Your "oh crap!!" moment...

[logdrum]

Just don't eat spicy food before a gig that is way beyond your gut's ability to process. That can lead to some "Oh ( I got to ) crap" moments

Forgetting a bass and/or amp is something I have done many times even though to this day I can still memorize phone numbers.

 

[Pdaddy1978]

I'm 17, and my garage band has scored a gig at a biker bar called "Angels cloud ".
I'm the only guy in the band with a truck, so of course, I'm hauling almost all our gear.
My amp, the PA, and the drums! Its all stacked like a Jenga game.
I take a corner about 3 blocks from the bar and.....blam!
The head of my Airline( Valco) amp slides off, and in my rear view I watch it bounce about 3 times in the street, dislodged the tubes, which clatter into the gutter.
I turn around, pick up the pieces, and continue to the bar.
We reinstall the tubes, plug it in, fingers crossed, and....voila!
Moral of the story? Those old Valcos were built to MILITARY SPEC!!

 

[JamesGrant]

At a wedding gig, in a break between first and second set I once did a slightly drunken footrace with my drummer at a wedding gig (outdoor, nighttime) ran flat out for a couple of KM, and then felt VERY unwell for the 2nd set, had to sit down throughout the set, thought I was going to puke for most of the time.
I drink less these days.

 

[J Wilson]

Receipts from The Book of What Berklee Never Taught You:

. . . . I played a bar where the owner, upon confronting a patron too big to mess with, would run out the back door and return with his bouncer: A 90 lb. pit bull. NOBODY ever argued with the dog.

. . . . . I had a then new KORG tuner with the IN and OUT jacks which I parked on top of my head: Bass IN, and a short cable from OUT to the amp input. First time I rig this up (I'd already tuned it on a table, then set the tuner up on top of the head), we count off, and . . . . I got NOTHING. I'm boing nuts till the guitar player walked over, reversed the two cables, and I was off to the races.

. . . . . When I was a kid at this, I beat the hell out of my bass . . . . and the strings, which I would break from time to time. Makes a man out of you to finish a gig on only the E, D, and G. Spare strings, whoda thunk it?

. . . . . got a great deal on a used BB5000A2 locally. Took it home, shined it up, re-strung, took it to the gig ('New Bass? NICE . . . . ) until about halfway through the third set when the battery, unlike Buddy Holly, DID fade away. Duh-oh ! Spare battery, whoda thunk it?

. . . . . I was in a blues-ish band with a great slide guitar player, but a little flaky. We got 20 minutes to go when he announces he's NOT playing. WHAT? Turns out he lost his slide somehow, and he only used a 3/8" drive spark plug socket. I just about lose it until I remembered we were literally next door to an AutoZone. So I RUN next door, nab one, run back and hand it to him, and he starts to pipe up ' . . . . . but this isn't a Craftsman socket!' To which I made a quick rude remark about inserting it in a certain part of his anatomy right now if we blow this gig over it. The rest of the night was uneventful.

. . . . . I subbed on a gig in an oilfield, roughneck bar for two weeks from midnight to six in South Louisiana. You went in through a steel fire door behind the drum riser, and the stage was surrouned on three sides by floor-to-ceiling chain link fence (Chicken Wire? You're kidding, right?). They'd start fighting and bounce off the fencing like WWE opponents.

None of this was what I had in mind after I saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

 

[Low Down Brown]

Had one this morning. Got to church at 7 for quick rehearsal and all went well. After we finish, I had maybe 5 minutes to chat with the guitarist before the first service...I never unplugged and never left the stage. Service begins and I have no sound coming from the bass at all. I started getting texts from the sound guy - "man, where's you signal?" As inconspicuously as possible, I started troubleshooting. As best I can tell at the time, preamp battery pooped out. I fake my way through the first service and act as though I am playing flawlessly, and indeed, nary a sour note was to be heard from the bass at this particular service. At break, I run to a nearby pharmacy for a $15 pair of 9V batteries. Popped them into the bass and sound checked before 2nd service - still no sound. Another 3 minutes of fidgeting with gear reveals that my instrument cable I've been using for barely 6 months was the culprit. Good thing I always keep a spare. It was a quick fix, disaster averted, and there was much rejoicing.

