Things that annoy you...

[Trueno]

All of the above. I've left loads of bands due to one or the other and I'm now very relaxed about never gigging again.

My particular hates though...

Band members who don't rehearse the song and actually try to learn it at a rehearsal. Once had a keyboard player who turned up to a rehearsal with a brand new keyboard. He took it out of the box and started reading the manual and just made bleepy noises for the next two hours. Also had a drummer once who insisted on banging and crashing his drums every moment we weren't actually rehearsing a song. He didn't last long.

Drunks. "I can drink xxxx and it doesn't affect my performance". Oh yes it does.

Singers who say "if you buy us all a pint we'll play another one". I'm already tearing down my gear by the time he says that.

Singers who say "I think we should play some swing." Really? You can't even sing the rock songs properly, what makes you'll sound like Frank?

Oops... beginning to rant...

[Geek99]

On 07/04/2018 at 08:05, upside downer said:

At the moment, the singer and the drummer. Weirdly, our guitarist is no problem 😐

Maybe he is in a coma and thus unable to annoy 

[lurksalot]

35 minutes ago, Trueno said:

........ Once had a keyboard player who turned up to a rehearsal with a brand new keyboard. He took it out of the box and started reading the manual and just made bleepy noises for the next two hours.......

 that is so funny 

on a similar note.. our rhythm guitarist left , he did lots of BVs and harmonies , so the singer buys a multi voice harmonics box to  compensate. 

This box is uber complicated and uses lead guitarist plugged in to analyse the chords to create the harmonies . Neither knew how to use it effectively and very nearly caused the implosion of the band , especially when I started taking a microphone to add a touch of focus to the vocal line up 

[Trueno]

... the same keyboard player... referring to the stage lighting... "that light is shining right in my eyes... it's giving me a headache"

It's supposed to be rock'n'roll ffs.

By way of balance, worked with another keyboard player who was also a church organist... he was a rock monster and up for anything.

[Count Bassy]

Anyone who 'noodles' between songs in rehearsal, which is normally the guitarist, and generally bits of song that never will be in our repertoire.

Again in a rehearsals - Singers who insist on talking through their mic all the time, even though everyone else is conversing at normal volumes.

Oh - and band members who don't practice the agreed material but come along with loads of other suggestions instead.

 

Edited again- Singers who don't even own their own mic and do FA to help set up/breakdown.

 

Edited April 8, 2018 by Count Bassy

[stewblack]

6 hours ago, Count Bassy said:

Anyone who 'noodles' between songs in rehearsal, which is normally the guitarist, and generally bits of song that never will be in our repertoire.

Again in a rehearsals - Singers who insist on talking through their mic all the time, even though everyone else is conversing at normal volumes.

Oh - and band members who don't practice the agreed material but come along with loads of other suggestions instead.

 

Edited again- Singers who don't even own their own mic and do FA to help set up/breakdown.

 

This made me chuckle. I got severely glowered at for muting the singer's mic between songs in last week's rehearsal. 

[Barking Spiders]

I was probably one of the annoying things in bands I'd been in. I was the drummist in most of them so there's that for starters .  Sometimes I was asked to just keep an AC/DC type of steady beat, no fills etc. I just couldn't do that. I didnt want punters thinking that I was some bozo on a stool who could only hold down 4/4 rhythms.  In general I cant think of many things about the others that annoyed me though a lot of the rehearsal rooms we'd practise in were utter sh1tholes and often I couldn't wait to get out and go to the pub.

[Quilly]

Being treated as 'the help' because you 'only' play bass.  

[discreet]

8 minutes ago, Quilly said:

Being treated as 'the help' because you 'only' play bass.  

On the rare occasions I've experienced this attitude it's always from people who really can't play their own instruments. Funny, that.

[AdrianP]

For me, above everything else, there is one thing that really gets my goat. The band leader changing the key in which we play a song without telling anyone. Or, more specifically, without telling me.

