what's the worst thing that's happened to you onstage?

[deepbass5]

[quote name='wateroftyne' timestamp='1414155339' post='2586511']
Puked on some of the audience.

I'm not proud.
[/quote]


You mean you didnt choose or single anybody out from a particular class or background. random is good

[Monckyman]

In a similar vaudevillian manner I once enthusiastically span my red painted double bass ( ) and managed to clip the singers boom stand which caused the mic to thwack into his mouth at some speed.
Loss of a tooth for him and a severe bollocking for me lasting several months.

[lefrash]

At wickerman last year, just on our last song someone let off a smoke bomb, At first we all thought it was just a smoke machine but then it quickly escalated into all the sides of the tent getting lifted and the place geting evacuated. Police surrounding the tent. Luckily we had just finished the song before it got too bad, but our emcee did have to spew as soon as we got out of there! Abit mental to say the least!

[RhysP]

On guitar I once got up & played a solo with Todd Rundgren, misheard what he said when I asked what the key was & proceeded to play a truly terrible off key solo.

If that wasn't bad enough it was filmed & released on a commercial video so I can relive the nightmare whenever I want.....

Edited October 24, 2014 by RhysP

[JTUK]

Band member had a nervous breakdown ( let's call it that ) on stage...

Whole evening was a NIGHTMARE...

[UglyDog]

Some of this stuff is comedy gold. I'm crying here

[scalpy]

Plastic 'top hat' came off the selector switch of my tele without me noticing. Gave it all the full beans at the end of the song, arm in the air for the final chord, crashed into it and promptly impaled my thumb by half a cm. Blood everywhere, couldn't hold onto the plectrum and all this at a posh hotel for a wedding.

[CamdenRob]

[quote name='UglyDog' timestamp='1414163718' post='2586635']
Some of this stuff is comedy gold. I'm crying here
[/quote]

I'd be crying if WoT puked on me at one of his gigs.....

[BassTractor]

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1414161967' post='2586605']
played a solo with Todd Rundgren, misheard what he said when I asked what the key was
[/quote]

You Brits are just way too polite, and I'm gutted to see that even Todd thinks the first note is the key. I'd have thought better of him.
Kudos to you for not reverting to physical violence.

[leftybassman392]

This would have to be the night we played one of the rougher pubs in Northampton (Kings Heath - can't remember the name of the pub but if you lived there in the mid-late '90s you'll know it).

At different points in the evening we were:-
[list]
[*]offered stolen silver service cutlery by an off-duty bouncer the size & shape of a brick shithouse;
[*]treated to a Full Monty striptease by another dubious and slightly wobbly character (in front of a virtually all-male crowd) as we played 'Can't Get Enough Of Your Love';
[*]and witnessed the pub landlord being physically upturned by a couple more gentlemen of ample proportion and shaken until his money dropped out of his pockets and fell jangling to the floor.
[/list]

On the bright side we escaped pretty much unscathed, and the van still had all it's wheels when we packed up after the gig!

[Roger2611]

My first proper gig, circa 1988ish, High Hall, Birmingham supporting a band suitably named "Stress" who were number 12 in the charts on the day, I had only ever played to 1 man and his dog on my previous two pub gigs.....anyway part way through the 5th or 6th song my bass lead stopped working...no warning, no crackle, no nothing....I didn't know what had stopped working bass, amp, PA I turned my amp on and off....nothing, swapped to a spare bass...nothing....I wanted to die....somewhere around 800 people watching this Muppet standing there on stage looking dazed and confused....anyway finally the sound engineer arrived and threw another lead at me and shouted try that...thankfully it worked......have I ever been nervous onstage again....not a chance...do I still use a radio system...you betcha!

[leschirons]

A long long time ago we were supporting Black widow at Redbridge college. Our vocalist was so drunk and stoned that our mate who was roadie for the night actually stood behind him with arms around his chest and held him up to the mic. After 4 numbers, the SU organiser stopped our set and we had to do the walk of shame off stage with our gear.

It's like a cold sweat Vietnam flash-back when I think about this even after more than 40 years.

[Spike Vincent]

Attempted to pull off a Jean Jaques Burnel stylee karate kick, misjudged it and twatted the guitarist in the head knocking him out temporarily.

[Maude]

Many moons ago I used to have a smoke machine and strobe light that I'd rigged to trigger from a single homemade footswitch. We used to use it in Motorheads 'Overkill' every time the bass and drums came back in at the end. The switch would kill the coloured lights and turn on the smoke and strobe, I used to hide it behind my rig so it aimed behind the drummer, oh we were so cool :-).
Anyway, one gig I stepped on it, did the whole strobe/smoke/drums and bass thing, stamped on it to revert to normal lighting and broke the footswitch, we had to play the rest of the song lost in dense fog and blinded by strobes.
I fixed it after the song but it took another song before the smoke cleared enough to be able to see each other.
The drummer didn't like drumming with it on and was livid after that song.

Edited October 24, 2014 by Maude

[Funky Dunky]

This thread is hilarious!! Sorry for laughing, it must have been horrendous having some of these things happen to you during a gig.....but this is Spinal Taptastic!!

Edited October 24, 2014 by Funky Dunky

[KK Jale]

Amazing stories, wow.

Mine: town square festival in France. Big soul band from London, under-rehearsed, massive 40-song set. Made the journey by the skin of our teeth. 15 mins before showtime, baritone sax player (female) verbally attacks one of the lead singers (female) for smoking dope. Dope? She didn't know the half of it. The singer was way worse than that and she had now locked herself in the bathroom. You can guess why. I had to sweat bullets to coax her out and onstage.

