The worst gig you've ever played?

[Scoop]

Where to start...

The night in Birkenhead when the floorboards gave out underneath the drummer and he disappeared arse first into the pub cellar...

The night when a very drunk bloke in Stockport insisted he [i]could [/i]get up and sing a song with us as he'd "just got out of prison"...

The night I was depping and had written my charts out using the only pen I could find, a red felt pen. When the gig started the stage lights came on for the first time and I found out I was situated directly below a permanently switched-on red parcan...

The night in Oldham where we played to two bar staff and the pub dog. Midway through the first set the dog passed judgement by ambling stage front and cocking his leg on the singer's monitor wedge...

I could go on and on...

[nomis]

so i am in a 'comedy rap' band,

one of my mates has a covers band and they had organised a 'private' gig for their first gig just to get them into the swing of it.

so he asked us to play for a laugh.

we rocked up to 'billinghams roughest pub' (if you know teesside you will understand) only to find the gig was in the main area of the pub full of what could only be described as ''smack heads''

we convinced ourselves that they must have a sence of humour and that we should crack on and do it.

so we don our vests, capes and short shorts and head for the stage, as we are walking out there is an announcement:

''there is plenty of food left over from the wake so help yourself''

A WAKE! so our set list that we had planned (of about 35 mins) voulentarily got cut to about 3 songs!

we finished playing and got in the car (still in capes vests and shorts) and drove as fast as we could

fortunately we only use an i-pod as ''the band'' so it took us a matter of seconds to pack away

i dont think that the good people of billingham were ready for songs such as ''geoff capes'' ''who wants to be dead'' and ''the love bear''

one to tell the grandkids

www.myspace.com/raptasticuk

[spongebob]

[quote name='Scoop' post='1225178' date='May 9 2011, 03:12 PM']Where to start...

The night in Birkenhead when the floorboards gave out underneath the drummer and he disappeared arse first into the pub cellar...

The night when a very drunk bloke in Stockport insisted he [i]could [/i]get up and sing a song with us as he'd "just got out of prison"...

The night I was depping and had written my charts out using the only pen I could find, a red felt pen. When the gig started the stage lights came on for the first time and I found out I was situated directly below a permanently switched-on red parcan...

The night in Oldham where we played to two bar staff and the pub dog. Midway through the first set the dog passed judgement by ambling stage front and cocking his leg on the singer's monitor wedge...

I could go on and on...[/quote]

Classics!!!

The mental image from number 1 will stay with me forever......arse first into a cellar? Oooooouchhhh!!

[arthurhenry]

A gig for a private party, UNDER Camden roundhouse - a circular, stone built room with tunnels off to an outer ring, like spokes on a wheel. Band was an awful function band made up of no hopers with lots of posh connections, myself and the drummer would dep for them sometimes. First there was no power, which was resolved soon enough. The power for the gig was supplied via 4 ways plugged into the venue above and hanging down the wall. Guitarist immeadiately started moaning about how dusty his gear was going to get and that people might tread on his pedals. The place was packed with rowdy, drunken toffs. Keyboard player who was used to west end pit gigs left during the break after beer was tipped over his kit. During the break there was an official world record attempt for the most drambuie shot glasses stuck to a person's body - bizarre. I came back from getting some air to witness the guitarist swinging a left hook at the singer (complete with screaming girlfriend) in an argument about whether we should go back on. We did and the power cut out a few times in the second set, but the drummer kept everyone dancing. I just laughed my way through it.

[JakeFoordBass]

Hands up who's had gigs with reaaallllyyy sh*t drummers??? Guessing quite a common one.

Was depping a mate's function band and had been warned of the drummer. Was a reading gig and had received charts in advance to familiarise myself with the material. Drummer was so shocking, tempo was all over the place, stabs/stops/pushes in all all the wrong places and obviously didn't have ears! Horrible gig!

