markdavid Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 Well, they say everyone has at least one truly awful experience playing live, I think last night set the bar. The event was a song competition,an event that has participating pubs across the country, we wanted to enter and we agreed to lend our backline to the pub, our singer who drives has agreed to transport the backline and our drummer is bringing the drumkit. We are told before the event that we will be opening and closing the event so we will be playing at the start and end of the event,before the event we are all quite excited about the event. Anyway the event is scheduled to start about half eight, everyone is there by about quarter past Seven, we start unloading everything, about ten minutes in, our singer looks at me and says "Mark, where is your bass amp" I look at him and say " I dont know, I thought you were bringing it" , singer says to me "Can you DI instead? Do you need your amp?" to which I say "i kind of do" as I hate DI and my tone involves quite a lot of amplifier manipulation (overdrive, cranked treble ) so the singer agrees to drive back the half hour drive to get the amp and we all agree to set up whilst he is gone. We spend a while setting up and spend over an hour trying to sort technical issues with the PA, microphones feeding back, reverb unit not working etc, Anyway after we have sorted the PA issues I go to plug into my bass amp and the wiring on my Hofner decides to fail me and there is a ton of buzz coming through the amp which is of course made even worse once i engage the overdrive and boost the treble, after a while of fiddling I decide to engage the bass slider on my bass which makes me sound like mud but cuts the buzz to an acceptable level. Anyway we start our first set and we open with our new song, it all seems to go balls up with the 2 vocalists being out of sync, fluffing the words etc, it reaches a point of of bad where our lead vocalist just decides to stop the song dead halfway through and we proceed with the 2nd song. 2nd song starts, starts ok and I think ok this song might be ok then the verses start, the vocalists cannot get it together and one has started the next verse before the other has finished the previous verse, the verses seem to be finishing early, just sphincter clenchingly bad, we play the next song ok amazingly.Afterwards I speak to some friends that have come to see us and tell them that we are not usually that bad. The band after us then goes on, they have 2 guitar players, turns out we have only brought one guitar amp and no DI so we spend ten minutes finding a solution. During the bands set I find out that our drummer is so whizzed at the events of the night that he is threatening to not go on for our 2nd set later in the evening and is questioning his future with the band , we managed to somehow calm him down and get him to stay. Amazingly when we play our 2nd set later in the evening we play an absolute blinder of a set however by that point damage was already done, we have some amazing songs so this was especially frustrating Anyway vent over , that was my worst live event 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_b Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 You got through it in one piece. Put it down to experience. Learn the lessons and move on. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevB Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 No one died, mark it down to experience and move on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevB Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 Beat me to it by a whisker there Chris 😁 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 You played a blinder in the 2nd set so put it all down to experience and sids law. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newfoundfreedom Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 We did a very similar thing last weekend. Played a festival on Saturday night and it was blinding. Played a small charity gig on Sunday and it was absolutely awful. The first set was so out of time that the drummer actually had to stop on serval occasions and restart to try and bring it all back together. The really scary thing is after the first set, two of the guitarists said "well that wasn't too bad" which just goes to show that they had no concept of what the rest of the band were doing, and just listening to themselves. At this point the drummer lost her sh@t and started packing away her kit. To be honest she was probably about 10 seconds in front of me. We had a bit of a band meltdown and had it all out during the interval, then went on for the second set, with everyone paying attention and it was superb. Which probably, at least as far as I'm concerned, saved the band. If we'd played as badly in the second set I'm pretty sure the drummer would have walked, and I certainly would have. It's an absolutely horrible feeling to play that badly in public and something I never want to repeat. Just to make things marginally worse. We had a celebrity in the audience (one of the Drifters) who saw the first half, told our manager we were badly out of time and needed a lot more practice, then left before seeing what the band was actually capable of. Still it gave us a new band mantra. Now whenever things are going wrong or getting a bit heated, someone just shouts "F#@k The Drifters!" 😂 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staggering on Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 Yeah, I feel your pain. Last night our little jazz quartet played a gig and the very nice Bose PA that we have used for about three years was acting up and the two band members who usually run it couldn't solve the problems. It is being used for two bands and somehow the settings that are supposed to be saved get lost and no one seems to be able to reset them. As a result the vocals had some feedback and my upright bass sounded dead. The main problem is that neither of the band members that run the system knows anything about PA's or electronics and they just start twiddling knobs and pushing buttons and talking about what it says in the manual. Our last two gigs had perfect sound but last night was embarrassing and unprofessional. I have suggested hiring someone at my expense to teach us how to operate this very nice PA but so far that hasn't happened, maybe this will be the event that sparks a change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Browning Posted August 3, 2019 Share Posted August 3, 2019 Probably all spooked by the pre-gig shenanigans. Move on but learn how to co-ordinate at these events. Never under-estimate the value of the 'idiot check' at the end of the packing!