Those 'train wreck' moments

[NikNik]

4 minutes ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

 

I've never heard it in my life and have absolutely no idea what it means. 😆

It's Scottish for 'Nutter' A Daftie.

[NikNik]

On 31/01/2022 at 06:14, Boodang said:

Oh, and forgot to say the moral of this particular story; the best bass to fend off an attack from an irate vocalist is of course... a Fender.

Aye. An uppercut from those headstocks do damage to jaws and bollocks!

[squire5]

15 minutes ago, NikNik said:

It's Scottish for 'Nutter' A Daftie.

Other variations are,'Numpty' 'Bawheid''Hauf wit' 'Diddy' etc.Literally translates as 'Head the ball'.

[NikNik]

On 26/01/2022 at 16:02, Bassman68 said:

My old function band were once prevented from leaving the pub gig we’d just played due to a punter getting stabbed in the neck & the exit from the venue car park was a crime scene?

Some gig in Edinburgh's Cowgate (Sneaky Pete's?) in 1986/87. Couldn't load out due to a massive biker fight in the front bar. When we were allowed to load out, the front bar floor was covered in blood and there was broken glass everywhere. There were three ambulances outside and three cop-cars and a riot van. We heard later that someone got an axe in their back,

Edited February 1, 2022 by NikNik

[EBS_freak]

3 minutes ago, NikNik said:

We heard later that someone got an axe in their back,

Fender?

[NikNik]

7 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Fender?

Might have been better than a wood axe!😄

[NikNik]

Here's another one.

 

Back around the early '80s I was in an eight-piece funk band but on the side I played with the drummer, the guitarist, one of the female vox, and the (stinky poo) keyboard-player doing a 45 of  Quick-Steps and a 45 of '60s hits around the workingmens' clubs as they paid well and we used the money for running the other band.

 

One afternoon we're loading in to some miners' welfare club in the back of beyond and out the corner of my eye I see a figure carrying full Highland Dress slip into the dressing rooms. At one point I hear this florid, Ken Dodd look-a-like asking one of the committee guys what time he's going on. I began to feel that something was up, that something was going to occur that would put us in a precarious position. I tackled our manager to go find out the SP with this guy and he comes back with a grey pallor. It seems the guy is a warm up act or intermission act who's going to regale the punters with a few anecdotes about the Highlands and a bit of singing. I fear the manager has told the committee, when booking us, that we'll back this guy up! We tell him 'No way!' and witness the Highlander guy go mildly nuts when he hears this.

 

So, we start our set of Quick steps/Foxtrots and all's well. We take a short break and return to play some instrumental noodle to welcome the Highlander to the stage. He proceeds to regale the punters with tales real and fictitious and goes into one about Glasgow. As he comes to the end of this tirade he turns to us all and goes 'And so with that, dear friends, I give you 'I belong to GLASGOW!! Take it away, boys, in G!!' and he begins to sing! The guitarist and I look at each other and begin busking it (it's a fairly well-known tune up here) but the drummer, who is younger and doesn't know the tune, is playing 4/4 across a 3/4 tune!! I call him out on this but it doesn't really make the rhythm flow any better. The keyboard player is playing random stabs which only augments the cacophony and the Highlander quickly finishes up and leaves the stage in a rush. We look at each other in disbelief whilst out the back we can here our man going crazy. He apparently expected a full Cabaret-style pick-up band so somebody, or somebodies, had kept both him and ourselves in the dark.

 

We played an ok gig and I got royally whizzed afterwards, misbehaving in a crude and unprofessional manner. We got paid but never played there again.

Edited February 2, 2022 by NikNik

[ubit]

Way,WAY back when we were first starting and were in our first incarnation of our band we played at a village hall a few miles out of town. We were very young and excited to find that ticket sales showed that it was a sell out. You used to get that back then. I highly doubt you would get kids driving 15 miles out of town for a dance in a hall nowadays. Anyway, the gig went great and the place was rocking. In my excitement I did my best rock star impression        "you guys have been a f***n awesome audience, lets  f****n rock!" All went well and the gig was superb. We went down a storm. That is until the next day when we went to the head of the hall committee to get the key to get our gear out. ' Your language is absolutely atrocious young man, you should be ashamed of yourself" I had to sheepishly apologise as all rock star ambitions were dashed and I was brought back down to to Earth and reduced to eating humble pie and thinking I bet Iron maiden don't get this.