Another was a wedding for a friend of our function band singer's family. Already had a mission on our hands from Liverpool to Surrey. Having given ourselves 6 hours to do a 4 hour drive it took us 8 (traffic news was saying it was the worst traffic they'd seen on both the M62 and M25 in years!). Although we turned up dead on when we were supposed to start (having phoned on regular intervals on the journey to update the wedding planner and groom) and managed to set up full 7 piece band, PA and Lights in 20 minutes and played the full amount (under)paid for, I received an email 2 weeks later asking for a refund! We had already lost money on that gig with my policy on paying musicians (everyone gets a minimum fee, even if costs are higher than expected. Only gig where we've lost money in 2 years) and transport costs so there was no way that was going to happen. Proper groom from hell!

Boo to bad gigs!!!

[lee4]

Waterrats in London,2007.
We were booked to play the same weekend as Glastonbury,and we warned the promoter that most of our crowd were at the festival.
He told us not to worry,as there were plenty of people always popping in.
Well,you guessed it.No-one came.
The promoter conveniently forgot what he had said before and gave our singer a hard time.
We played our set,packed up,and pushed off,all fuming.
But as the drummer was leaving,carrying 2 heavy cases,the promoter was in his way.
I know what was said to the promoter,and it's pretty unrepeatable!Suffice to say he moved very quickly out of the way!
That was the last time we played in London,and we will not play there again if possible.

[Grassie]

[quote name='JakeFoordBass' date='May 9 2011, 08:31 PM' post='1225526']
Hands up who's had gigs with reaaallllyyy sh*t drummers??? Guessing quite a common one.

Our original drummer was definitely not sh*t, but we did a wedding reception as one of our early gigs, all of us except the drummer arrived at the agreed time and proceeded to set the gear up. 20 minutes before we're due to start, still no drummer. 10 minutes before we're due to start - still no drummer. Managed to get hold of him on his mobile - conversation goes something like this:
"Andy, where the f*** are you? We're due to go on any minute!"
"Smmurry, I wsss aslllpp"
"Pardon?"
"Sorry mate, I was asleep and I've just woken up, I'll be there in about 20 minutes."
He turns up 30 mins later, takes another 30 minutes to set his kit up, and then halfway through the first set, disappears for a piss.....
Great drummer and top bloke though...

[juice]

two good ones from my memory -
[center]
-1-[/center]
around 1996 did a local pub gig with mostly own material. All went very well, good crowd and we played through to 'chucking out time'.

At this point landlord pays us and asks us to play a couple of songs for his bouncers whilst they have their after hours pint before we pack up. sounds like a great big pat on the back? well you'd think so, except the bouncers from all locall pubs and clubs drip fed in (all part of the same 'family') and everytime someone new came in they'd shout "play f**king wonderwall again for soandso"! over 40 people of an overbearing physical presence fully tooled had arrived when we made moves to leave (around 2am). The landlord brought in his 2 pitbulls and persuaded us to continue playing.

Finally at about 3am the police arrived, having been called by the residents nearby, and we were finally able to leave. As all of our gigs were in local pubs under the same protection and so were the boozers we frequented socially this was the first of many a night ending in similar stories... eventually they became more 'mates', less scary & actually plied us with cash & alcohol to get us to stay so not every gig was all bad.

[center]-2-[/center]
Embassy Theatre Skegness 1998 - conservative party conference.

seemed like a great gig to land, turn-up, plug in and play to 800 - 1000 people. we were give full star treatment back stage with runners and stage director in the wings. Front of house we had 2 sound engineers (ours and theirs) a lighting guy & three people on follow spots.

here is where it all falls apart... The free bar was in the annex, there was no drinking or smoking in the auditorium & to top it all the hired a 6 piece party function band to play to a 1100+ all seater venue. As you can imagine this gave rise to a virtually empty gig and th bass seemed so far back in the mix I split open my fingers trying to get dynamics into disco inferno (which was in first set) - there were no plasters in their firstaid kit so I played second set gaffa-taped up.

client happy so got paid, and left hoping Mark Griffiths who was playing there with Hank Marvin a couple of nights later got a better crowd!

