Worst gig you ever had.

[Bassdirty]

Hmm, I don't know if this would be a worst gig, but interesting...

A few years back,My old band played on New years eve in a bar (cant recall name right now) in Rhode Island. I think 2005 into 2006.

Anyhoo, we played pretty well, had a countdown at midnite, champagne and the rest..
after the new year rang in, went on for our last set, people really gettin into it..rockin to the classiscs...smoke/fog machine goin full tilt..

Now, I'm sure everyones familiar with the Great White tragedy at "the Station" in Rhode island in 2003. Well, since then, I guess some/all bars/clubs really upped their fire detection capabilities. So, the bar we're playing in has some type of sensors that "visually" detect smoke ( in addition to standard smoke detectors). These "Visual Type" of detectors (as it turns out) WILL pickup "Fog machine smoke" and set off the fire alarm.

Needless to say, in come the fire trucks/police/rescue..you name it, they all showed up, (even thought the bar explained that there was no fire) everyone had to evacuate just so they could be sure it was safe.

After all that, we went back in (yes even several patrons), played maybe 3 more songs [without smoke] then we ate from the breakfast buffet that they had made..I think the buffet was part of the New years celebration..to get people to eat after they were done drinkin and they dint drive drunk..


So,.. I guess it wasnt that bad a gig..but interesting indeed.. I do have some photos of us standing in front of a firetruck..where did I put those?..


.

 

[DaveDeVille]

WE DEMAND MOAR!

ok ,
... really kind of a post- gig / bad bandmate story ...

there was a time , i was young and dumb , i drank so much that i woke up in a strange bed ,
with two strange women .
not so bad right ? wrong .

they were at least twice my age , ugly , and smelled like an ashtray .
i woke up buck naked , not knowing where i was or where my gear was . damn .
climbed out of bed , grabbed my clothes , scrambled downstairs and out the door .

guitar player later said he thought it would be funny to just let me suffer the consequences ,
and let me roll out with these two hags .

... MOAR ??

 

[nojj]

Yes please

 

[NailDriver]

Played a place in the middle of nowhere. (Colfax, WI). The band is in the back corner, so we can't see the other end of the bar. The place is packed. Some hotties dancing, a good night. We are on a break, and someone comes in yelling about a fight in the parking lot. Not a big deal, but a few minutes later someone else yells "the cops are coming!".

The whole place emptied. Turns out the entire crowd was underage. It was probably 11:30. The rest of the night we played to 5 or 6 people.

I didn't know it then, but the bar catered to the underage crowd.

 

[two fingers]

I love it when an old thread gets a new life.

Here goes. I think this is my worst, but I might think of another later.

One of my best friends has a habit of booking terrible gigs. But I love him like a cousin so after a couple of years I forget about the last terrible gig and answer the phone when he calls. This was no exception.

The "gig" was playing in between wrestling matches at a local dive bar. Yes, wrestling matches. Imagine WWF, only local and even more redneck than the big time version. It was awful. Most of the wrestlers were local guys who had hooked up with some "agent" who swore he could get them to the big show if they put on a good show at the dive bar. There were literally 11 "fans" of wrestling in the bar. The wrestling ring was at the back of the dance floor about 30 yards from the stage. They would wrestle. We would play a few songs. They would wrestled again. Nobody was anywhere near the stage. Everyone..... the band, the wrestlers, the "fans", the bar staff, and most of all the bass player (that'd be me)...... was miserable. They tried to pull off a good "show" with the whole "good guy bad guy" arguing and stuff. And the crowd actually threw trash at them. And there we were. On stage waiting...... and watching..... wrestling. It was the longest three hours of my entire life. All I kept thinking was "What kind of twisty turning path did I take to get to THIS point in my life?" I wish I could put a better visual of what I saw in your heads. You would feel even more sorry for me than you already do. By the way, OF COURSE, the manager tried to short us because turnout was so bad (which he had the nerve to blame on US). And, of course, I had to threaten to beat him within an inch of his life to get our money. (I was a young hot head back then.) I later heard than none of the wrestlers got paid a dime. What a sad night that was all around.

