What's the worst reception you've ever had doing a gig?

[Beedster]

Keyboard player set fire to me during the gig, City of London Poly, early 80's. Not entirely an act of musical criticism although I suspect that since we were both vying for the lower register at the time some degree of unconscious intent was involved. Lessons learned: (1) never let the stylist use a whole can of Elnett to get your hair in place, even if you are the bassist in a hair band, and (2) don't let the keyboard player flick cigarettes across the stage in your general direction when trying to act cool.

[Spike Vincent]

On 20/05/2018 at 10:03, Cat Burrito said:

We played a Skinhead pub in Brockworth in '94 looking like below. The lowest point was when a bar stool was thrown at the band onstage.... so we did an encore! They offered what could only be described as a "carry to the car" service once we finished. Apparently the pub closed down in the late 90s.

Not the Flying Machine, by any chance ?

[Cat Burrito]

1 hour ago, Spike Vincent said:

Not the Flying Machine, by any chance ?

You have some personal experience?

[DaveAlex_ZAR]

The very first gig we did was a type of charity event, we had been jamming together for about 7 or 8 months, if anyone read my intro, the genre of music is Afrikaans Boeremusiek, and in SA they locals take it very seriously.

Anyway, the rhythm guitarist, Henk, hears about the gig, a local music school who teach music as well as normal subjects are having a "Review" for the 6-10 year olds on a Saturday night and were looking for some local bands to play afterwards as entertainment.   He decided that if we dont gig, we never will and signed us up (to play for free) and informed us via WhatsApp.

This was the Tuesday. (Have a video of some rehersal tracks, if anyone wants to poison there ears with Boeremusiek).

Frantic three days of getting together a setlist, working out keys as well as an inexperienced drummer, we come to gig night.

Now, first up are the kids, two sessions, packed hall full of parents, friends, teachers and community..... we go on second to open for a more established local band, and the idea being, if there is time a second set each later.

So we work on a 12 song setlist, and have about 6 in the bag if needed for later. On a side-note Boeremusiek is 90% instrumental, so no singer.

The kids go up, and its basically about 12 kids each with various size guitars strumming a few chord progressions, and the music teacher playing some solo stuff with them. For seasoned music lovers probably painful, but for young children they tried, so friends and family were wildly cheering after each number... Kumbaya and the like, and locals from the community who were here to see the big band later were fighting to get to the bar or plug each others ears... stray cats were no-where to be found around the hall that evening.

Then we were up, started with a fast 12 Bar boogie settled in to some more traditional staff and got through about 4 songs, people dancing, got the applause, was going good.... and then....

Side-note, in the Afrikaans language the letter C.... pronounced "See-ah" can be very similar to the letter G.... pronounced "Gee-ah". As Afrikaans and Boeremusiek was not my style of choice, everytime we would play a tune, Ian on lead would shout the name of the tune to the other members, and shout the key to me, so as long as I know where the majors and minors were, I could fit in pretty well (Circle of fifths work).

So Ian starts the lead intro, and myself and Willem on drums come in after 4 Bars, with Henk following.... easy.... Except... Ian shouts C.... Dave hears G.... Ian kicks off the tune, Dave and Willem kick in... Dave's out of key... Henk, who plays barre chords most of the time and follows me, hears there a fault and sees me struggling to find the key, kicks in on a minor, it sounded like 3 buskers fighting a music battle with three different tunes on a Brum street corner, and Willem just bashes the crap out the drums.... so it collapsed into silence, Ian trying to apologize on a mic.

And there... from the crowd below is this 6ft square Afrikaaner, who takes his music seriously, look at us... and screams "Bring terug die kinders" (Bring back the kids) echoed by a few other drunk patrons behind.

Well, we didnt get chased out... but the sorta embarrassment made sure we were faultless for the rest of the night.  The fear of those purist Afrikaner music lovers made sure of that!!!

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by DaveAlex_ZAR