A case in point. We had a band rehearsal on Saturday evening. One of the songs we're going to try to introduce into the set is an instrumental version of Jolene. Sounds all well and good. Been practicing it for a couple of weeks at home. Listen to the original on the commute into work each morning. Got the bass line down with a few nice fills. Plays in C#m. All good. We start to play and immediately it sounds like a car crash. I stop us after once round the verse and chorus.

Me:  "Er. What key are you guys playing in?"

BL and lead guitarist: "A minor. I know we're meant to play with a capo on the 4th but we thought we'd just try it like this".

Me: "And you didn't bother to tell me? Cheers."

So I'm busy transposing everything in my head as we set off again. And then I'm thinking, if the BL AND lead guitarist are both playing in Am, have they agreed this together? On their own? So now I'm peeved  AND paranoid.

I'm going to have to make sure the BL states precisely what key he wants to play in to avoid this sort of thing in the future. But this isn't the first time we've had this sort of thing. He texted me last week that we're doing a medley of Babe I'm Gonna Leave you and Jessica. But he tells the guitarist we're doing Babe... and Stairway to Heaven. In the end, we sort of did neither. But Jessica never got mentioned again.

Glad I got that off my chest.

[NancyJohnson]

My big bugbears:
Singer insisting on standing on stage while we're trying to set up.  Not helping at all.  Just standing there. In the way.
Singer insisting on standing on cables all the time.
Singer throwing his microphone stand down during piques of excitement, not worrying where it goes (shins, guitars, drums).
Singer unplugging stuff from my rack so he can plug in a wireless unit.
Singer leaving venue before we've broken down our gear.
Singer singing the wrong song.  This happened more than once.
Guitarist playing the wrong song.
 

I could go on and on and on.


 

Edited April 9, 2018 by NancyJohnson

[discreet]

10 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

Singer insisting on standing on stage while we're trying to set up.  Not helping at all.  Just standing there. In the way.
Singer insisting on standing on cables all the time.
Singer throwing his microphone stand down during piques of excitement, not worrying where it goes (shins, guitars, drums).
Singer unplugging stuff from my rack so he can plug in a wireless unit.
Singer leaving venue before we've broken down our gear.
Singer singing the wrong song.

Sounds like you need a new singer. What a complete and utter pain in the sphincter! 

[Quilly]

27 minutes ago, AdrianP said:

For me, above everything else, there is one thing that really gets my goat. The band leader changing the key in which we play a song without telling anyone. Or, more specifically, without telling me.

A case in point. We had a band rehearsal on Saturday evening. One of the songs we're going to try to introduce into the set is an instrumental version of Jolene. Sounds all well and good. Been practicing it for a couple of weeks at home. Listen to the original on the commute into work each morning. Got the bass line down with a few nice fills. Plays in C#m. All good. We start to play and immediately it sounds like a car crash. I stop us after once round the verse and chorus.

Me:  "Er. What key are you guys playing in?"

BL and lead guitarist: "A minor. I know we're meant to play with a capo on the 4th but we thought we'd just try it like this".

Me: "And you didn't bother to tell me? Cheers."

So I'm busy transposing everything in my head as we set off again. And then I'm thinking, if the BL AND lead guitarist are both playing in Am, have they agreed this together? On their own? So now I'm peeved  AND paranoid.

I'm going to have to make sure the BL states precisely what key he wants to play in to avoid this sort of thing in the future. But this isn't the first time we've had this sort of thing. He texted me last week that we're doing a medley of Babe I'm Gonna Leave you and Jessica. But he tells the guitarist we're doing Babe... and Stairway to Heaven. In the end, we sort of did neither. But Jessica never got mentioned again.

Glad I got that off my chest.

I should also state Capos are one of my pet hates and a là cartel key changing 

[Quilly]

2 hours ago, discreet said:

On the rare occasions I've experienced this attitude it's always from people who really can't play their own instruments. Funny, that.

Funnily enough the bass and drums are hardest to replace as well.

[rushscored4]

I should've mentioned in my OP... guitarists who change guitars every 2-3 songs 

[EliasMooseblaster]

32 minutes ago, AdrianP said:

For me, above everything else, there is one thing that really gets my goat. The band leader changing the key in which we play a song without telling anyone. Or, more specifically, without telling me.