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ahpook Posted August 3, 2019 Share Posted August 3, 2019 Shame about the hiccups, but as has been said above - you played a blinder of a set at the end. Good going ! It's not the problems, it's how you deal with them (with apologies for sounding like a chapter in a self-help book ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markdavid Posted August 3, 2019 Author Share Posted August 3, 2019 Thanks for the replies, I feel better about the situation after reading them, like has been said I have to learn from the situation and move on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Dare Posted August 3, 2019 Share Posted August 3, 2019 It should take a lot more than an iffy set and a few hiccups to make people consider walking off/out. No band would ever last five minutes if everyone did that. A bit of grit and determination needed by your band-mates, I suggest. Unless of course it was the latest in a long chapter of disasters and the straw that broke the camel's back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skidder652003 Posted August 3, 2019 Share Posted August 3, 2019 Wow never had anything remotely like that, rehearsal rehearsal rehearsal keeps it all tight, we rehearse every Wednesday even if we’ve been gigging all weekend , we know our PA inside out and any work about in the event of equipment failure, 10 years gigging in this band 400 odd gigs and nothing like that thank goodness! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_c2 Posted August 3, 2019 Share Posted August 3, 2019 We've had a bit of a learning experience but all of the above is fixable, you just need to figure out a way of fixing it. Rehearsals become not so much simply about the music, but all the bits in between, getting to know the equipment, knowing what to do if something goes wrong or is missing, who can reasonably transport what, etc etc Eventually you get used/accustomed to what needs to be done by who at a gig or its prep, so there's no worries about the admin side and you can focus on the music and make it much more relaxing and enjoyable for everyone. Sounds like the singers need to just get more comfy with gigging etc too.....which takes time....... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor J Posted August 3, 2019 Share Posted August 3, 2019 Until your singer quits the band midway through a song, that song being about halfway through your first ever headlining set, walks straight through the crowd and out of the venue without even stopping to pick up his jacket, to the sound of one scallywag singing "One of these kids is doing his own thing!", while the guitarist (who was so stoned he came up to you before the gig to say he couldn't feel his hands and was slumped over throughout his "performance" on a bar stool on stage, because it turned out he couldn't really feel his legs either) continues to fumble his way through something loosely resembling your music because he hasn't noticed the singer is not only not singing, but isn't even in the venue any more, you haven't really had a bad gig. There's a worse one out there waiting for you. These will make you appreciate the good ones more, so chin up. 😃 2 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markdavid Posted August 3, 2019 Author Share Posted August 3, 2019 5 hours ago, Dan Dare said: It should take a lot more than an iffy set and a few hiccups to make people consider walking off/out. No band would ever last five minutes if everyone did that. A bit of grit and determination needed by your band-mates, I suggest. Unless of course it was the latest in a long chapter of disasters and the straw that broke the camel's back. Yes I agree.... But you really had to be there to appreciate just how bad it was, our singers are usually bang on the money but for some reason that night it was like they had never heard the songs before Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uk_lefty Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 7 hours ago, markdavid said: Yes I agree.... But you really had to be there to appreciate just how bad it was, our singers are usually bang on the money but for some reason that night it was like they had never heard the songs before Never had as bad as that but I'm sure it happens so easily. I've had complete mental blocks with forgetting the main riffs to songs I know inside out and fumbke through something until I get it right near the end of the second verse, etc. We try to rehearse for the gig but we often change the set list on the fly. Our worst gig was a function earlier this year when we were over confident, under rehearsed and everyone was in a bad mood with personal stuff, then some speakers didn't work so we were swapping PA kit at the last minute. We had food ordered by the venue well in advance that was amazing the year before and this year was dreadful. Our room bookings were messed up. We had to wait and hour and a half 0ast show time to start then packing up took forever. We were dreadful. We learned from that: don't drink and moan when waiting to go on, be more strict with organisers about starting times, and be more strict with people making requests and generally interrupting your flow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_b Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 23 hours ago, Steve Browning said: Never under-estimate the value of the 'idiot check' at the end of the packing!! +1. And always idiot check the idiot check. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
la bam Posted August 4, 2019 Share Posted August 4, 2019 You've got to go through it. Getting through it makes you so much stronger in lots of ways. Mentally stronger, bonding as a band, problem solving, and making sure it doesn't happen again. You'll laugh about it in the future. Dont worry. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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