Most painful performance

[Baloney Balderdash]

Me in the music school band I was playing guitar in when I first started to learn how to play guitar.

 

Though that was more a case of them having to suffer my playing. 

 

Did however also force me to play quite a few tracks I would otherwise never have dreamed of suffering to listen to voluntarily, let alone do covers of, so suppose to some extend it was a mutual painful experience.

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Baloney Balderdash

[AScheck9]

My first band (of two!) was a 4-piece rock/pop covers band, consisting of me on a bass guitar I'd borrowed, my mate's sister as lead singer, and then two guys in their 50s that lived locally and weren't half bad in the guitar and drums department. Having our young, talented female singer, we were able to cover a couple of fun tracks by the Gossip or P!nk that people recognised and most other bands in the burton area would avoid due to the remarkably high-pitched singing required. We did a few gigs and it always seemed to go down well enough. Admittedly, we did play to a few empty pubs here and there, but 25 gigs later and we almost had a name for ourselves. I felt like a rockstar, what with my 18 months of bass guitar experience...

 

 

Alas it all came crashing down when the lovely singer quit. Finding a new singer was impossible, but we "lucked" upon somebody that was willing to give it a go eventually. Rehearsal number one came and went and a team meeting with the original three members was had to discuss the new candidate. Two of us voted that he had a terrible terrible voice, akin to the noise a dog makes when you stand on its tale, whereas the other one seemed to like him. Half the problem was the song choices being more attuned to a females voice, and not the voice of a broken car horn that this lad had got. 

 

Clearly, the vote was ignored as "a singer is better than not having a singer". As much as I begged the other two to not book any local gigs in, they were keen to go back out there and booked us into a pub on the burton circuit known to host VERY good bands on Sundays early afternoon. 

 

Anyways, long story short:

The drummer was late. The new singer set up his drumkit... backwards. The lateness meant that we didn't sound check properly. The singer himself had bought a new microphone, a £20 wireless p.o.s. that immediately caused feedback. First half, the singer forgot almost every verse to every song. Second half: didn't happen.

 

The manager approached the band during interval and told us we were not going back on. I couldn't have been more embarrassed, but also so grateful to not have to play any more, it was atrocious. 

 

Hey, here's my gig diary entry. 

[Franticsmurf]

1 hour ago, AScheck9 said:

The manager approached the band during interval and told us we were not going back on. I couldn't have been more embarrassed, but also so grateful to not have to play any more, it was atrocious. 

I feel your cringe. About 10 years ago we were booked to play a function with the local mayor et al in attendance, supporting a well known local comedian. The venue was a large upmarket bar. Our singer/guitarist at the time was taking all the bookings and sorting the times but he failed to mention the dress code. Not being stupid, the drummer, other guitarist and I turned up all dressed smartly for such a gig. The singer arrived late and was dressed for a rock pub gig. The bar owner (who was the MC) had a go at him (as we had done when we saw him in his pub gear). We played the first half but it wasn't good and sometime during the break the singer had managed to further p*** off the MC. We were told to pack up and leave. The singer tried to bluff it out to us by claiming he was refusing to play but we'd seen enough to know the truth. Packing up was the worst bit as people were watching, well aware of what had happened.

 

It started a run of gigs where the singer managed to get on the wrong side of the venue owners and our local gigs dried up. We survived for a while on agent bookings but the band no longer exists.

[Lozz196]

Most painful performance was my first ever gig, which was on lead guitar and lead vocals. Being young (16) even I had bags of energy back then so had a tendency to walk around the stage when playing. Not ideal when you’re meant to be singing through a mic on a mic-stand. This brought much amusement from the audience, the majority of whom I was at school with, so the next day at school was a difficult one. 
 

But none of those laughing had the balls to get up there & do it. I did.

[T-Bay]

Played a club we didn’t realise was a front for the local Tories. Full on entitled tossers who were well pi55ed. Two threatened our lead singer at the break. Our encore that night was Billy Bragg’s which side are you on? We haven’t been back………..