Your Worst Gig Ever

[drlargepants]

Where was this ? Just curious !

[ern500evo]

2 minutes ago, drlargepants said:

Where was this ? Just curious !

Cadbury Court, I think it’s called Cadbury House and is quite a posh hotel now. 

[drlargepants]

So it is, lol !

[ern500evo]

1 minute ago, drlargepants said:

So it is, lol !

I had a very similar experience at the Winter Gardens in Weston super Mare! Looking back now, I don’t know why the type of venue didn’t raise alarm bells immediately! 😂

[chris_b]

11 hours ago, ern500evo said:

I had a very similar experience at the Winter Gardens in Weston super Mare! Looking back now, I don’t know why the type of venue didn’t raise alarm bells immediately! 😂

We supported Status Quo in the Winter Gardens. We were 100 yds away from the stage, in a far part of the building and on another floor, and when they started we had to shout to be heard  in the dressing room!

[upside downer]

I was hoping to post a little more regularly this year in the 'How was your gig last night?' topic, unfortunately events last Friday have put paid to that.

We played at one of our regular haunts last weekend, it's a pub that has a band night every Friday, long established. We'd just started the second set when a fella comes up and asks our singer (one of my long time friends) if he can sing. I recognise the chap as a member of the travelling community who lives on a site nearby. They'd been a traveller's funeral the day before in the next town. I notice he's with around 10 or so of his cohorts. Our singer politely deals with him yet he comes up twice more asking the same question. He goes away after the third time, an atmosphere develops in the room and soon there's a scuffle in front of us. The singer's wife and daughters are caught up in the melee and within seconds punches are thrown. A woman is hit on the head and staggers toward me. As I'm checking if she's OK pint glasses start flying toward us. The playing area is covered with broken glass and one of the singer's daughters falls to the floor, blood pouring from a wound. The perpetrators vacate the pub, the poor girl has a nasty looking gash in her forehead. Some chaps caught up in it have black eyes and bruises but nothing too serious. Police and ambulance there 5 minutes later. Pub evacuated, we clear and clean up in near silence, shock and disbelief the overriding emotion. We agree to let the dust settle for a few days before deciding on what to do next.

The following day the singer and drummer decide to quit. Drummer worried about repercussions, singer angry the band members didn't do more to protect his family. He's emotional, it's not the right time to point out it's difficult to steam in with potentially blinding shards of glass flying around your head. They and the guitarist want to play one more gig (a big one for us) in seven months time. I say I'm not sure, I'm still processing the events of the previous 24 hours. Singer furious with me, "We'll get a dep" etc.

What a horrible evening. 18 year old girl likely to have a nasty scar, band over and a falling out with my friend.

 

[uk_lefty]

Truly awful mate. Hope the poor girl isn't left with a scar. 

[Daz39]

9 minutes ago, upside downer said:

I was hoping to post a little more regularly this year in the 'How was your gig last night?' topic, unfortunately events last Friday have put paid to that.

We played at one of our regular haunts last weekend, it's a pub that has a band night every Friday, long established. We'd just started the second set when a fella comes up and asks our singer (one of my long time friends) if he can sing. I recognise the chap as a member of the travelling community who lives on a site nearby. They'd been a traveller's funeral the day before in the next town. I notice he's with around 10 or so of his cohorts. Our singer politely deals with him yet he comes up twice more asking the same question. He goes away after the third time, an atmosphere develops in the room and soon there's a scuffle in front of us. The singer's wife and daughters are caught up in the melee and within seconds punches are thrown. A woman is hit on the head and staggers toward me. As I'm checking if she's OK pint glasses start flying toward us. The playing area is covered with broken glass and one of the singer's daughters falls to the floor, blood pouring from a wound. The perpetrators vacate the pub, the poor girl has a nasty looking gash in her forehead. Some chaps caught up in it have black eyes and bruises but nothing too serious. Police and ambulance there 5 minutes later. Pub evacuated, we clear and clean up in near silence, shock and disbelief the overriding emotion. We agree to let the dust settle for a few days before deciding on what to do next.

The following day the singer and drummer decide to quit. Drummer worried about repercussions, singer angry the band members didn't do more to protect his family. He's emotional, it's not the right time to point out it's difficult to steam in with potentially blinding shards of glass flying around your head. They and the guitarist want to play one more gig (a big one for us) in seven months time. I say I'm not sure, I'm still processing the events of the previous 24 hours. Singer furious with me, "We'll get a dep" etc.

