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In this Discussion
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What Was Your Worst Gig and Why?
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
They sure where a hard working band, I was a road warrior at the time (in IT) and bumbed into them a few times at various petrol stations filling up the van.
I could play the material. But I shit myself once I saw people coming in.
Unfortunately when the doors opened I was sat at the back of the stage, on the floor.
I remained at the back back of the stage, sitting for the whole gig. I was so nervous, I couldn't even stand up. Lol.
I can't help about the shape I'm in, I can't sing I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to
I agree, his earlier tone was way better and his sound got more harsh and processed as he went on. He's a proper gear head though, he had two lockups full of very, very nice stuff at one time. He could have got any tone he wanted really so I guess he went with what he thought sounded good to him.
Couple spring to mine - the Bath Beer festival - around 1000-1200 people in the bath pavillion - stage, the promoter has heard the band demo, likes us (we were doing originals), asks us to come and play and do our set plus learn a few covers.
We had 1 reahearsal and talked about doing some covers for the night and agree upon some to learn for the gig.
Turn up at the gig, unload, the room is a tad bright in that all the lights are on full beam in the hall. Place is full, the stage is huge and we think we're going to rock it.
Plug in play a song, promoter comes up and tells us we're too loud. We weren't a loud band, so turn down a smidge, he tells us we're too loud again. We're now barely audible 5 yards from the stage, and people are shouting from the floor for us to turn up.
We then come to the covers section.. Its a disaster, the drummer and the singer haven't learnt their parts and theres some right fecking horrible sounds coming out. This was a 2 hour gig. we're about 15 minutes in an hating everything about it.
The rest of the night continues in the same vein, its horrible, the crowd can't hear us, we're playing really badly, the cover versions we're doing sound hideous, the promoter hates us and we're surrounded by beer but not able to drink any of it..
The one time someone did start dancing - they got thrown out. At the end of the night the promoter stares at us, hands us the money and then turns around and walks away.
Another honker was a surprise birthday party I played in a scatch functions band. Not many people turned up for the birthday party and whilst it started ok it was quite hard to get them up on the floor dancing as it was quite early and they all obviously hadn't seen each for a good while or particularly like each other or know each other.
The bass player had been a professional in the 70's but unfortunately hadn't seemed to have picked up any new songs or a bass guitar since 1972.
He also said he sang a few songs and volunteered to sing 'wonderful night' . we said ok, He then proceeded to murder it vocally and on the bass. It was horrific, for a song that literally has about 5 notes in it, its amazing how many wrong notes he hit whilst squealing like a banshee being murdered with a rusty spoon over the top of it completely out of tune. I rammed my hat down over my head as far as it could go and pretended to be invisibile.
The keyboard player then starts playing 'Jar of hearts', it wasn't a great version tho and there were a few jazz notes. in one of the whaley bits (which to be fair the singer did rather well) the wife of the birthday boy bursts into tears and runs out of the room. We're not sure what to do so carry on..
they'd have thought you was Robert Fripp
Here's another one -
Pre gig:-
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee189/chillidoggy/Rock Candy/4581267_8b4c13b1_zps87nqcdfn.jpg
Post gig:-
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee189/chillidoggy/Rock Candy/170416002581C22581B801704161012993-HollyLeeSolly_zpssjhicolv.jpg
We take the stage, and for the first two numbers, this guy fails to hit a single correct note. It's excruciating. The crowd is very thin (it's fairly early), but we still manage to clear it. Literally, the only people left are the girlfriend and a few mates staring up at us, visibly shocked by how bad this is. Sheepish bassist arrives two songs in, slips onto the stage and takes over. My overdrive pedal craps out in the next song. I think we managed 4 or 5 numbers and left very quickly with our heads down.
We rejigged (drummer to bass, other guitarist to drums, me as I was) and slimmed down to a trio within a few days. Best move we ever made.
Lessons? Never ever trust anyone who "knows your stuff" to fill in, and having a bass player with a serious drug problem is a recipe for disaster.
