School boy errors during gigs

[ashevans09]

Standard stuff really - unplugged myself mid song, changed the channel of my wireless pack without noticing, knocked over my drummer's crash.

Does remind me of one time with my guitarist though - we were about 14, couldn't have been more than our 2nd or 3rd gig. We'd written this 6 minute song that built to this "amazing" solo. He falls to his knees to unleash this opus of guitaring proficiency aaaaand...unplugs himself. Cue me laughing away behind my drum kit and him looking fairly sheepish. Sad thing is it took him about a bar or so to notice he wasn't making any noise...

Edited January 13, 2008 by ashevans09

[tauzero]

Early on with the covers band, when I still hadn't memorised the songs, on one occasion I turned up without my song book - quick dash home to get it.

Another time, I'd taken the singer's songbook home to put it all into Word and then forgot to bring it to the next gig (even worse as he still hasn't learnt the songs after two years).

Standard one, though, is having a 4-string moment when playing the intro to a song on the 5-string.

[chris_b]

I took the frets off my old bass and decided to be cool on the next gig by wearing sunglasses. I couldn't see a thing and didn't play in tune all night. Of course I was far too cool to take the glasses off!
A guitarist I know, playing an outdoor gig (with radio mike) jumped off the stage and went for a stroll through the audience. Then couldn't climb back onto the stage, it was too high. He had to climb over a fence and go around the back to the steps while the band played and laughed on.

[Perry]

A funny time for us is when the singer came in a bar too early.

We all laughed at him which really pi$$ed him off.

Then him being quick thinking put his hand up and said, "....and a big hand for the band!" with the hand in the air he did a w@nker sign.

With my very little experience. if someone goofs-up just carry on and not to make a big deal out of it and the chances are the crowd wont notice as much.

[Dr.Dave]

I gig regularly and if I were to list last years cock ups alone you'd all still be reading at Easter.

How many cups of tea have you ever made yourself? Tons. Bet you still drop the spoon , miss the cup with the sugar , run out of milk etc etc.

Same thing with gigging - sh*t happens - all we can do is...

a) prepare ourselves by having spares of everything we can carry and focusing on the job in hand

accept we'll still f*** it up at some point and learn by experience to deal with it a seamlessly as poss.

Both are part of adopting a professional attitude and are as important as honing our musical skills for the gigging musician.

[coasterbass]

Hmmm - where to start....

- Aggressive Steve Harris-type moment which resulted in a broken E string, and the string core going straight through my index finger. Rather painful - but played to the end of the song with remaining digits. Guitarist almost passed out when he saw the blood.
- Strap'lock' unlocking resulting in Stingray crashing to the floor and unfeasible noise
- Two gigs later the same (unchecked) Stingray having an active electronics wire disconnect itself. Cue mid-song pedal board rerouting to find the (unfindable) problem. PA guy solves it by turning the bass gain through the roof on the FOH (about 15k as i recall). And then of course the wire finds its way home for a short while resulting in bass overload, audience with bleeding ears, tripped poweramps and a couple of blown cones.
- Asking the audience if they had any requests : )
- Playing for freebeer and attempting to get my moneys worth (pregig). Then coming off at the end of the gig and complaining to the rest of the band that we hadn't played x, y and z songs. Apparently we had, and I just couldn't remember.
- Playing rough bars with no lights on the audience and blinding spots on the stage. You just won't see the glasses coming towards you til the last second.
- Having a really gobby lead guitarist in situations like the one above.
- Applying superglue into a thumb blister, but accidently supergluing thumb and index finger together
- Guitarist getting careless, dropping guitar and shearing every single knob off the front of my combo.
- Tucking in to the between-set buffet to the extent that you can't sing and want to sleep.
- Letting the bride/groom book a PA ("no, 50w is not enough")
- Having a pedal board so complex that your bandmates refer to it as 'the mothership' and you resemble one-legged t*at all gig.

Remind me again why I do this?? ; )

[bassbloke]

Bought my first 5 string in 1993 and decided to gig with it a week later thinking, this can't be so tough, just remeber that the bottom string is no longer E. First song, started with a nice easy open A. the version I played didn't...

[bassboy115]

played a BOTB gig on thursday and the bass cut out three times, first time i thought the wireless had gone, second time i thought the lead broke, 3rd time i pulled the lead out whilst throwing myself backwards as im not used to a lead at my feet.

when trying my gear saturday i found all was in working order!

I think because it was because the di box was next to me and i kept pulling the lead out with my foot!

We still won the Heat though!

Also

played at a pub and tripped over a step falling back on to the headline bands 2 guitars, 1 bass (spector) and a marshall stack! oops

[darwin]

[quote name='coasterbass' post='119957' date='Jan 14 2008, 09:51 AM']Hmmm - where to start....

- Applying superglue into a thumb blister, but accidently supergluing thumb and index finger together[/quote]

Nice one, super glue is high risk at the best of times but applying to fingers at a gig...

My silly mistakes are mostly not reading the setlist then starting a different song to the others and the forgetting if I'm playing a 4 or 5 string for that big first note !!

I always think the best advice is top carry on as if nothing has happened, most of the time no one notices. If they do then having a laugh about it with the audience rather than getting stressed is the best bet.

