Your Worst Gig Ever

[Steve Browning]

Verbal contract. Small Claims Court.

[ubit]

Talking of playing to no one. We played a pub in Mallaig once. First time we had ever played there. First set we played to the barman. Thing is, during our break, the place filled up and it turned into a great night. We went on to play there quite a few times and always got a good night.

A tale of two sets. 

 

Nb. In reference to my earlier post. We did get paid quite a while later. The girls boyfriend convinced her to pay us. 

[ubit]

We played at this guys 40th birthday party. Great night. Packed with lots of folks who loved us. Guy was so impressed that he asked us to play next year at his wedding. Great, we thought. 

We turned up and it was in a big tent. The wind was wild and we had a problem with flapping canvas all night. Anyway, our set consisted of a mixture of rock/pop/ country and traditional Scottish. We started and half way through our first song this guy interrupts us and says, no, we want you to play traditional tunes. I told him that we would but we would play them later after we played our other songs. Next song, same thing happened. I’m starting to lose patience. Finally we played some trad music. They danced. We then carried on with our other songs. Nothing, but this guy continually interrupting us and saying play traditional. Eventually he appeared with a CD player and asked to play it through our pa. by this time I was miserable. We eventually tracked down the groom who was trousered and complained about this guy, who turned out to be the best man. He had a word and we were allowed to carry on with our set as normal. It bombed. The best man must have spread his disdain at our choice of songs. Clearly the grooms guests were a completely different crowd than the ones that had been at his 40th. It was a real beam me up Scotty evening. 

[KevB]

The tale of two sets thing seems quite common especially in big villages or small market towns. You have a population that sticks to a certain order of pubs they go to so you can have a quiet first set because they are all at their 'early doors' pub but then all turn up at the place youre playing to coincide with your second set.

[mcnach]

2 hours ago, ubit said:

Talking of playing to no one. We played a pub in Mallaig once. First time we had ever played there. First set we played to the barman. Thing is, during our break, the place filled up and it turned into a great night. We went on to play there quite a few times and always got a good night.

A tale of two sets. 

 

 

The Steam Inn?

[ubit]

3 minutes ago, mcnach said:

 

The Steam Inn?

Can’t remember, it was on the right hand side of the hill as you went up it. 

[mcnach]

15 minutes ago, ubit said:

Can’t remember, it was on the right hand side of the hill as you went up it. 

 

Yup, that's the one, next to a little SPAR (I think) shop, with a beer garden behind, and the walls painted a very interesting shade of... yellow/green? Hard to tell. They have a few rooms too.

Restaurant on the left side, where bands play, and bar on the right. There's a fireplace right behind where the band sets up, and you MUST remember to ask them to put it down well in advance, or you'll have a toasted drummer. 

We've played there many times, and it's always been busy in the end... but sometimes it looked a bit sad to start. We had some 'fans' who would always be there from the start, but sets would be variable. We generally played 3 sets and had to time the breaks well because all it takes is one little group deciding to try the other bar up the road and suddenly you've lost 15-20 people, in a bar that holds maybe 100 at best? Although I'm sure sometimes we had more people there... It's one bar where we actually barricade ourselves in as the locals can get pretty... enthusiastic

Last time there owner was a bit 'erratic' and we got a bit fed up with her attitude, and two of the guys don't seem keen to return. We'll see. Typically we'd play there at the beginning of the summer and then at the end, so if we go back I'll find out soon. It was a fun place to play, mostly.

 

[tauzero]

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. 

Had a similar experience with one former band (but without the silver lining) - we played at one pub where we were pretty much ignored. At the end, with the guitarist in a fine sulk and going on about never playing there again, I went to get the money off the landlady. She told us we were great, and that the customers had all been telling her how good we were. It would have been nice if they'd let us know too.

[ubit]

26 minutes ago, mcnach said:

 

Yup, that's the one, next to a little SPAR (I think) shop, with a beer garden behind, and the walls painted a very interesting shade of... yellow/green? Hard to tell. They have a few rooms too.

Restaurant on the left side, where bands play, and bar on the right. There's a fireplace right behind where the band sets up, and you MUST remember to ask them to put it down well in advance, or you'll have a toasted drummer. 

We've played there many times, and it's always been busy in the end... but sometimes it looked a bit sad to start. We had some 'fans' who would always be there from the start, but sets would be variable. We generally played 3 sets and had to time the breaks well because all it takes is one little group deciding to try the other bar up the road and suddenly you've lost 15-20 people, in a bar that holds maybe 100 at best? Although I'm sure sometimes we had more people there... It's one bar where we actually barricade ourselves in as the locals can get pretty... enthusiastic

Last time there owner was a bit 'erratic' and we got a bit fed up with her attitude, and two of the guys don't seem keen to return. We'll see. Typically we'd play there at the beginning of the summer and then at the end, so if we go back I'll find out soon. It was a fun place to play, mostly.

