there were onboard effects, as no one had brought an effect unit.

The sun got hotter; the sound got more grating, and I had earplugs in. Finally, it was time to set up, and Jim and Arthur both argued with me about where to set up the keyboard two of us would share, and the guy who was responsible for the stage told me he didn't know what he was doing, and didn't want to be there. His breath reeked of whiskey, and he was stoned. He started telling me a story, and I tried to explain that I had stuff to do. I was mostly wondering if I'd have a microphone, since I was singing lead on most of the material we would be doing. I had to run to the car and get some xlr cables, because they didn't have enough. It was a good thing I brought some.

I got hotter, and my back hurt more and more, and my wife was over at the sound board, trying to get them to use the one board effect they had, and deciding if we would have reverb or delay, but not BOTH, because as I said, they had no effect unit. Jim's wife told me I was anal for wanting to tune my instruments (12 string and bass) with a digital tuner, and that I should play with more heart because, "if you don't have heart, you don't have nothing."

Everyone was starting to really irritate me. I had made ten or more trips to my car for this or that little thing that someone had forgotten to bring, and it was obvious the crew was completely overwhelmed at putting a four piece band on, even though they had just done so three or four times already, and the crowd was getting restless, and starting to demand we start playing.

We tried to sound check, and we had shared monitors. My wife said she couldn't hear herself at all through the monitor, and that I was ripping her head off. For no reason I could think of, both guitars were blasting through our vocal monitors. The sound guy decided to "ring out" the monitors, and the wail of feedback made my ears start ringing.

I informed the crew that if anyone else "rang out" monitors INTO OUR EARS we were going to "ring out" our fists into their faces. THIS, looking back, was the moment when things turned really ugly.

During one of the first songs, I made a motion with my hand to the drummer to pick up the tempo, as he had started way to slow, and I am one of those odd performers who would rather the audience perceive us speed up than spend six minutes playing a song at a dragging tempo. The drummer shook his head "no." I made the motion again, only more dramatically. Again, he shook his head "no." In the middle of the line, I screamed "C'MON!!!" into the mic, and then my wife, who was playing the bass, went ahead and picked up her tempo, and since he had a crush on her, he obliged.

On the third song, my mic went dead. I pointed at it to the sound crew, and they said, in a loud, aggravated voice, "what do you want NOW," and I screamed, probably louder than their entire PA "HOW ABOUT A F----ING MIC!!!!!?????"

Later, that drummer told me the entire sound crew had discussed kicking my ass, which would have been rather unpleasant, since I had just had stitches removed from a nine inch scar in my back, and, as I mentioned, was unable to bend at the waist. I'm not sure if they really discussed that or not, because drummer #4 had a tendency to tell tall tales, and these guys were really stoned, plus, they were all musicians, and KNEW that they had screwed us bad.

We played the show, and the crowd loved us. I don't know HOW they could've loved us, as the sound was crap, and on the songs my wife sang, you could barely hear her vocal at all, but they were head banging, and fist pumping, and I would've pitied the sound guy who started a fight with us, as that crowd were an unsavory lot, and they were definitely on our side.

During the entire show, our extra guitar player stepped on vocals, the first guitar, and generally played the show as if he were a solo artist.

We were paid, and allowed to leave with our lives, which was a miracle, and I somehow managed the drive home.

We are now a four piece again, with drummer #5, who is a gift from God. We never discuss tempo, and as far as I know, he doesn't have a crush on my wife.

And the entire band knows that if anyone books a gig four hours away, for $300.00, to be split, we are just going to kill them.
Click to expand...

Wow.

Memories!
 
#196
hooked up with a soul/R&B cover band playing trumpet/flugel when I first moved to Seattle. Two man horn section; me and a tenor sax guy who picked up the gig a month or so before me. The band played a couple gigs pretty quickly after I was in, Think we had 3-4 practices before we played the first with the second a week later. A little rough, but I chalked it up to 3-4 rehearsals and crap monitors. Next gig was a month off so practices were iffy. Iffy as in the sax guy and I would be waiting outside the practice location for an hour or so after the scheduled downbeat for someone else in the band with a key to open up. Surprisingly, no one was high or drunk at rehearsals (especially with how this story is going to end....) but being that late consistantly and the drummer and chick singer actually no-showing one practice each without calling anyone should have been a red flag. As was when we decided to reposition the layout of the rehearsal room so that everyone could see better and the chick singer refused to help because, and I quote, "I'm a diva". The sax guy just looked at me like someone had just hit him in the face with a fish. I almost said out loud "bless your heart, divas don't sing flatter'n roadkill". Anyways in a couple of weeks we played Chop Suey over on Capitol Hill. But somehow the rest of the band got there an hour EARLY... and then sat in the greenroom and smoked weed until they were higher than George Clinton. Trouble was, they couldn't play like GC dead sober. So the first two tunes were rough. Rough as a chapped ass rough. Third tune was worse. They actually had to start it twice. At which point the mild mannered Japanese sax cat looked at me and said "I'm getting nervous about this gig". After getting through 'Valerie' (Amy Winehouse version) without completly trainwrecking a second time, they crashed and burned on the intro to 'Tell Mamma". Had to start that one twice as well. Then the chick singer missed her entry and the band fell out AGAIN. At which point the sax player made like a tree and leaved; exit, stage left. I saw him grab his case and keep walking out the door onto the street. I hot-footed it off stage, grabbed my gig bag and chased after him down Pike street stuffing my old Schilke in the bag as I went. I caught up to him in a couple blocks (dude was on a MISSION) and he said "don't say anything. First round's on me" and we made a beeline for the Comet. A pretty good funk groove was rolling out the door as we went in. We sat at the end of the bar and Iko ordered two scotches. We drank the drinks. I held up two fingers. Two more drinks appeared. We drank the drinks. Iko asked for two beers. Two beers arrived in front of us. We drank the beer. Without looking in my direction, Iko said "I think I quit the band". you and me both, brother. At which point the keyboard player of the band at the Comet came over and said "hey Ike!!! what are you doing here? thought you had a gig tonight". Iko said "I quit. need a horn section?" The keyboard dude said "sure, come on up next set!" Played with those cats for two years.
 
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#199
I played with a girl singer who played acoustic guitar with backing tracks. I was playing electric guitar and sang vocal harmonies. We got booked into a dive bar called "Widow McCoy's" where the jukebox was louder then we were. The music we played was kind of pop variety thing. It was the most mismatched band/venue I've ever experienced. After about a set and a half we were asked to pack it in. I was glad to leave.

We also got hired to play a nice restaurant in Estes Park, CO, for "New Years in New Orleans." their themed celebration. We were hired as a Dixieland Jazz band. We explained to the owner that we were nothing like that. He had us play anyway, and paid us, but I'd have hated to be the agent that booked us when he called her the next business day.
 
#200
This goes back a few years ... it went on every weekend for a whole Summer, drummer buddy and I got roped into being the rhythm section for a rock style band that were sailors at the local navel facility, we never practiced it was just set up and play. Always the same venue a dive called Morries just north of Memphis, if you saw the movie "Black Snake Moan" it's the bar Justin Timberlake goes into when he gets off the bus after leaving the military. Anyway the singer had an obsession with the 1983 movie "Eddie and the Cruisers" during the course of the night he morphed into Eddie really strange. As that Summer ended so did the association never heard from him again.
 

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