Edited May 9, 2011 by juice

[JakeFoordBass]

[quote name='Grant' post='1225673' date='May 9 2011, 10:47 PM']Our original drummer was definitely not sh*t, but we did a wedding reception as one of our early gigs, all of us except the drummer arrived at the agreed time and proceeded to set the gear up. 20 minutes before we're due to start, still no drummer. 10 minutes before we're due to start - still no drummer. Managed to get hold of him on his mobile - conversation goes something like this:
"Andy, where the f*** are you? We're due to go on any minute!"
"Smmurry, I wsss aslllpp"
"Pardon?"
"Sorry mate, I was asleep and I've just woken up, I'll be there in about 20 minutes."
He turns up 30 mins later, takes another 30 minutes to set his kit up, and then halfway through the first set, disappears for a piss.....
Great drummer and top bloke though... [/quote]

Haha! That's a great one! Drummers always complain about getting a load of stick but they do (and I know this is a sweeping generalisation) bring it on themselves. We managed to get all the way to Croatia for a festival to find our drummer's passport had expired 6 days earlier and had to wait a fair while for him to get an emergency visa! Then the next trip, he managed to lock his new passport in his car and lose his key! We had to get a very dodgy Scouse mechanic to break into his car for us to get it! Barely made the flight! Again, lovely guy and great drummer!

[skankdelvar]

Worst gig I ever played was - musically - a blinder. No mistakes at all from anyone, tight as a gnat's hoo-hah.

The audience comprised the 3 guys from our drummer's other band and no-one else. Imagine.

And we all got the trots from a dodgy barrel.

[dc2009]

Had a friend's birthday party, she booked the town hall, and had a few friends' bands lined up to play on the stage, I was merely in attendance. My good friend's band's bass player no showed, I was thrust a bass (already semi-pissed) and asked to go on stage, to play a bunch of covers I didn't know, a large amount of guesswork and copying the guitarists hand movements ensued, they also tried happy birthday, that was bad, I do not know how to play happy birthday. It got worse after we'd mucked through 4 songs and they were like, next song is this one....guitarist, who was new also, thrusts me the guitar and says, I don't know this one, I muck along to Pinball Map by In Flames, solo and all, not knowing a single note in the song. Awful experience, but pulled the birthday girl, jackpot!

Had a bad one at a gig I organised, got a touring band coming over from holland for it along with a few others from all over the uk. I thought my a string was feeling dodgy in practice so changed it last minute. 30s into a very e-oriented song of around 5 minutes, my e-string goes, oh the irony. With everyone else in completely miles off tunings, I run off stage post song, rip a string off the previous band's bass and replace mine, the band wait a coupla minutes, but then crack on with the next song. I'm part way through winding my string when the solo comes. This solo has a very high bass solo, with the one guitar harmonised with it. There was no bass, there was my guitarist playing a harmony part alone, sounded dreadful. I emerged for the rest of the set, which was fine, I just wish they had thought not to play that song of all of them, without me!

[nomis]

[quote name='JakeFoordBass' post='1225526' date='May 9 2011, 08:31 PM']Hands up who's had gigs with reaaallllyyy sh*t drummers??? Guessing quite a common one.[/quote]

+1

not a lot worse than playing with a poo drummer

[Bilbo]

Did a gig in Enfield when I was 17 (heavy metal band). The roof was leaking onto the stage so I did the gig stood on a beer crate surrounded by a great big puddle with the power leads gaffa'd to the top of the amps. When I think back, I must have been insane (or probably just 17)!!

[megallica]

This one sticks in my mind the most although it isn't the worst gig I ever played, my band were given a support slot at a local venue.
We were all quite stoked to have a gig with our own dressing room and good sounding pa, then halfway through our set my e string breaks on my only bass (yeah I know) and the looks on my band mates faces could have killed me stone dead. I had to borrow a bass from the headliners, who were very nice, so I got to play a Musicman Stingray for the last two songs in our set.