Now, every time my buddy calls me to play a gig, I say "This ain't no RASSLIN match is it?" And I still end up doing a gig with him every six months or so. I kinda feel sorry for the guy.

 

[two fingers]

Ooooh! I almost forgot my FIRST "pro" gig! I was a teenager and the rest of the band members were in their 30s (long story). We played a place called The Factory in Henderson NC (the armpit of central NC). It was actually an old abandoned factory. The Factory had two rooms - country and rock. Anyhooooo. Our band was called "Borderline" because we all lived near the NC/VA border. Well, turns out there was ANOTHER band named Borderline near the NC/TN border. We played classic rock. They played country. And we got booked in (you guessed it) the country room cuz they thawt we wuz them n them wuz us. It did not go well. Imagine a room full of gymongous cowboys, all decked out in their best Garth Brooks/Dolly Parton outfits, waiting to hear Achy Breaky Heart and The Watermelon Crawl. And all they got was Good Lovin Gone Bad and Jailbreak. Them cowboys waz PISSED! I thought there was gonna be a hangin! Fast forward to the last song. The bouncer of this fine establishment literally walked up to the stage and placed a revolver on it. He said "You boys er cutn it off raht now." Now, my teenage 150lb butt was packing up before he even finished his sentence. However, our singer, a cornbread raised redneck himself weighing in at just under 300lbs and about 6'7" decided to ARGUE with the man. Needless to say I have no idea how the argument finished because I had skint out the back.

 

[Dazonbass]

two fingers, the two stories just made me laugh. Thanks for sharing.

 

[bassfiddlesteve]

Most everyone has rock band/electric bass stories so here's a few from the world of upright bass and musical theater:

I was hired to play "Sound Of Music" as a ringer at a Christian college. I arrive for the dress rehearsal and the room leading to the theater is filed with images of Jesus on the cross. Being a Jewish guy, I hurry out of that room into the theater where I am greeted by a giant swastika! What the...oh yeah, it's "Sound Of Music" and there are Nazi's. Anyway, the dress rehearsal turns out to be a performance for friends and faculty and the entire orchestra, who are all fifteen years younger than me, are dressed in black which I am not. "Say, who's that old guy in the yellow shirt playing the bass fiddle?"

Another show was "Red Hot & Cole", depicting the life of Cole Porter and featuring lots of his music. Should be good stuff, but the musical director tells me there is no bass part, so I have to cobble together a part from the piano score. I later learn there is a bass part, they just didn't bother to order it. As it turns out, the band is on stage for the whole show which takes place in Cole Porter's apartment over the span of fifty years (and it sure felt like it). The pianist couldn't swing from a rope, many of the singers were weak and the band couldn't relax in between numbers because we were on stage like props. The last week of the show I got the flu and couldn't find a sub, so I went ahead played even though I had a fever. Between the stage lighting and my tux I just about passed out. I used to like Cole Porter tunes until that show.

- Steve

 

[Spectrum]

What the...oh yeah, it's "Sound Of Music" and there are Nazi's.

Sigworthy! Actually, it sounds like the plot of a Tarantino movie...

I do recall playing a party when I was in high school in the 80s. Back then when parents were away teenagers had parties with lots of alcohol, somebody always got a keg, and nobody made a big deal about underage drinking (the party in Wierd Science is a good example).

Well, this was some guy's birthday party or something, and the guitarist and drummer were friends and that's how we got these gigs. Of course, enough teenagers drinking long enough with a loud-as-balls rock band playing, and the cops show up.

The cops didn't arrest anybody, they made the kids pour out whatever they had in their hands and confiscated the rest. We were forced to shut down and pack up our gear, which really sucked as we were playing a good set and everyone was having a great time.

Not really a "worst gig" story, but it was the first time we got the cops called on us. I was kind of proud of that.

