The most amateur-ish thing you've done live?

rico

Forgetting my guitar is in different tunings after finishing the first set then visiting the bar, done that a couple of times. Open G does make for an interesting Jonny B Goode or Moondance.

viz

Once I was playing a basement jaxx gig and Simon the main guitarist and I did that thing where we leaned over each other and played each others’ guitars. I forgot that he detuned his Les Paul, and he forgot that I didn’t detune my Callaghan guitar

Goodness knows what we sounded like. Though actually I doubt anyone could hear it amongst the noise - I certainly couldn’t. 

FarleyUK

At the gig on Saturday, we had a 'regular' fan turn up. He's a complete knob; always heckling and shouting abuse (mainly at me). He knows the other two guys in the band, but doesn't know me - so I've taken to just taking the piss back at him over the mic.

However, on Saturday he was stood right in front of me while I was doing the talkbox, and was very obviously looking for a rise from me. I'd had enough at the end of the set, and was actually trying to find him to knock him out; thankfully, he wasn't around.

I'd argue that's a fair response, but some might call it an amateur-ish thing to do..!

(As it turns out, he also grabbed random women's arses and grabbed the breasts of the drummer's wife that night.... at which point the drummer had to be held back from lamping him).

bbill335

viz said:

Once I was playing a basement jaxx gig and Simon the main guitarist and I did that thing where we leaned over each other and played each others’ guitars.

consenting adults and all that, but in public? really?

steven70

j

Trude

I once had a capo fall off mid-song (playing the sitar part to Paint It Black in a Stones tribute).  Normally this would've caused quite some disruption, but luck was on my side.  All my guitars have Quickshot sliding capos parked over the nut for easy deployment, but for Paint It Black I use a Shubb so I can leave the bottom E open when capoing up to the 2nd fret.  When the Shubb went AWOL, I was actually able to slide up my Quickshot into position without missing a beat and carry on as if nothing happened!

So in a way it was both amateurish (the capo falling off) and yet also stunningly professional (having a spare frickin capo ready to go!) 

Cirrus

I don't know if it was the summer heat, the travelling or the daytime drinking, but last year in Italy I was trying to get my head around the rig I'd been provided with. Nothing seemed to make sense. We got to one song in the pre-show rehearsal and someone handed me a capo.

"Is this one of those weird half-capos? It doesn't cover all the strings, won't work for this one..."

The guy just reached over and turned it round. I'd been trying to put it on upside down.

Logie

I was standing in for one of the guitarists in a mates band one night and it was going OK till we got to Enter Sandman. Started off fine but somewhere along the way I proceeded to play it half a step down much to the horror of everyone else. I wasn't used to stage volume being very gig green so I was completely oblivious till the end. 
My second gig singing with our old AC/DC band was a belter as well. We were supporting a very well known local covers band and we were using some of their gear. The singer gave me some really good tips and just before he walked off the stage he said "all you've got to do is flick the switch on the floor monitor and you're good to go".....I forgot.
We took a video of it and amazingly it turned out not three bad 

FarleyUK

I did a cracker last night at rehearsal.

For 2.5 hours, I was frustrated at my tone with the Axe FX3. It was wooly, woofy and bassy; nothing like the tones I'd dialed in at home, and no matter what I did on the amp settings, it didn't fix it.

We then had a quick break, and I dialled the Les Paul bridge volume knob down. When we came back, I dialled it back up.... and suddenly noticed I'd accidentally set the bridge tone to 0. turns out I thought I was dialling down the volume at the beginning of the night when it was the tone.

D'oh.

I did, however, discover that with tone at 0 and using a plexi model, I could nail Gary Moore's tone on Murder in the Skies.

vasselmeyer

Had a gig on Saturday and put the capo on the wrong fret of my PRS. First chords were barre chords so I didn't notice but once I started playing open strings it sounded fucking awful. My immediate thought was that I'd somehow knocked it out of tune and immediately swapped the PRS for my Tele, mid-song. I then proceeded to put the capo back on the same fret.

I've never done it before but I'm going to start writing "Capo 3rd fret" or whatever on the set list next to the songs which I use a capo on.

ICBM

vasselmeyer said:

Had a gig on Saturday and put the capo on the wrong fret of my PRS. First chords were barre chords so I didn't notice but once I started playing open strings it sounded fucking awful. My immediate thought was that I'd somehow knocked it out of tune and immediately swapped the PRS for my Tele, mid-song. I then proceeded to put the capo back on the same fret.

I've never done it before but I'm going to start writing "Capo 3rd fret" or whatever on the set list next to the songs which I use a capo on.

I do that, but it didn't stop me putting it on at 5 instead of 4! I have no idea idea how, but I genuinely thought I was right until I came to take it off again after arguing with the keyboard player throughout the song, and then felt embarrassed...

I also once played a song in a band with two guitars where we we both supposed to be capo'd at 3 and the song started with unison open power chords. I got it right that time, but the other guitarist had hers on at 2 - hilarious clashing atonal noise resulted . It's on video too!

wizbit81

This one was quite amusing.....
So at work there are a few musos or former musos, and we formed a one off band for a single gig, the work Xmas party. We made a playlist of stuff that would appeal to most people, on the heavy rock side of things, and threw a few personal choices in there as well. The most technical song we agreed on was Get the Funk Out..... you can see where this is going!
So rehearsals.... we had 3 guitarists and two of us could play that solo, we chatted, and decided to play it in unison, or at least as closely as we could. I learned it up to 15% faster than the record just in case, no idea what the other guitarist did, and we rehearsed it separately as he didn't have it together by final rehearsal.
Night of the gig....
I had 4 pints or so, he had 8-9.....what could go wrong eh?
Well, firstly, the drummer was pissed and excited and he started it significantly too fast. The singer was struggling to enunciate all the words it was so much quicker than it should have been. It wasn't quite Slayer territory but it wasn't a slow funky groove anymore! I was already laughing and yelling 'I can't play it this fast!!!' during the song as we all struggled to play the parts at speed.
 It came time for the solo and the other guitar player who was absorbed in his craft and utterly oblivous to the world started it around 1.5 beats too early and a semitone down, I came in and was yelling at him that he was in the wrong place and key....we clashed appallingly for about 10 seconds then I just packed in and turned my volume down and laughed drinking my pint (wearing a kimono) It was a total clusterf*ck, however the gig itself was awesome and I had a great time, I woulnd't change a thing!

Here's proof I could actually play the b*stard solo before the gig!

Stratavarious

Damn these post character limits..

domforr

plugging in my wah-wah pedal with the guitar leads the wrong way round and then spending most of the set without sound and shouting at the soundman for being incompetent. Also being told afterwards by some wag that it was the best gig they'd ever seen us play. 

vasselmeyer

domforr said:

plugging in my wah-wah pedal with the guitar leads the wrong way round and then spending most of the set without sound and shouting at the soundman for being incompetent. Also being told afterwards by some wag that it was the best gig they'd ever seen us play. 

Hands up, who's set their gear up with the wah switched on, and then spent ages reconfiguring the amp and rest of the pedalboard because it sounds terrible? I've done that at least twice and now use wahs that have an LED or are spring-loaded.

Trude

vasselmeyer said:

domforr said:

plugging in my wah-wah pedal with the guitar leads the wrong way round and then spending most of the set without sound and shouting at the soundman for being incompetent. Also being told afterwards by some wag that it was the best gig they'd ever seen us play. 

Hands up, who's set their gear up with the wah switched on, and then spent ages reconfiguring the amp and rest of the pedalboard because it sounds terrible? I've done that at least twice and now use wahs that have an LED or are spring-loaded.

Yep, over here.