What a horrible evening. 18 year old girl likely to have a nasty scar, band over and a falling out with my friend.

 

They're his family, you're not. He should either have a) not had them come or b) put up a better fight.

*Note - I'm largely pacifist and would also be in shock, but you lot did nothing to start the fight, why are you responsible for his family's wellbeing - does he pay you protection money?!

[Monkey Steve]

19 minutes ago, Daz39 said:

They're his family, you're not. He should either have a) not had them come or b) put up a better fight.

*Note - I'm largely pacifist and would also be in shock, but you lot did nothing to start the fight, why are you responsible for his family's wellbeing - does he pay you protection money?!

funny how, when something untoward happens at a gig, there's always one band member who is very keen to blame everybody else...

[skankdelvar]

40 minutes ago, upside downer said:

What a horrible evening.

Jesus, that's just an appalling set of events. You (and your band mates) have my complete sympathy 

It's the sort of thing that would throw anyone for a loop so, like you say, maybe let everyone cool down for a couple of weeks.

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, upside downer said:

They and the guitarist want to play one more gig (a big one for us) in seven months time. I say I'm not sure, I'm still processing the events of the previous 24 hours. Singer furious with me, "We'll get a dep" etc.

Haven't they left?

I don't know, something like that isn't an every day event so decisions about future events should probably be left until people have had a chance to cool down and think about it.

[upside downer]

8 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

Haven't they left?

I don't know, something like that isn't an every day event so decisions about future events should probably be left until people have had a chance to cool down and think about it.

I agree, unfortunately the decision has been taken. Our singer is quite impulsive at the best of times and it can be hard to reason with him, and it's even harder now seeing as it's his daughter who came out of it all with a bad injury. He's understandably angry. I bet the incident is running over and over in his mind, the 'could I have done more?' scenario. I tried to talk about putting the future of the band aside for a few days but he's not listening. And I get that. I just wish that he wasn't using his frustration to have a go at the band members. 

[Woodinblack]

41 minutes ago, upside downer said:

I agree, unfortunately the decision has been taken. Our singer is quite impulsive at the best of times and it can be hard to reason with him, and it's even harder now seeing as it's his daughter who came out of it all with a bad injury.

Yeh, sadly not much of a way round that apart from a hope that when it has all calmed down, those things said in anger will be overlooked for one of those understandable things that happen. Only time is going to tell on that, and of course, probably depends on how bad the injury to his daughter turns out to be.

 

 

[ern500evo]

Wow, that must’ve been horrible for you all. I’ve down a few gigs over the years where fights have broken out, one which was particularly nasty. I grew up on a pretty rough council estate, where pub fights weren’t unusual, but it still gives you a shock when you’re at a gig and seeing chaos erupt in front of you. Hope singers daughter isn’t left with a scar, poor girl. I don’t really see why he’s venting his anger at the band members though. I think if I was doing a pub gig now, with my wife present and could feel a atmosphere developing, I’d ask her to leave. 

[chris_b]

Told to me by a guitarist who played with a singer from the 60's, who had number 1 hits. This guy was an alcoholic and always got whizzed before the gig. One night he excelled himself and drank his supply and the green room dry. The band used to play the first number without him and then played him on. To get to the stage he had to walk down a flight of stairs. He got about half way before he started to fall. He was hanging on to the bannisters and doing a partially controlled tumble down the final flight. As he staggered down stage to the mic stand the band noticed (in horror) that during this entrance he'd plopped himself and a massive brown stain was spreading all over the back of his white trousers.

[Low End Bee]

Keeping in the 60s icons vein. Mate of mine was a guitarist for a famous drummer's band. He used to change the set list on the fly and he was meant to know by the power of telepathy. He would regularly get a flying drumstick in the back of the head as he intro'd a song and then the drummer would mouth the title of the song he wanted to play instead to him.

[Billleivers]

21st birthday party in a village hall nearby. We played 2 sets and literally nobody responded to anything - no applause, no dancing, not even any heckling. 

When we'd finished , well whizzed off, the birthday girl came up to us and said we were great - so why the bloody hell didn't you acknowledge our existence?!

Silver lining - birthday girl's dad booked us for a cricket tournament evening shindig and we've played it every year for 3 years now. 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Billleivers
wrong word inserted

[Bluewine]

No real drama to share. Most of our bad gigs are gigs we shouldn't have taken in the first place.

 

Weddings, we're not a wedding band.

Private Practice, the host are big fans of the band, they're guests are not.