Went fine in the end but after some confusion from our agent, got to the gig to find, yes, it really WAS a living wake.
if you're not familiar with the concept: Terminally Ill person throws own wake, whilst still here to enjoy it.
It's one thing listening to a eulogy, totally another when the subject of it is stood in the room listening to it.
To be honest, the only thing that spoiled it as a gig for me was it turned out to be a load of bikers in a club house and our wedding set could have done with a bit more Blues/ Rock....and the guy who joined in on Mustang Sally on harmonica knew it in a different key so of course his kazoo was in the wrong key....still insisted on played along though, the plonker. Atonal
Jazz, anyone?
Other guitarist in the band texts me last night. "How do you feel about doing a Rockaoke night, think it's gonna be a freebie"
So the stage being invaded by pissed-up have-a-go dickheads slobbering into my microphone, all requests, printing out lyric sheets for our full 60 song repertoire and no cash to show for it?
Where do I sign up?
We've had quite a dry spell of gigs lately but I'm really not that desperate
We'd played there a few times before and went down pretty well, but this time there weren't many people in. Of those people, there was a really weird couple, totally out of it. She was totally drunk by 8pm and he was off his tits on something. Both were rambling and pretty much incoherent and for some reason, he gets it into his head that I look like Jimmy Page. Now, apart from being male and having dark hair, the similarity ends, but he was having none of it. He kept coming up to me, grabbing my hand and saying, "Jimmy! I think you're great!" and generally weirding me out to a level I haven't experienced again. Now, normally I would have politely got rid of him, but he had the general air of Charlie Manson about him, not to mention a fresh cut between his eyes. Even the other guitarist, Alfie (the one who died recently) kept well away from him. Alf wasn't one for putting up with any kind of shit, but today he had that "sorry mate, you're on your own" look on his face.
Anyway, after what seemed like an eternity, it was time to play. I don't think I've ever been so relieved.
After a few songs, his girlfriend, a great, big lump of a woman started shouting for us to play some Bryan Adams songs. We were very much a jangle/psychedelic pop band (think early REM, Rain Parade, etc, played badly) and our singer, who should have known better, chose to take the piss out of her, rather than politely decline. After one quip too many, she launched her full pint glass at the singer. It grazed past his head and caught my wife's shoulder (she was the bass player), whereupon it inverted, spilling the contents over my mandolin before bouncing off it.
Now, I didn't see who threw it, as we were mid-song, so I quickly put my Ric down and turned round, ready to wallop whoever had done it. In the instant it took me to divest myself of my guitar, the landlord had vaulted over the bar, grabbed the pair and thrown them out! I can only imagine he was well practised at the manoeuvre.
We managed to regain our composure fairly quickly, as no one was hurt and the mandolin, although a bit sticky, was otherwise unscathed, and continued with our set.
We never did go back after that.
I said maybe.....
Jam night about 5 or 6 years ago at a club I've not been to for 20 years before that day. Lots of old friends who still drink there, 9 bottle of Newcastle Brown and suddenly it's my turn. Not my amp, no pedals just straight into the front (Hot Rod Deluxe) and I stupidly told the guy who was setting it for me to make me sound like Paul Weller when I fully intended to play 'Keep on Rockin' in the free world' by Neil Young. To this day I don't know why I said that.
As I started playing Neil Young the house band looked at me in utter confusion as they were expecting a Paul Weller song, I'd brought the wrong pick with me (3mm timber tones), my guitar sound was WAY too clean and I panicked so I just carried on into the first verse and eventually the band realised what song I was bashing out and joined in. I was very self-conscious at this point, to the extent that it looked like I was tapping my foot...........it was my whole leg shaking through nerves.
So we got through the song and I got off stage quickly, pissed out of my face.
Nothing got broken, no arguments and despite my initial cock up everyone in the audience seemed fairly friendly but there was a distinct feeling of glaring daggers coming from the house band.
A day or so later I found out why when I watched the video someone had shot AND posted online.