[dr.funk]

Turned round and knocked the music stand and music off the stage with the headstock

[tauzero]

Knocking things over reminds me:

Knocked the guitarist's 12-string acoustic Yamaha (which was in a guitar stand) flat on its face onto a concrete floor. Amazingly, there was absolutely no damage. When he did exactly the same thing a couple of weeks later, he decided that perhaps he ought to replace the incredibly precarious stand.

[bassace]

A long time ago when I was very young - relevant to the second paragraph - I was playing upright and the tail wire let go. I was using one of those steel tripod bridges in those days so that, plus the three feet cups, all propelled themselves into the audience plus the strings were wrapped all over the place. Surprisingly I got them all back but the bass was a complete gonner for the rest of the evening.

We were supporting one of the major bands and their bass player let me use his instrument to carry on. It was a fantastic instrument but I thought the G and D were slightly out of tune, so I proceeded to retune them. He went ballistic.

[MacDaddy]

At the end of a song, while in rock star mode, I thrust the bass aloft and put it straight through the ceiling above the stage.

[beerdragon]

[quote name='MacDaddy' post='120380' date='Jan 14 2008, 08:10 PM']At the end of a song, while in rock star mode, I thrust the bass aloft and put it straight through the ceiling above the stage.[/quote]

i should'nt have read that with a mouthful of water.

[blamelouis]

Most embarassing moment was my strap breaking in the second number and WHY would you carry a spare ?
Had to do the whole gig with bass on my knee.
And then the guitarist pulled a strap from his case after the gig and said "you needed teaching a lesson"
So i hid his ME5 effects unit until the van was about to pull away !Lol!

Another good tip i got was from the same guitarist who told me if you wear leather pants you can "piss yourself and nobody will know "!

[barneythedog]

that big, all-in together opening .............. on the wrong string

totally blanking on a song. ever since then I do the same as Muppet and write the starting note next to each song on the set list

unplugging myself - frequently

stomping on my Zoom to change patch for a solo only to switch it into "tuner" mode

Oh I could go on and on .......

Edited January 14, 2008 by barneythedog

[ahpook]

[quote name='barneythedog' post='120460' date='Jan 14 2008, 09:50 PM']stomping on my Zoom to change patch for a solo only to switch it into "tuner" mode[/quote]


or stomp onto a pedal next to the tuner and hit the tuner as well

especially annoying when you've bit an overdrive pedal for the noise-fest at the end of a song

[Hamster]

This is such a painful thread - I thought my shrink had helped me to forget all of my bad musical memories - now they're all back again. I need therapy!

Hamster

[Johngh]

Having batteries go dead on Active bass and not having spares. This was only 2 songs into the set. I told the singer and guitarist to do the 10 minute "acoustic" bit early. I walked off stage in full stage gear, out the club to the corner shop, bought new batteries and got them into the bass just as the acoustic bit finished ! I now carry a small alluminium case to gigs with every spare I can think of. (except a spare bass, as it won't fit in) Ho Hum.

In a band many years ago I turned around on stage one night and smacked the headstock of the bass into the face of the girl singer resulting in badly cutting her eye and mucho blood. She was a real looker as well and had a very nice pencil dress on, after I smacker her one the resulting blood covered dress didn't have the same effect, she also looked like she had gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson. Funnily enough she didn't speak to me for two weeks.

[ahpook]

[quote name='Johngh' post='120470' date='Jan 14 2008, 10:06 PM']She was a real looker as well...[/quote]

i hope you'd not think it was ok if she wasn't 'a looker' !!!

[Dread Bass]

haha i love this thread so glad i asked has made me a bit scared of next week tho.

[King Tut]

Playing at Careys in Coventry, I was sorting out the PA as well as playing bass. I'd only done it a few times before. During the break the drummer said...."Col - something's feeding back". I immediately thought PA - so I turned the masters down - ringing gets louder so I turned all the individual channels down - ringing gets louder so I turn the mixer off. Then I realise I haven't turned the volume down on my bass which is sitting in front of my amp/cab - still plugged in AND I've now lost the mix for the second half. Oh dear.

[Sean]

[quote name='darwin' post='120069' date='Jan 14 2008, 01:32 PM'] Nice one, super glue is high risk at the best of times but applying to fingers at a gig... [/quote]

Superglue gets me through those long weekends when I play three gigs in a row. It gives a nice clicky sound tooo which is midway between a pick and fingers.

Anyway, Played a gig one Sunday afternoon and the drummer was running around asking if any of us had his cymbals. Eventually he realised that they'd been left at the previous night's venue

He had a chat with the landlord of the venue we were playing and off he went. He came back two and half hours later and we started the gig two hours late!

Moral: Always do a last sweep of the venue for your gear before you leave or in our case let someone who is not a stoner and who is sober do the sweep before leaving. I can still hear the drummer saying to me from teh previous night that he'd checked everything and that there was nothing left in the venue that was ours.

[2wheeler]

Always remember to play the whole of the chorus, rather than just half of it before steaming back into the verse...

[P-T-P]

For me it's a case of remembering which songs I learned via chords for and which I have learned via Nashville chords/natural osmosis because if I decide to go for a wander away from what I normally play on the former, I know what that important note that's fast approcahing is, but with the latter I either need to think about it (Nashville) or possibly have no clue at all because for maybe a nano-second I've not been toe-ing the line of chords/melody and now don't know which finger should be where!