 

[tb-player]

I was in college and there were auditions for a touring band that promoted the school... tours through the spring and all summer all over the country. I intended to audition on lead guitar and they had already chosen the guitarist. Oh crap! So I bought a $100 Vantage P-Bass and auditioned for bass. Got the gig and turned 'oh crap' into 'oh wow'.

 

[basted]

I had a screw fall out of the A string on my bridge. The A string bridge collapsed. Couldn't find the screw on a dark stage. Had to drive to borrow a bass to finish the night.

 

[DWBass]

Oh, 1 more............

Was playing outdoors on a very hot day and my bass acclimated on me. Had nothing on the first 5 frets. Had to finish the gig playing higher up on the neck.

 

[edwinhurwitz]

I've had the usual adventures and ended up playing through the PA with nothing on stage a few times, but the craziest was being on the road with my band with a stop in Milwaukee at Shank Hall. We pulled up to the venue to find the fire department watering down the last of the ashes of the building. Oh well.

 

[Andy Marshman]

1. my gear is good, always. my moment? - I kicked off a song in A when it was supposed to be in B. I quickly shouted to the other guitars and they made the change to A. The singer never noticed! It was because I brought my short scale bass and I hadn't used it for a while.
2. as a teen, I was supposed to get picked up on the street corner for a ride to an arena gig. Nobody came for me. No cell phones back then. I took public transportation and arrived almost 2 hrs late. Most people had gone home instead of staying. We played anyways.

 

[rodak]

1) We were playing a multi-band outdoor concert at the local college, on a large flatbed trailer. We had set up, and I had my Gibson EB-0 on a cheap guitar stand. The wind blew it over on its face and the headstock broke off (I've learned from reading TB that broken headstocks on old Gibsons is not uncommon!). Fortunately, a friend's band was also playing, and he loaned me his Ric 4001 so I could play the set. I dearly wanted a Ric, so after a couple of attempts to repair the EB-0, which did not last, found a 4001 on sale locally and that's the Ric in my Avatar (a '73). I still have the headstock of the EB-0 - I lost or sold all the other parts of it.

2) On a much more recent gig at a local prison, where shorts are NOT an option, I showed up in shorts. Home was 40 min away, and it was Sunday, so little chance of finding a pair nearby, one of the other guys happened to have a spare pair of jeans which he loaned me. He's a good bit shorter and narrower than me, so it was pretty uncomfortable (and I probably looked like a doofus!), but they got me through the gig.

 

[DrBnz]

So this has absolutely nothing to do with bass playing, but I can't help to tell this one …. Well not me, its my buddies story, but its SO good its worth of repeating. So we live just south of Philly. Johnny and his wife are going on a trip to Texas, but found it would be better if they drove to BWI (2.4 hrs) grab a hotel, leave their car there, catch the airport shuttle for the early non-stop flight. He drives to the hotel, gets settled in, goes to dinner and.… Just before bed his wife announces that it looks like “Johnny” forgot to pack her most important bag. (That she left in the living room for him to carry out). So He jumps in the car (leaving her at the hotel) high-speed back to the house, grab the bag, and high-speed back to the hotel. Its 4am now…. Crisis averted and he can get a couple hours sleep before the flight. Next day, they get to the airport. Going thru TSA checkpoint. She has her wallet / ID out and they make it thru. They find their gate, sit down and she’s going thru her purses like a wild person…. What now? She’s lost her ID. Can’t be… you just had it. Lets go see if you left it with the TSA guy. Nope…. And he also advises you that if you don’t have ID. You can’t get on the flight. In fact, I’m gonna put you on the other side of the checkpoint until you figure out where your ID is. Long story short - they didn’t go on the flight.

And they’re still married.