I had this at a gig recently. It wasn't a deliberate act, just an unfortunate error that the guitarist put the capo on the 2nd fret rather than the 3rd. I was used to singing this particular song in Bb, and something didn't sound right...a quick look down at the guitar neck confirmed my suspicions, and I spent the next three minutes trying to shift the vocal line down a semitone whilst still trying to capture the gentle, summery wistfulness that this song is supposed to evoke.

I wouldn't have minded so much except that I was also the guitarist in this situation...

[Cat Burrito]

I think I've relaxed in recent years but for me it would be a mix of

• A drummer who unloads his cases in front of the bass amp so I can't set up (he's finished but can't be bothered to move them!)
• A guitarist who spends ages in soundcheck but then when I hit more than 3 notes tells me to hurry up
• People not learning songs when others (me!) have put the time in
• A singer in another band not seeming to want to return to any venues that aren't Madison Square Gardens!

Probably first world problems and generally I am pretty lucky with all my bands.

[discreet]

31 minutes ago, Cat Burrito said:

A drummer who unloads his cases in front of the bass amp so I can't set up (he's finished but can't be bothered to move them!)

I've seen this a lot. Also drummers who insist on setting up bang in the middle of the stage when it's obviously not the best use of space. What makes them think they're entitled to the ENTIRE bloody stage? Of course this is all a LOT more annoying if they're crap...

[ricksterphil]

45 minutes ago, Cat Burrito said:

• A singer in another band not seeming to want to return to any venues that aren't Madison Square Gardens!

Yep, had that one.  'I'm too old to play in shitty pubs' - she was in her 30's the rest of us were old farts in our 50's.

Oh and not getting back to me for 4 days if she was available for a gig we'd been offered....and then saying no to it!

She was a nightmare....brilliant blues voice though. We did a couple of Janis Joplin songs and she very nearly had me in tears she was that good

 

[NancyJohnson]

4 hours ago, discreet said:

Sounds like you need a new singer. What a complete and utter pain in the sphincter! 

I left and he was.

Another thing...we had a backdrop.  Despite their insistence that we use it at every gig, no one could be assed in help put the thing up.  Singer to busy standing on cables, drummer too busy being a drummer, guitarist getting temporary deafness whenever anyone asked him to do anything,

[discreet]

8 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I left and he was.

Sounds like you're better off out of it.

[Monkey Steve]

No matter what other people get up to, it's all fine until it isn't.

Then as soon as they start annoying me (whether for reasons within or outside of the band) then everything they do winds me up.

One example, a guitarist in an old band of mine was late for everything. Which was OK when the band was new and exciting and he was pulling his weight otherwise.  But over time other annoying traits emerged (best summed up as "he was a lead guitarist") and him being constantly late became so very, very irritating that the band came to blows over it, more than once.

[tauzero]

Since the drummer of the originals band stormed out of rehearsal and the slide guitarist took over the drum stool, there's been no noodling between songs at rehearsal (which used to annoy me as the guitarist and I were quite frequently trying to sort something out).

The club band I played in a few years ago had the same set in the same order for ever, but that didn't stop the singer and guitarist having their books (roughly the size of chained bibles) on stage. And even then, the alcoholic singer would rearrange songs at random, suddenly going into a verse or chorus that no-one was expecting, or deciding that seven bars of a 12-bar guitar solo was quite enough. His most criminal act, though, was when he introduced us as "my band".

And of course there's the times when I'm feeling grumpy, and everything annoys me.

[discreet]

1 minute ago, tauzero said:

And of course there's the times when I'm feeling grumpy, and everything annoys me.

An inevitable consequence of spending time on this rock, I'm afraid.

[mrtcat]

Only thing that bugs me is our singer. He used to complain gigs were too infrequent and under paid. Guitarist and I have worked so hard to get us on the books of a decent agency. Now that decent paying work is flying in singer continually says "hmm I'm going to have to see if my wife will let me do this one".