After all that, I was shot. One song had a bass intro. I blanked it. Nothing. No clue. Appealed for help, but nobody could even hum the tune to me. Tumbleweed tumbled, aeons passed. 2000 people looked at me. I looked at them. Eventually the keyboard player busked an intro and got us in. Probably only twenty seconds of horror that makes me shudder even now…

Edited October 25, 2014 by KK Jale

[BigGuyAtTheBack]

Played the Moorings Bar, Aberdeen many moons ago. Long, low dark hole of a place and some well dodgy 'characters'. Anyhoo the stage is very small and had really bright spotlights so you were squinting and could hardly see the crowd (bonus). Just finishing a tune and a half full can of coke comes flying thro the air and smacks me right on the forehead! I was f*****g rageing!!!! Jumped off the stage into the crowd with my old Aria Pro above my head and the wee twat that chucked it sh*t it and started running for the door. Being a wee slippery twat he got between the bouncers, unfortunately (fortunately?) the bouncers caught me! Back to the stage , covered in coke cola and a big round of applause. I love dive bars, spent the next day getting the sticky mess off the bass Grrrr!

[4 Strings]

[quote name='Funky Dunky' timestamp='1414135632' post='2586174']
I haven't gigged as a bassist yet, so nothing on that front, although back when I was a guitarist my amp cut out completely at a part of the song where all the instruments were supposed to drop out and leave the guitar playing a neat accompaniment to the singer. Cue me playing and kicking my amp, and hoping for the best. It came back on about three seconds after my part stopped. That was my first ever gig, too. On my fourth gig, the strap lock broke on my Strat.

My mate was taking his first live guitar solo when his amp fell off the beer crates it was stacked on.

But nothing tops Guthrie Govan, who developed a faulty lead/jack situation during a gig and used a hairband just over the nut, and played the whole gig on left-hand strength alone because he used his right hand to hold his lead in place....
[/quote]

I love watching Guthrie (and his brother) and, being a tad flash, no doubt took a little pleasure in coping with that burden!

(I'm sure another response would be that 'John Suhr doesn't make the jack sockets'!)

[4 Strings]

Great fun!

Mine was a stage block happening, got a little enthusiastic and they spread beneath me, you know the 'overcentre' thing, the more I struggle to try and bring them together the further apart they go until I had to give up and disappear (only up to my waist) into the hole, not dropping a beat!

Got back up while some people pushed it all back together again and carried on playing to people pointing and giggling and I'm thinking 'yes, very funny but it's over now' until I realised the stretching had pulled my flies wide apart and what was hanging out wasn't supposed to be part of the show (fortunately I had clean on underneath!). Such was my commitment I waited until the end of the song.

[Dad3353]

[size=4]The 'St. Sylvestre' (New Year's Eve...) is/was a major event in a musician's calendar here in France; unusually I had decided to not accept dates (newly-born kiddy, at home with the family...). A buddy proposed a last-minute 'dep', on bass, which I accepted only because it was on 'home ground', about 5 kms from home. The evening started well, and, as is tradition, the band (I knew only my buddy amongst them...) were at table with everyone for a feast. I am not a drinker, but partook, very moderately, of the white wine served with the sea-food course. The rest of the meal went off smoothly. Time to play...
The dancing started off OK, and I was keeping up quite nicely on bass, but I remember little of the proceedings from then on; I'm told that I finished up in the early hours on drums. I don't know how I got home, but seeing my increasing agitated state, my better half thought it best to call, firstly our doctor, then an ambulance. At first put down to excesses and revelries, it turned out to be a violent allergic reaction to white wine. I spent the next fortnight in hospital. I now know not to drink white wine; so much for the quiet, family, New Year..![/size]

Edited October 25, 2014 by Dad3353

[FinnDave]

I've stepped back off the edge a stage at least twice, the last time was earlier this year and I dropped nearly 2 feet into the space between the stage and a pool table. Our drummer was most impressed as apparently I didn't miss a single note. Didn't do my back a lot of good, though!.

[billfaro]

Great Stories. Nothing to do with the subject, but i saw the Kinks live in our local cinema may years ago. Dave Davis walked over to Mick Avory and punched him really hard in the ear. We thought he was going to fall of his stool. But he just carried on playing as did Dave Davis. Then we seen Ray Davis glaring at his brother. And they carried on playing for a further 20 minutes. But i would have thought Mick would have a stinker of a headache though, a probably a cauliflower lug next day.

[chris_b]

My toes still curl up when I think about it! So I'm not telling.

On another occasion; we had a girl in the audience of a residency we did who fancied the drummer. She used to get up and dance on stage. Not very pretty but lively.
One night she got carried away and got her tits out. Big. Nice. Then even more carried away and flashed at the drummer. . . displaying a perfect "meat and 2 veg"!!

Apparently she/he was saving up for the rest of the change over!

[billfaro]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1414235435' post='2587328']
My toes still curl up when I think about it! So I'm not telling.

On another occasion; we had a girl in the audience of a residency we did who fancied the drummer. She used to get up and dance on stage. Not very pretty but lively.
One night she got carried away and got her tits out. Big. Nice. Then even more carried away and flashed at the drummer. . . displaying a perfect "meat and 2 veg"!!

Apparently she/he was saving up for the rest of the change over!
[/quote]

[Bassman Sam]

I was playing a gig in a pub in Glasgow where we were the resident band. A squaddie had just got home on leave and was trying to drink the pub dry.

During our second set, he went mental and started throwing tables and chairs around. Then he ran towards the stage and decked the singer. I was behind him as he made is way towards the guitarist and I twatted him around the head with my Rickenbacker. I think that annoyed him more that hurt him as he checked, turned and knocked me clean out.

The bouncers managed to remove him while I was still out cold. Early end to that gig.