 

[definenredefine]

Same year - Did a run of alt-rock shows for a former one MTV hit female vocalist who was trying to restart her career. I called her by the name of a different former successful vocalist on at least three different occasions. She was really cool and simply started calling me "Flea or whatever" every time she saw me.

That was pretty cool of her. Sounds like a nice/funny person.

I've come to really despise that thing some groups do in rehearsal where they have to stop & talk for 45 minutes, every time something gets a tiny bit off track. It makes me want to just run out into the woods.

I'll do you one better. I saw Om once (that would be Al Cisneros of Sleep fame, along with a drummer.) They took a rather long break in the middle of their set to...um...fortify themselves with a particular herb. The rest of the show felt like watching my stoner friends jam out in the garage. I couldn't have been more bored.

 

[RichardW]

guitar player stomped his foot and pulled the cable out of my amp. “Hey, where’d the bass go?"

 

[dougjwray]

There's one band that I've been with for over thirty years. In 1997, we were hired to play at a wedding reception. Ex-Yes keyboard player Patrick Moraz was going to be attending the party, too, and it was agreed in advance that he could sit in with us. (He had requested it.)
Meanwhile, I had a *very* serious inner ear infection. My balance was off, I had a high fever, and I was on steroids. Also, my hearing was highly compromised. But I dragged myself to this gig.
Here comes the "Oh, crap" moment:
Moraz started a blues in A, and, because I was half deaf, for the first couple of choruses I thought we were in B flat.

 

[bucephylus]

Back when I was juggling the straight job with musical performance, I had some close calls due to Airline delays. The worst was a gig in Maricopa AZ at Harrah’s Ak-Shin Casino on the big stage. Plane was late in; and I took the wrong exit ramp (bad signage) coming out of the East Economy Lot at Sky Harbor, which put me way out of my way on the 202, rather than headed down the 143; 25 minutes lost. AZDOT later corrected the issue by adding a second 143 access.

Anyhow, I arrived 5 minutes before curtain time, missed sound check, and had to set up my amp and play from behind the curtain (Don’t pay attention to that man behind the curtain!!!). Not a great moment. Rest of gig was as scheduled.




One other memorable event was an unpaid, but major gig at the Midland Center for the Arts with a Manhattan Transfer type of vocal group. We were performing a Voices of New York chart for Me and Julio Down in the School Yard. Only one rehearsal, and reading from chart; except right at the end of rehearsal, drummer says to BL, “Hey I’ve got this really cool drum intro we could use.” BL asks him to play a few bars, which is some chaotic blend of poly-rhythms with no backbeat or downbeat. BL says “Great, see everyone at the gig.” I have zero chance to say, “Hey, I have the lead in, but have no idea where the one is in that intro.”

So, at the gig, I of course have to guess at a one, but come in at the (apparently) wrong spot. BL fires me immediately after the gig. Unpaid gig, so, whatever. Just seemed all wrong nonetheless.

 

[JTNuney]

This one belongs on the DB side, so I’ll keep it short - on the way to performing my first contest solo on DB at about age 11, I somehow lost the screw for my endpin. Tried to borrow one from other bass players and cellists, but none fit. Ended up playing my solo with my bass sitting on a stack of encyclopedias (which fell over a couple times during my performance).

I got a first, but I think the judge was just having pity on me.

 

[LowActionHero]

Many moons ago I wrote a bass part with a whammy type pedal (on a Digitech RP10). When we played the gig it was outside in the sun on hot concrete. That's when I discovered the RP10 calibration was affected by heat. Turned it off and improvised. It worked out but it was a bummer.

 

[elliestradiol]

The first time I changed my strings, I cut the E so short that I could see the end of it (the end in the tuner) start to fray while winding it. I also broke the G and had to get individual replacement strings so I could still actually play

 

[Zooberwerx]

A handful of smarmy, conniving little ****s stole a gig from us by telling the venue I was dead. Not making this up. That was 18 years ago and I will gleefully cheer and applaud any crap or bad luck that falls in their collective laps...which it has.

I hold a grudge 'til the end.

Riis