 

[LPswim2009]

Worst gig to date was this past July, one of the bands I play in is a Beatles Tribute Band and we played a good size bar. The place was hopping and it was packed now here's the kicker... The air conditioning unit was broken. 100 degrees with 95% humidity inside and 93 degrees outside! We were sweating bullets while we played, to the point where I started getting heat flashes during Helter Skelter near the end of the show, forgetting my places a couple of times

 

[troy mcclure]

I told this story in a similar thread in Humor but here goes:
I was 17 or 18 and taking lessons from a NYC session guy in Jersey. He gets a call for a gig that is below his pay and asks if I want it. It happens to be a Yugoslavian festival. So I go to rehearsal on for a gig on Saturday. I show up and the band is a Mom singer, a daughter on keys and vocals and a son on guitar and vocals. The drummer is a shy kid who is just learning to play so he uses brushes so no one can hear him. I ask for chord charts to the songs as I wouldn't know any of the tunes. They said I could look over at the guitar players music stand. At the end of rehearsal, I ask can I take the charts home to practice, the mother says "No, these took use a longtime to write out and we wouldn't you to give them to another competing band" I say Ok, she pays me for rehearsal, I show up to the gig at this big ornate church and we are playing on an outside stage and I set up, they are all in costumes. Their are maybe 300 people there. We go to start the first song, I walk over and the guitarist doesn't have charts, he has memorized the tunes and I have no idea what to play. I make my bass as muddy as possible and try and catch his hand positions and play root/5ths for 2 or 3 sets dragging the drummer along. I got paid $40 and all the perogies I could eat. The next year they called me back and i gave the gig to my buddy who start playing bass 3 months earlier and he told me the drummer was still using brushes.

 

[TheOxRocks]

I was playing in a cover band in the early 80's with my then-girlfriend (lead guitar), future girlfriend (keyboards) and two friends who were brothers (rhythm guitar, drums). We had been hired to play at a local high school, and had a specific rider in our contract calling for security at school gigs.

We should've stopped setting up when we saw nary a security man in sight. About three songs into our first set, some local toughs entered the gym, raising all kinds of hell, dumping booze into the punch, that sort of stuff. A fight broke out in the audience, and a bottle came flying out of the melee which bounced off the keyboard and knocked our keyboard player out cold (also opened up her head for 10 stitches - the scar is still visible today).

We said "Okay, fine. Gig's over" and told our crew to start breaking down. The promoter flipped out, telling us he would sue us for breach of contract. Our manager told him he was in violation as well, since there was no security. It took us five years to sort out this mess, ultimately settling. We never played there again.

 

[OmNomNom]

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.

 

[thedudebrah]

Twofingers: in regards to your wrestling story, there's a kid that runs a record company in Jersey that books wrestling matches with punk and hardcore bands. Apparently it's a hit and he is already gearing up for the next one.

One of my worst gigs ever was last week. Headed up to NYC to play what we found out was a dive bar basement. Stage was garbage, but we can deal with that. I was told to not bring a bass rig as they had a backline. No problem, I'll leave my cab home and bring my PF500 and all my own cables. Show up and the cab was trashed. No tolex, split wood, smashed grille. All the speaker inputs on the back were missing except one 1/4" jack in an odd spot. Sound checked fine surprisingly. Started playing and the bass was cutting out. Sound guy rushed up and bypassed my tuner right into the head. Still cutting out. I told him it was the cab, run me direct from my line out and he had no idea what I was talking about. All of this was taking place while the rest of the band was still playing. We made it 4 songs with barely any bass and a clueless sound guy, and our singer breaks a string. Instead of getting his backup, we just packed everything up and got some pizza. We got paid 10 bucks, sold zero merch and played to like 5 people. Oh well, there will be better ones.

 

[karl_em_all]

My band played a benefit gig for what we thought was an orphanage in an abandoned copper mine in Wales. It turned out that the orphanage was actually a kind of open prison for wayward 18 year old girls. So we're reaching the culmination of our set and a huge open B from me causes a rockfall across the entrance and we're trapped for 2 days in this tunnel with a hundred crazy chicks and a colossal buffet dinner and tons of booze. Plus I broke a string.