[ubit]

We played a birthday party years ago and when it started there were only about 30 or 40 people there. It was a pretty big hall so it was absolutely dead. We tried our best and played our sets which the party girl and her boyfriend had seen us play in the pubs many times. I think we maybe had a couple of kids sliding on their knees at one point but apart from that it was a crummy gig. We finished and packed our gear and it was a few weeks later I mentioned to my band mate the guitarist, "did we ever get paid for that gig? I haven't seen any money yet." "Oh, yeah, I had been meaning to mention that." The girl had been holding the money back because she didn't think we had done enough to get people dancing. I hit the roof and my mate said "that's why I didn't want to tell you. I knew you would hit the roof" We did get paid but I couldn't believe that this beach had had the cheek to blame us for her disaster of a party. How can we help if she wasn't popular and her only friends don't want to dance?

[ubit]

43 minutes ago, NikNik said:

Here's another one.

 

Back around the early '80s I was in an eight-piece funk band but on the side I played with the drummer, the guitarist, one of the female vox, and the (stinky poo) keyboard-player doing a 45 of  Quick-Steps the a 45 of '60s hits around the workingmens' clubs as they paid well and we used the money for running the other band.

 

One afternoon we're loading in to some miners' welfare club in the back of beyond and out the corner of my eye I see a figure carrying full Highland Dress slip into the dressing rooms. At one point I hear this florid, Ken Dodd look-a-like asking one of the committee guys what time he's going on. I began to feel that something was up, that something was going to occur that would put us in a precarious position. I tackled our manager to go find out the SP with this guy and he comes back with a grey pallor. It seems the guy is a warm up act or intermission act who's going to regale the punters with a few anecdotes about the Highlands and a bit of singing. I fear the manager has told the committee, when booking us, that we'll back this guy up! We tell him 'No way!' and witness the Highlander guy go mildly nuts when he hears this.

 

So, we start our set of Quick steps/Foxtrots and all's well. We take a short break and return to play some instrumental noodle to welcome the Highlander to the stage. He proceeds to regale the punters with tales real and fictitious and goes into one about Glasgow. As he comes to the end of this tirade he turns to us all and goes 'And so with that, dear friends, I give you 'I belong to GLASGOW!! Take it away, boys, in G!!' and he begins to sing! The guitarist and I look at each other and begin busking it (it's a fairly well-known tune up here) but the drummer, who is younger and doesn't know the tune, is playing 4/4 across a 3/4 tune!! I call him out on this but it doesn't really make the rhythm flow any better. The keyboard player is playing random stabs which only augments the cacophony and the Highlander quickly finishes up and leaves the stage in a rush. We look at each other in disbelief whilst out the back we can here our man going crazy. He apparently expected a full Cabaret-style pick-up band so somebody, or somebodies, had kept both him and ourselves in the dark.

 

We played an ok gig and I got royally whizzed afterwards, misbehaving in a crude and unprofessional manner. We got paid but never played there again.

  We have been there too. How many gigs over the years getting that sinking feeling as you realise they have  booked the wrong band. I remember years ago, again in our first incarnation when we were to all intents and purposes a heavy metal band. We were booked to play at a dance and it was all middle aged gentleman and their wives in ball gowns. After we finished the ordeal this woman came up to us and declared that we were the worst band she had ever seen and it was ridiculous that we should be playing at their dance. Not wanting to tell het to flip off we grumbled our apologies and put it down to experience. Little did we know that this would happen so many times over the years up until we finally reinvented ourselves as a function band. Its funny, a band playing in a pub might go down well but you ask them to play at a dance or party and it can be different.