One more which was really embarassing - different band were given a slot at a local festival playing to a few hundred people, I managed to get lost/delayed and our hour long set was reduced to thirty minutes.
We rush on stage without a soundcheck and our lead guitarist is tuned down half a step while me and the second guitarist are in standard tuning.
After a twenty second panic of clashing chords I figure out what is wrong and try and transpose all my notes down half a step for the rest of the set.
Not the best showcase you could hope for when, to be fair 200-300 paying customers were quite patient and we luckily didn't get pelted with mud/bottles/sh*t

[Lfalex v1.1]

I seem to recall making music by being plugged into an electrical device using a conductive cable whilst standing on an uncovered stage made of scafolding in an open field.



During a thunderstorm.

Not the best gig ever.

[thisnameistaken]

One where my A string broke, or the core broke and the string went slack and stuck to the pickup, muting my E and D, so I grabbed it and ripped it off the bass, shattering the winding and embedding 13 little slivers of steel in my fingers which proceeded to bleed profusely for the rest of the set. Blood proper everywhere. At least that time I knew whose blood it was.

The time our tenor player turned up late, having tried to race down from a studio date in a neighbouring state, picking up a speeding ticket on the way and expecting us to pay it, which we refused. So he sulked, and when his first solo came around he was blowing an awful racket, sticking his knee in the bell of his horn and generally being obnoxious, so I put my foot on his backside and pushed him off the stage. He was a big lad and obviously furious so when the first set ended I ran out the back of the building and went to hide at the beach a few blocks away until I was due back on stage. He went backstage looking for me, didn't find me, so he tore a steel door off an ice machine and beat the DJ's bike to death with it. We were asked to leave before the second set.

One of my first gigs when I was 16 or 17 someone organising the gig had hired some fancy lights and a little pedal-operate smoke machine and stuff, and I was put in charge of operating the smoke machine during our set. I had it plugged into the same socket as my bass amp, and the first time I trod on it a ****LOAD of smoke came out and I must've hooked the power cable with my foot, so when I moved away from the smoke machine I unplugged it - and my bass amp! I quickly ducked behind the amp to plug it back in but in all the smoke I couldn't see a f***ing thing. =D Took me ages to find the wall socket.

[Matt_Arlita]

Definitely the worst was playing the Marina Theatre in Lowestoft when I was about 17.

My band had won a local talent show (£500, woo) and then got asked to play this showcase gig at the theatre with a bunch of other winners in different categories.

What we didn't know was we would be playing alongside the Miss Lowestoft Carnival Queen Competition! Not the most ideal pairing...heavy rock and a beauty contest!

The day went from bad to worse when our drummer announced he couldn't make it, so tried to contact a stand in but he didn't make it in time for the gig. We then had to wait backstage while the contest was going on for about four hours.

The event was supposed to have been built up to be this big spectacular that we would close with the curtain dropping to reveal us 'rocking out' with a full electric set but in reality what happened was the curtain opened to reveal my guitarist sitting on this massive stage, on the empty drum riser DI'd into the PA with a crap acoustic vainly attempting to turn it into an acoustic set with the singer. I didn't even get to play in the end, just sat there!

The place was deadly silent throughout and we received only polite applause at the end. At this point we got out of there as quickly as possible.

It was like a comedy sketch or something...looking back it's hilarious

[hairyhaw]

Played a gig at King Tuts one night. Pretty important for the band, couple of small labels down having a sniff. First single on the cusp of release.

A mate was helping us out doing roadie/tech type stuff. I rather foolishly left my bass unattended after tuning it to get a beer (this was before I had the a tuning pedal) and he comes in the dressing room and thinks he’ll be helpful by tuning the instruments. Anyway, band eventually troops onstage and starts the first song, a big crashing intro in A. It immediately becomes apparent that I am tuned to G#, D#, A#, F whilst everyone else is in normal pitch. Bit of a disaster really.

[DanOwens]

The almost-horrible gig was with the same band. It was a fairly major local festival (crowd of 5000), but when we saw them sweeping huge puddles of water of the stage just before we went on, we called it off.

I don't know who they put on instead, but the stage was swarming with paramedics within 10 minutes.