Why can't I get gigs like this one?

 

[MatticusMania]

I got paid $40 and all the perogies I could eat.

Perogies are pretty awesome.

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.

Ha! There are a few beers these days that are brewed with marijuana, but yeah Ive never heard of anyone lacing beer with pot, let alone a keg.

 

[Joe Louvar]

I think my worse gig was having to perform sick with a high fever - actually the gig was great, but it just about killed me.

 

[Alex J]

Second gig I ever played, at about 16, was in a pub in Manchester (grim), under a railway line (grimmer), which had no windows at all (grimmer still) and in which the only crowd was the other band (grimmest!). We 'soundchecked' in the tiny toilets, one member per cubicle with the drummer banging on a toilet seat. This probably looked hilarious, not to mention pointless as we weren't plugged in to anything, but we were far too serious at that age to notice! Oh, and the other band played first and left before we started. As did the bar man. Brutal.

Another time, different band, we were booked to play in some underground cavernous place for New Year's Eve. Set up was awful and took ages as the place was so big. We're finally ready just before the clock reaches midnight, and as the drummer counts off the first song, a wall of speakers erupts behind the stage with some seriously loud drum & bass. The DJ had started, and could not be stopped. And that was that.

There was also the time we played in a really quaint little theatre that only held about 80 people. There'd been a play on the night before so the stage was covered in massively oversized cardboard furniture, which did look pretty cool at least. For some reason, half way through our set (which the drummer had mostly played standing up so the girls in the crowd could see him) the drums cut out, and we realised the drummer was breakdancing in the crowd. Not well though. More just writhing about on the floor. This caused the keyboard player to stop playing as well and curl up, hidden, under an enomous cardboard chair. We laboured on for a few minutes before the old man that ran the theatre turned all the power off at the mains as he thought everything was too loud. Everyone went home.

 

[Russell L]

One of the worst, at least. Played on a private island off the coast of SC. Had to load the equipment truck and ourselves onto a WWII beach assault landing craft to get out there across the wide ocean water. Two guys and the chick singer drove the truck down a sandy road toward the venue while three of us, including me, had to ride in the bucket of a backhoe there. Played the gig and had a ship come back to pick us up. When I got my check for $300 I said it was about $200 short. What a long day and night.

Maybe the worst was on another island. Freezing cold with high winds early in the morning. had to unload the truck onto some carts on the dock which got loaded onto a small ship that took us out. Then unloaded the carts onto another truck that took us to the venue. Had to undo all that on the way back after the gig. Worst thing was their truck wouldn't crank after the gig after we had reloaded it. They called in a mechanic that finally got it going after about an extra hour. then reloaded the carts at the other dock, back to the first dock and unloaded the carts into our truck. Even more freezing in the wee hours with the same wind. Got home around daylight. I told the band leader I'd NEVER play that gig again. He agreed we'd never book it again. Another $300, but I wouldn't do it again for $1000. Miserable.

 

[NailDriver]

I have a new one!

New Years eve. Below zero for load in, and the heat was out at the bar. They have a pellet stove that they must use to supplement the bad HVAC system in the building, so that took the edge off and brought it up to a balmy 62 or so.

The bar itself is a dump. Trash on the bare wood floor, the whole place smells like a deep fryer, holes in the stage with carpet hiding them, it was bad.

To add to it, we were playing in the front window. That allowed us to see how well the newly remodeled and reopened bar across the street was doing! They were packed and probably warm.

We maybe had 20 people all night, and they sat at the bar. They didn't venture onto the dance floor at all. We played to an empty room with a bar at the far end. They told us we were great, but it sure is hard to give 110% for nobody. No clapping, nothing.

At the end of the night, the owner was black out drunk, crabby and consoling another drunk who got dumped. We hit up the bartender who basically drained the till to pay us. I checked out the bar across the street before heading home. It looked like a scene from Coyote Ugly. Or Cocktail. Packed.