Edited February 1, 2022 by ubit

[Rayman]

We played the Manchester Academy 3 a handful of years ago. All was going well until I stepped forward to sing one of our more popular songs, caught my foot around the lead and pulled the DI box off the top of the amp. My bass went dead, and I had no clue what had happened. After looking at the sound woman, who shrugged her shoulders, I binned the bass and sang the song without it. Bloody technology coupled with a clumsy pillock.... not my finest hour.

[MacDaddy]

1 hour ago, ubit said:

  We have been there too. How many gigs over the years getting that sinking feeling as you realise they have  booked the wrong band. I remember years ago, again in our first incarnation when we were to all intents and purposes a heavy metal band. We were booked to play at a dance and it was all middle aged gentleman and their wives in ball gowns. After we finished the ordeal this woman came up to us and declared that we were the worst band she had ever seen and it was ridiculous that we should be playing at their dance. Not wanting to tell het to flip off we grumbled our apologies and put it down to experience. Little did we know that this would happen so many times over the years up until we finally reinvented ourselves as a function band. Its funny, a band playing in a pub might go down well but you ask them to play at a dance or party and it can be different.

 

Many years ago on Emmerdale Farm, when Alan Bates was running the Woolpack, he booked some musicians from one of the music colleges expecting a classical recital. A band turned up and launched into Smells Like Teen Spirit 🤣 

[Muzz]

1 hour ago, ubit said:

How many gigs over the years getting that sinking feeling as you realise they have  booked the wrong band.

 

Only three or four years ago, New Years Eve, we (function trio) turn up to an agency gig (a new agent, too, whom the Singist/BL assured us was 'Bob on') at a working men's club; I'd originally been delighted, as it's a mile from my house - as with a lot of NYE gigs, the DJ was bound to want us to pack it in at 11:45 so he could do the chimes, etc; I could be home before midnight for once.

 

The first small inklings that something might not be quite right were the posters saying 'Soul Band and Buffet' as we were loading in, but we thought that was another night. We got set up (with BC-approved Minimal Light Gear Including In-Ears, etc), on the very big stage, begin to soundcheck, and the landlord approaches. He looks confused, and not very happy.

 

'Where's the rest of you?' he said, with a kind of doomed, sinking tone in his voice.

'Sorry?'

'You know, the horn section...the rest of the band'

'Erm...this is it.'

'But...but...I booked a full Soul Band. Horns and everything.'

'Oh'

'Can you play any Northern Soul?'

There's a pause. The singist has his acoustic around his neck. He decides honesty is the best policy.

'Not that you'd recognise, no.'

 

We tried, we really did (after some furious Googling and scribbling backstage), but it was never going to happen. The audience weren't for giving us the benefit of anything, least of all the doubt. We did one set, then the DJ took over, and we slunk away.

 

At least I was home in plenty of time before midnight. And we got paid, too, tho the agent (echoing the audience) seemed to think it was somehow our fault, and never booked us again. No loss there, to be fair...

 

The only consolation was thinking some venue somewhere got a full Soul Band they weren't expecting...I'd like to think it was the back room of a small pub, and they blew the roof off...

[Boodang]

1 hour ago, ubit said:

  We have been there too. How many gigs over the years getting that sinking feeling as you realise they have  booked the wrong band.

Ah, the 'we've booked you by accident' syndrome. Was in a folk/rock band, there was a local festival which was quite popular, we submitted a demo to try and get on the lineup but we'd put it in late and wasn't surprised to not get selected. Then, with not long to go and thinking we were just going to be in the audience, we got a call saying there had been a last minute cancellation by one of the acts and could we oblige. Of course was the answer but was very surprised to learn that the organisers had put us on as the headline band. Now we had been around for a bit, so in our egotistical minds this seemed plausible. 

Come the day, the organisers were chatting to us so no suspicions about mistaken identities. Then, the MC announces us with the line 'we're really excited to have booked this band, we've been trying to get them here for years...', at which point we all look at each other with wtf faces, ' please welcome THE *****'. 