 

We played a long time ago. Must have been different owners because I remember it was a guy we dealt with. Steam Inn doesn’t ring a bell and it certainly wouldn’t hold 100 people. It had a lower area , a couple of steps and the bar and band area were on the top level. I think there was a lounge bar next door. The people were great craic if they liked you and we always got invited to a party afterwards. I copped off with birds regularly up there. Good times!  👍🤘

[tauzero]

It's not been a frequent occurrence by any means, but sometimes you encounter the loud-mouthed critical bully. They tend to be beefy psychopaths, so I don't get drawn in to arguments with them (strong sense of self-preservation, or devout cowardice, one of the two).

 

[ubit]

42 minutes ago, tauzero said:

It's not been a frequent occurrence by any means, but sometimes you encounter the loud-mouthed critical bully. They tend to be beefy psychopaths, so I don't get drawn in to arguments with them (strong sense of self-preservation, or devout cowardice, one of the two).

 

We started playing once in one of the towns tougher joints. Just as we started , a group of boys came in. That was rubbish one of them said. It wasn’t rubbish I said. What did you say? He retorted. I said look, you might not like it but it’s not rubbish. Right you and me outside was his reply. I said no bother pal, just as soon as we finish playing I’ll see you outside. I’m in no doubt I could have taken this little scrote , but the trouble is he comes from a family of famous crazy flipers and I was starting to think maybe this wasn’t such a good move. Luckily during our break he came up to me and apologised. Ah, it’s just the drink mate. No bother I said. Phew! I don’t know if he had possibly talked to some of his relations , because we were in quite good favour with them because we were in the band and they liked us. Whatever happened I was glad and also amazed at how these idiots can so quickly get to I want to fight you stage. They can’t have a disagreement without wanting to settle it with violence. 

[Rich]

Another tale of two sets...

Many years ago when I lived in Swindon, my blues-rock trio (Hendrix, Gary Moore, ZZ Top etc) had a booking at the Plessey Social Club... when we walked through the door, we lowered the average age in the room by about 40 years. As we set up, I could feel the glares from the light-&-bitter brigade burning holes in the back of my head. We had backline and a vocal PA only, nothing DI'd or miked up -- Steve the drummer was first to get set up, he sat down and picked up a stick and hit his snare drum ONCE... and I heard a croaky old voice from out in the shadows say, "ooh, it's a bit loud..." 

Predictably the first set was horrendous, every song met with almost total silence apart from a few “turn it down”s from some of the coffin-dodgers and one or two claps. One of them even walked right up to me mid-song, stuck his fingers in his ears and bellowed “It's TOO LOUD”.

End of the first set couldn’t have come soon enough for me. When it did, the club MC asked if he could borrow one of our mics to do the bingo. Ye gods.

Eventually we couldn’t put the second set off any longer and trudged to the stage. I was just putting my bass on when a woman approached me. I thought, if she tells me to turn it down I’m just going to pack up and sod off home. But she said cheerfully, “OK lads, all the old farts have buggered off, they only come for the bingo... you can turn it back up now”. So we did  needless to say, the second set was a lot better and we never set foot in there again 

[Bluewine]

13 hours ago, ubit said:

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. 

I've found whenever the bar is in a separate room from where your playing the band is doomed.

Blue

[JapanAxe]

3 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

I've found whenever the bar is in a separate room from where your playing the band is doomed.

Blue

So true!

[taunton-hobbit]

8 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

I've found whenever the bar is in a separate room from where your playing the band is doomed.

This is the problem with appearing at venues with absolutely zero idea of the mechanics of gigging.

I was once told by some cretin 'I know about entertaiment' my reply was something on the lines of 'yup, paying to get in, you mean'...........

😎

[mcnach]

13 hours ago, ubit said:

We played a long time ago. Must have been different owners because I remember it was a guy we dealt with. Steam Inn doesn’t ring a bell and it certainly wouldn’t hold 100 people. It had a lower area , a couple of steps and the bar and band area were on the top level. I think there was a lounge bar next door. The people were great craic if they liked you and we always got invited to a party afterwards. I copped off with birds regularly up there. Good times!  👍🤘

 

Ah, it looks like they merged with the bar next door, and that's where the band plays now (which is the restaurant during the day). The other side is as you describe, and much smaller.

The after gig parties still happen

[Bluewine]

At the bar band dance hall level you never should put a band in a room without a fully staffed bar ready for business.

The band should always be staged close to where alcohol sales are made.

I have no clue what these owners are thinking that put bands in barless rooms.