Blue

[chris_b]

11 hours ago, Billleivers said:

Silver lining - birthday girl's dad booked us for a cricket tournament evening shindig and we've played it every year for 3 years now. 

This is why you always give every gig 101%.

No matter how bad a gig is there is always the possibility that someone, who can help the band (or you), is listening. I was asked to join a good band once because the band leader, who had dropped in for a beer, was impressed that I was giving it my all to a couple of disinterested punters.

[Monkey Steve]

3 minutes ago, chris_b said:

This is why you always give every gig 101%.

No matter how bad a gig is there is always the possibility that someone, who can help the band (or you), is listening. I was asked to join a good band once because the band leader, who had dropped in for a beer, was impressed that I was giving it my all to a couple of disinterested punters.

exactly this.

Best example from experience was a gig on old band of mine played at a music pub in Brixton, probably 25 years ago.  The gig was in a large music room with a stage, it wasn't our usual catchment area, and when we started it was literally just our girlfriends, the bar staff and two random blokes at the bar.  Turns out one  of the blokes was a music journalist, who was very impressed and gave us a steer on suitable venues and some general tips.  We also got a load of people drifting in from the main pub once we were a couple of songs in.

Worst example, a singer with a great voice in a band from a couple of years ago, but who had a terrible stage presence.  If the venue was half empty then he'd take it out on the crowd that had actually showed up, and put in a half arsed performance.  Never did us any favours with the punters or the venues

[Billleivers]

6 hours ago, chris_b said:

This is why you always give every gig 101%.

No matter how bad a gig is there is always the possibility that someone, who can help the band (or you), is listening. I was asked to join a good band once because the band leader, who had dropped in for a beer, was impressed that I was giving it my all to a couple of disinterested punters.

Yep. its a mistake to think that people aren't enjoying it just because they're not jumping around like maniacs!

[Leonard Smalls]

7 hours ago, chris_b said:

This is why you always give every gig 101%.

I'd love to know how to give 101%.

That Simon Cowell appears to be able to do things "1000000%", but I can't get any better than a measly 100% of what is possible.

What am I doing wrong?

😎

[KevB]

Not sure if worst in actual performance or not but most stressful was when a mate asked me to dep a 2 x 1 hr set gig at a reasonably posh restaurant. It would be a gtr-vocal/bass/drums trio (nowhere to hide in a trio) and about 2 weeks before the gig he finally sent me a list of songs to learn. 45 songs in fact. Then after a stressful couple of weeks trying to cram all these songs in we did the gig. We played exactly 6 songs from the list, the rest were tunes he called out which weren't on the list, most of which were unknown to me. I'm not a guitarist so watching his hands wasn't much help and for a lot of the time he was stood in front of a stage light shining across the stage which meant I was mostly looking at a silhouette anyway. Finally the restaurant owner came out and we had to back him singing a Sinatra song which I don't think was on the list either.

We've stayed mates though and might be doing some duo gigs with backing tracks at some point in the future. At least then he will have to stick to the set list!

 

[ubit]

I have so many bad gig memories that it’s like Spinal Tap. Once, many years ago we played at a wedding. The venue was in a hotel/ stately home type place. The dance hall where we set up had this wooden floor. The woman who owned it moaned constantly about our stands scratching her floor. The bar was in another room adjacent to the dance hall. You can guess what happened. Everyone sat in the bar. We played the whole evening to four little kids sliding back and forwards across this highly pollished floor. It was excruciating. 

[ubit]

On 07/02/2019 at 22:43, Billleivers said:

21st birthday party in a village hall nearby. We played 2 sets and literally nobody responded to anything - no applause, no dancing, not even any heckling. 

When we'd finished , well whizzed off, the birthday girl came up to us and said we were great - so why the bloody hell didn't you acknowledge our existence?!

Silver lining - birthday girl's dad booked us for a cricket tournament evening shindig and we've played it every year for 3 years now. 

We played a party once. There were only about forty people there. It’s was a decent sized hall. Quite a high percentage of the crowd were little kids ( we do seem to have a problem with playing to little kids. I love them really, honest). No one was dancing. We played one set , then another. Still no dancing. A few weeks later I was asking the guitarist about the fee and where was my cut. He said I didn’t want to tell you but the girl didn’t want to pay us, because she thought we hadn’t done enough to get people up dancing. I hit the roof. He said that’s what I thought you would do. The couple had seen us play in the pubs. Liked what they saw, but thought it was up to us to get thirty adults to dance when it was bright, they were sober and there were kids running across the dance floor!