[Shawman]

the other stand out one for me (which i was reminded of when someone mentioned legging it in embarassment) was at a club in dundee. our guitarist was a total metalhead, and we were a light/alt rock band. he books us in for a gig at a metal club so though "they must be having a lighter night tonight"...no! we're on the bill with 3 death metal bands, so all through our set, the audience looked thoroughly unimpressed
i was wanting to stay but i simply couldn't face being there after that, especially after finishing with the cringeworthy

guitarist - "so, do you want one more song?!"
most of audience - "not really"

*awkward pause*

guitarist - "wel'll we're doing it anyway!"

[Norris]

We were booked to play at a wedding. So we got there, set up, sound checked and waited for the guests to arrive.

And waited...

And waited...

Around about 10 o'clock in the evening, we finally played... to the bride, groom and two other people that had turned up.
(No, not even the parents of the couple!)

[Dropzone]

There was this one time at band camp.....

Reading these have reminded me of too many of my gigs. A vast majority have gone swimmingly but here are a few howlers

1. Playing a biker festival in a marquee in the worst rain ever. It was fine when we set up. The rain tipped into our gear boxes and I would get electectuted whenever I went to sing BVs so had to play the set on the drum riser. Same gig a monstrous drunk biker fell into the stage trashing a monitor.

2. Singer asks the guitarist to play the opening riff to Duality by Slipknot, which the guitarist does. Queue the singer going in to the song and the rest of the band all looking at each other trying to find a way in or out of a song we don't know and never rehearsed.

3. My band cancells a gig so I throw a load of talented musicians together with no notice and give them a list of songs to play. Fail of the worst kind. We still joke about it today.

4. We are headlining a biker festival in Hastings and I forget to pack my bass.

5. Start a gig and two strings fall off my bass at the same time.

6. We are sub headlining a festival and the singers knee gives way in the first song. We complete the set but it takes the band six montths to recover. However, we are headlining the festival this year ;-)

7. My band are supposed to be the opening act for a festival with the bands playing from the back of a truck. The generator doesn't work and it takes the organisers three hours to sort power, which was the whole show running from a single plug socket in a toilet with a nail for a fuse. We ended up headlining the festival as everyone else went home and the next night was rained off.

Ta

Mike

[Chest Rockwell]

drummers? gig last night...

me - hello?
drummer - what's happening?
me - well, it's 6pm and im outside the venue cos that's what we were told. Where are you?
drummer - I'm still in work.



he did make it tho and things went okay.


I did one gig (first and last) with a previous band where the guitarist liked a few drinks and a smoke. in our wannabee trad heavy metal stoner 3 song set, we hit the 3rd 'epic' tune with the Sabbathian building intro, then into the first verse and immediately guitar hero busts straight into the middle eight solo!! singer looks at me as he's supposed to be singing 'whats going on?', i look at him like 'dunno!' , i look at the drummer, he's like 'keep playing!', we carry on hoping the guitarist will realise his mistake and come back in somewhere. he wails for a bit, we change into the chorus, he's looking around wailing and getting angry, then he's motioning angrily for the four hits on the ride which signifies the end of the middle eight, which we didnt get anywhere near!! drummer does a four count and we just stop dead. applause. embarrassment.

good friends, but never again!

[tauzero]

New Year's Eve gig at a social club where they had decided that there were to be no children allowed. Audience consisted of about ten people, all of whom were older than the band (and we were no spring chickens). At least we won two out of the three bottles of (not terribly good) booze which were the raffle prizes.

Originals band, at the Barrel Organ, Digbeth in Birmingham - a well-known rock pub in those days. Audience consists of one man and a dog (literally), and I think his dog was there to take him home, going by how wobbly he was.

And another originals band I was with, a metal band, got booked in by an agent to a pub which I now can't remember. We get there and the place is full of stiffs. Our first set goes down like <blazing saddles>a twenty-dollar hore</blazing saddles>, and the landlord tells us to finish then. We don't get any money from anyone. I learn a valuable lesson about agents.

[Dave Vader]

I may be adding to this thread at the end of the month as my latest originals band (dreamy spacey kate bushy swooshy loveliness) have been booked to support Vice Squad (yep, that Vice Squad, Bristolian Punk) in Wales.

We may get lynched....