Turns out we had the same name but without 'THE'  in front of it as the band they thought they'd booked. We had never realised there was a band out there with a similar name as the 'real' band were doing much bigger gigs than us and our paths had never crossed. Well, no time to think about it, we went on and the set went down well. The organisers were happy and said they really enjoyed our new material. We never told them!

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, Muzz said:

And we got paid, too, tho the agent (echoing the audience) seemed to think it was somehow our fault, and never booked us again.

 

Ah, agents. A so-called agent (I use the term loosely) booked a band I was playing in into a VERY tiny bar. Band was a 5 piece, with a healthy amount of kit. All of us were of a certain age (OAPs) and we played classic rock, with the occasional soul standard thrown in. The agent in question booked us out as a soul band (he had our demo and set list and had seen us play several times, so he had no excuse). We arrived at the bar and saw a poster advertising live soul music. We had a quick pow wow outside and reckoned we might we able to get away with it with a bit of re-arranging the sets and busking stuff we vaguely knew.

 

We went inside and were directed to the "stage", which was seven feet square at most and would barely have accommodated the bass rig and drums. There was room for maybe 40 punters in the bar itself. It was an obvious no-no and we apologised to the bar owner, told him we simply couldn't fit in the available space - we would have just about halved the capacity of the place and the few people remaining would have been right in our faces.

 

He was understanding and we got in our cars and left. The next day, the agent called and berated us for not honouring the job and telling us we owed him his commission. He threatened to take it out of the next gig he booked us into. We didn't get much work from him, so told him to forget it. He became a bit threatening, so our drummer (who owned a building firm and was a martial arts instructor in his spare time) paid him a visit and had a quiet word. He never called us again.

[Lozz196]

Many years ago, in a Motley Crue originals type band our bassist got us to play his works Xmas do. Started soundcheck and this guy came running in from the other bar shouting at us to be quiet. So in accordance I quietly told him if he spoke to me like that again my guitar would meet the top of his head.

 

So not a good start. And it continued. We were just not the right band to play to regular office types ranging from the young girls to the old guys, none of whom it seemed had ever witnessed an 80s style glam band with questionable lyrics to match. The only applause & dancing was when we did Twist & Shout. 
 

Still the bassist didn’t get fired from his job so they couldn’t have hated us that much.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Lozz196

[KingBollock]

I only ever did a few small gigs when I first started in bands, so I don’t have anything like what people have shared so far.

 

The very first gig wasn’t even with a band, as such. I was about 13. The school orchestra was playing in a church hall for a chicken and dance thing (though there was no dancing) for a bunch of elderly folk. My music class only had 6 people in it, including me, and the teacher thought we should perform a couple of songs. We had a very, very good pianist, a good drummer, me on bass and three girls that couldn’t sing…

I can’t remember if we did 2 or 3 songs. The only one I remember for sure was The Locomotion… When I got to the hall, I discovered that my brother had stollen my strap, and no one had one I could borrow. So I ended up playing leaning against a table. I had to have the table because that’s where I had a sheet of music notes for the songs. So I spent the whole time leaning against a table, while looking behind me to see the music. To be fair, the audience loved it, unfortunately. They had found the orchestra quite dull and they wanted us to keep playing, so we ended up playing the same songs again because that’s all be had.

 

Most of my train wrecks were when I was doing Discos, so I don’t want to go on about them here. Except to say that I really hated doing weddings. And about that one New Year’s Eve when I spent the whole night telling a bloke to move away from the pyros, but he just kept coming back. For some bloomin’ stupid reason Bill, the boss, had put the pyro button on the floor, under a table at the back of the stage. Come midnight, there I was, scrunched up under a table, unable to see anything. Midnight comes… Boom! Then screaming as people scattered from the silly billy whose jumper was now on fire!

Edited February 1, 2022 by KingBollock

[Dom in Dorset]

A few years ago I was living in a small Somerset town , there was an annual street fair. It was a popular event attracting thousands , stalls running the length of the street, buskers playing, main stage with bands , beer tents etc. I'd been involved from the outset in various ways including dressing up as the green Man and playing bagpipes.