In my panic, I'd played every E chord as E MAJOR and I was so pissed I didn't notice.
It sounded like some fucked up kids TV song, it was awful.
I've never had a drink before going on stage since.
The day after the Hull gig we were booked to play Greenock is Scotland. The band we were on tour with was Scottish they had sorted these dates out.
We arrived outside the venue and instantly I didn’t want to play. It was like something out of shameless, a working men’s club in the middle of a council estate! Loads of scally looking lads knocking about.
The promoter came out to meet us and told us not to worry but the venue had been double booked, I thought to myself great we’ll be playing with about 6 bands we’ll headline everyone will have gone home and we’ll play to nobody. Turns out we were double booked with an engagement party that had booked that day!
The owner of the pub said it’d be ok as we were in one room and they were in the other, so we load in the ‘other’ room is separated from the bit we were in by a bar so not separate at all, we set up to sound check, The drummer whacks his snare the bar man turns round and says its too loud just as I hit a horrible drop c metal chug! “turn it fucking down you cunts” he shouts! I can see the bar man and the promoter having a chat that doesn’t look good. She comes over and says that the gig will have to be finished by 8.30 as that’s the time the party starts, I’m as happy as a pig in shit as I don’t want to be in that place any longer than needs be.
The promoter pulls the local support so its just us and the tour support playing, its 7.30, doors open a handful of people come in the tour support start playing, the floodgates open! About 30 or 40 pissed Scottish chavs come in and start kicking off jumping on stage pressing the guitarists’ pedals lobbing pint pots at them basically being massive dicks, the bouncers force them into the other room, turns out they are all the engagement parties’ mates that had been on the piss all day. The band manages 5 songs before giving up. Our turn!
We have a chat and decide the best course of action is to set guitars to kill, so we basically dime a 5150 and a triple rec and a orange ad200b we start playing horrible noisy thrashy stuff at deafen levels. The chavs storm back though and start destroying the place, it was fucking mental! 2 songs in the power is cut to the stage and we’re told to fuck off, we load the van in record time and we’re out of there.
The next day we get a MySpace message from the promoter saying how sorry she was and it was the 1st time she’d put a gig on there, Then we get one from the lass who’s engagement party it was, I really wish I remembered the log in as the message was funny as, it as something along the lines of ‘who the fuck did we think we were, Bon Jovi’ she called us hairy arseholes and she said if we ever go back to Greenock we will get “chibbed”
The rest of the tour was bloody lovely compared to those two days
I was in a punk band and we were booked to play at an outdoor beer festival - brilliant! Except, unbeknown to us, when the landlord's daughter heard that a band was booked, she decided to invite her mate to hold her daughter's christening party at the pub that afternoon. No, I don't understand that logic either.
So we turn up and there's lots of folks in posh frocks and small children running around. We set up and tbh, we never needed a soundcheck (our sound guy had it all sussed by halfway through the first song, so it was easier), so when we launched into the first song - God Save the Queen - this was the first that the crowd had heard of us.
This was the point that the children started running away, crying to mummy about the nasty, loud, snarly people on the stage. Overweight, balding men in badly fitting suits started eyeing the stage incredulously. And the landlord's daughter ran screaming to the front of the stage demanding that we stop at once. We didn't... we kept going and cleared the place.
Great gig.
Many many moons ago my originals band was booked to play at the Standard in Walthamstow (still there?). We rolled up, set up and watched the clock tick away until the 9.30 start time... there wasn't a soul in the pub apart from one bored member of staff. We played a few songs and then got asked to leave by the landlord. That went well.
In about 1994 I treated myself to a Les Paul Custom. It weighed about the same as one of the two AC30s I was gigging, so I also treated myself to a new leather strap. About three songs into the second set, the brand new Gibson tore through the brand new Gibson strap I'd bought with it and I watched it bounce off its headstock and into the front row of the crowd. Amazingly, apart from a couple of scratches and a broken pickup surround it survived...