Blue

[ubit]

3 hours ago, Bluewine said:

At the bar band dance hall level you never should put a band in a room without a fully staffed bar ready for business.

The band should always be staged close to where alcohol sales are made.

I have no clue what these owners are thinking that put bands in barless rooms.

Blue

They were amateurs who were trying to get into the wedding/function business. Clearly they had no idea. Everyone knows that punters will gather round the bar. To expect them to retire to the hall for a dance is ridiculous!  The ironic thing is, there was room in the bar area where we could have set up. Would have been more like playing a pub, but at least it would have been more enjoyable for all involved. 

Edited February 10, 2019 by ubit

[tauzero]

Last night... A pub we've played before. I was doing the PA rather than the percussionist. Setting up was stressful as the others milled around getting in the way, and trying to get levels was a pain in the bum. "I can't hear it" "That's because I'm trying to set the input levels". Then both my active speakers went wonky - one went woofer only, the other went tweeter only (which we could have coped with) then the one that went tweeter only became intermittent. The percussionist lives just round the corner so he nipped back for his speakers. The guitarist/vocalist's guitar suddenly stopped providing an output, so he went to his backup one, which didn't work either, so I swapped leads, still didn't work, then he thought of turning it up. We got going about 20 minutes after we'd originally planned to. I kept getting signals from Mrs Zero to put vocals up which I couldn't do, as I'd already got the levels right up on the mixer and couldn't get to the speakers to knock the level up on them. Then the percussionist's cajon's front panel split. Finally, after a couple of encores, the replacement PA also gave up the ghost.

Upshot - they gave us an extra £20 and we've got a few more gigs there. It could have been worse. Speaker with woofer only just needed tweeter reconnecting. Speaker with tweeter only is working perfectly happily. Instrument cable I was worried about is fine.

[Ric5]

My worst gig … 

I was playing in a blues band and we had a gig lined up at a dive bar and we had played there before and it was not too bad. The bar changed management and scared off all of the regulars. We showed up and started loading in the bartender told us there was no band tonight and we showed her the flier on the wall right in front of her. So we load in set up and start playing. At this point there are 3 people on stage and one bartender and one customer. Neither the bartender or the customer want to hear a blues band and they tell us they would rather listen to the juke box. 

 

So we packed up and left never to come back

[gjones]

Years ago I played in a duo with my brother in law. We were booked to play a gig in a small bar. When we arrived it was empty, except for the landlord and a little guy, obviously drunk, sitting at the bar.

We sat and played, for about 30 mins, to an almost empty bar. This was bad enough, but suddenly the guy at the bar starting howling along to the music like a dog.  Eventually I got so whizzed off, with the drunken leprechaun, that I put my bass down, walked over to him, picked him up bodily and threw him out the door.

Of course it wasn't long before he scuttled back in and went back to his pint at the bar (but with no howling this time).

We finished the gig and, although astoundingly the landlord asked us to play again the next week, we never went back.

[ubit]

We were booked to play on Mull. A large island near our home town. The bar had told us there was a large crowd of students on some weekend break and he wanted entertainment for them. The bar provided a massive pot of chilli for the students which they tucked into gleefully, especially as it was free. We set up fighting to move amongst all these drunken students   Just before we struck our first note, the students as if given a sign from some unknown source, all got up and buggered off! The place just emptied. We were left playing to the bar staff and a couple of farmer types who had little interest in us. It was a rubbish night !The students were totally out of order to accept the free food and then leave, especially when entertainment had been  put  on for them. 

[ubit]

On 09/02/2019 at 09:58, KevB said:

The tale of two sets thing seems quite common especially in big villages or small market towns. You have a population that sticks to a certain order of pubs they go to so you can have a quiet first set because they are all at their 'early doors' pub but then all turn up at the place youre playing to coincide with your second set.

We find this happens when we play locally. You play your whole first set to a very quiet bar, then  later it just fills up. I think the drink pricing has gone a long way to causing this. People get tanked up at home, then head out later. 

 

Years ago, our local gig bar used to be heaving from tea time on a Friday until late Sunday. The times they are a changin’ 

Edited February 10, 2019 by ubit

[tauzero]

Just remembered, I left one thing out from my tale of last night - Mrs Zero got me a pint, which I left on a table in front of the stage while I was doing the setting up. Some bastard nicked it.

[ubit]

14 minutes ago, tauzero said:

Just remembered, I left one thing out from my tale of last night - Mrs Zero got me a pint, which I left on a table in front of the stage while I was doing the setting up. Some bastard nicked it.

One time we were taking a break and I turned round to see the guitarist with someone by the throat. I asked what was that? The guy had set his pint on top of our mixing desk. What a dickish move. The desk isn’t even flat!

Edited February 10, 2019 by ubit