I was approached by someone from the next town who'd been to our fair and wanted to put on something similar ...would I be interested in doing my act there?

I arrive in the morning and they've closed of the town's main car park for the fair. At each entrance there is a table with people in high vis vests to stop traffic. The car park is completely empty bar a table at one end where the local cats home are selling a (somewhat poor selection of) bric a brac.

It's still early I think to myself as I stand pipes in hand in the middle of an empty car park as the start time approached.

I play to an empty car park.

Still nobody.

I hang around until 1 , still nobody.

I give it another hour before finding the organiser. We chat about how disappointing it's been and I ask her what publicity she's done.....

"None, I don't believe in it, you can't beat word of mouth!"

 

[ubit]

When we first started we used to rehearse in a church hall. It was on a hill so was actually under the church. We used to rehearse on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so no hassle. This time we set up and launched full tilt into our latest song and a couple of minutes later this old boy came running down the stairs with a panicked look on his face. Stop, stop, there's a funeral service going on in the church!

No one thought to tell us.

[casapete]

I’m my old 8 piece function band, we used to do a trad jazz style walkabout set to welcome people arriving at the venue. At a large hotel in Hull we were playing at a wedding, and had been booked as a surprise for the happy couple. The instructions were to wait for them to arrive from the church inside the hotel entrance, and then play them into the foyer to start the festivities. We saw the bride and groom arriving  ( strangely without an entourage) so all positioned ourselves on the hotel steps and played ‘Congratulations’. The usual response when we did this was great, a nice ice breaker for the reception. However this time the couple dashed straight by us and straight into the lift in the foyer, after less than 30 secs of us playing for them. We stopped and hung around waiting to strike up for the rest of their guests, but nobody else arrived. It was then that we realised we’d heralded the arrival of the wrong couple - nobody had told us there were two weddings going on that day in the hotel. Sure enough, a few minutes later our wedding couple and guests arrived and we started again, this time to a better response.

( I found out later that the first couple we played for had planned to sneak up to their hotel room for a quickie before their guests arrived 😂 )

 

[Rich]

15 hours ago, ubit said:

How many gigs over the years getting that sinking feeling as you realise they have  booked the wrong band.

 

Oh yes, I know that one too. Many years ago when I lived in Swindon, my blues-rock trio (Hendrix, Gary Moore, ZZ Top etc, and we were really good) 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 up mid-song, stood right in front of me and 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. During the interval, 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 bugggered off home, 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 

[Velarian]

Wondering whether your at the right gig or not reminded me of one we did at a pub which turned out to be in the middle of nowhere up on the moors . It was in the winter and, as we wound our way up country lanes, arriving at this desolate place in the rain we were already wondering what we’d let ourselves in for. Who on earth was going to bother coming out here in this weather to see a band nobody’s heard of?

 

We went into the pub to find out where to set up and the landlord took us outside again and across the car park to this huge outbuilding. You’re in here he says. It was freezing in there and the sinking feeling continued. Nevertheless we pressed-on loaded the gear in and started setting up. When we were ready to soundcheck and switched the PA on there was a huge buzz. We’d never had this before and spent the next hour frantically checking connections and changing cables all to no avail (we later discovered it was a ground loop but didn’t know what that was or how to cure it at time). All this was with freezing cold hands with numb fingers. 

 

Anyway, we were running out of time and decided to press on regardless. At this point, the landlord comes back and wheels in this huge red cylinder thing about 10 feet long and a 18” diameter, which turned out to be some kind of industrial heater. He turned it on and within about ten minutes the place had nicely warmed up. Maybe things were looking up?

 

Not long after the flawed soundcheck, to our surprise people started turning up. They were bikers on Harleys and trikes etc. I’m not sure if they were Hells Angels or Satans Slaves but you get the idea of the crowd that was forming, there were loads of them. At one point I went outside and there were literally dozens of bikes parked up. Given that we leaned towards the punk/alternative end of the musical spectrum we felt a bit intimidated and wondered if we’d survive the encounter.

 

Feeling somewhat daunted, we apologised for the huge PA buzz and launched into our set. Despite the potential for it to be a train wreck, to our surprise we actually went down quite well. Afterwards a couple a of the guys complimented us and said it was like a breath of fresh air having something different to the usual diet of metal bands that played there.

 

Feeling relieved we packed up and set off home again. I was driving and as we headed down the winding country lanes back to civilisation, we rounded a bend only to be faced with a pony caught in the headlights in the middle of the road. I slammed on the brakes, which with all the weight in the van took some effort, and we came within a gnats chuff of turning the poor pony into dog meat! Then ensued another daft hour trying to work out what to do with it to make sure it was safe.

 

Anyway, all’s well that ends well.

[BigRedX]

Another one, but not of my band's making...

 

In the mid 90s my dance/rock band was starting to get a bit of interest both from (non pay to play) London promotors and indie record labels. We had just done one gig at a new venue in Camden where we had saved the night from being a write-off mostly because our excellent sound engineer had managed to get a decent mix for all the bands on the bill despite the terrible PA system that had been hired in (it was mostly ancient HH gear and would have been seriously out of date 15 years previously). The promotor was most impressed and wanted to give us a better gig at a different venue. This coincided with Jive Records wanting to see us play.

 

The subsequent gig was at a more impressive venue with a proper PA system and in-house engineers. We were down as headliners (and in this instance it was supposed to be headlining and just "playing last"). Great sound check and the venue was filling up with a good sized audience, and everything was going well until the band immediately before us hit the stage. "We're ****" they announced (TBH I can't remember what they were called) "and this afternoon we just signed with **** (very minor indie label) records, so flip you all!" and then proceeded to play a "set" that consisted of 30 minutes of massively loud atonal noise and feedback. Within 5 minutes they had all but emptied the venue. Afterwards we went on hoping that maybe people would drift back in now that there was a band playing some proper tunes, but as far at the audience were concerned the evening was over and they had probably gone to somewhere less offensively noisy or home. I think we played to a couple of friends of the singer who lived in London and hadn't seen us before. The A&R person from Jive never showed up, or if they did, had left with everyone else before we played. By the time we'd finished playing the other band had also disappeared, and it's probably just as well that they had otherwise there might have been a serious incident.

 

On the way back to Nottingham, our normally very reliable roadie/driver nearly fell asleep at the wheel on the M1 and caught us just in time before we drifted into the path of a large lorry. It took several cups of black coffee at the next services before he felt up to continuing our journey. We got back to Nottingham with just enough time to unload the van before those who had work that day had to leave to be there on time.

[mikel]

Aye the old....booked the wrong band thing. We played all original proggy type stuff in the early 70s, and avoided CIU clubs like the plague. We were booked to play one by an agent, so questioned him about it. "Its probably a private party for a younger audience" was his excuse. After setup, and a drink or two in the pub over the road, we come on stage to an audience of typical CIU regulars, average age about 55, and just look helplessly at each other. We did our usual first three songs and a couple of women of a certain age walk up scowling "Can you not play something we know?" as the tumbleweed rolled over the empty dance floor. Errr yes, no problem I lied. I introduced our next selfe penned song as "The new one by T Rex". It went down a storm and the dance floor filled up. I carried on introducing our songs as the new stuff by the current incumbents of the charts and the audience were happy enough. They must have thought we had our fingers on the pulse of popular music. Managed to avoid the clubs after that.

[EBS_freak]

35 minutes ago, Velarian said:

When we were ready to soundcheck and switched the PA on there was a huge buzz. We’d never had this before and spent the next hour frantically checking connections and changing cables all to no avail (we later discovered it was a ground loop but didn’t know what that was or how to cure it at time)

Been there - one particularly annoying venue where the buzz was intermittent.

 

At the END of the gig, it turns our we were playing on the same mains ring as the fridges, so every time the compressors kicked in, so did the buzz.