Your Bands Best Spinal Tap Moment

[Steve Browning]

54 minutes ago, bassbiscuits said:

Went onstage straight after a male stripper once at a social club gig.
 

The stage was covered in slippery baby oil and an abandoned chair, and it’s fair to say many of the women in the audience would have preferred to see more of the stripper (though they had already seen all of him..) rather than a band of 40-something lads launching into Mustang Sally. 

 

Probably more Phoenix Nights than Spinal Tap tho. 

I played a biker festival in Germany, and the support act was a female stripper. Rather awkward when she walked offstage and past us. "Great set" didn't really seem right (or maybe it was).

 

Worst part (for a shy retiring type) was, when we finished. The audience were howling for an encore (from her) and we had to pack up as she gyrated around us.

[12stringbassist]

Years ago, supporting Dave Hill's version of Slade, we settled into the backstage dressing room area at The Queen's Hall, Widnes. We took up a very small corner of the room, but when Dave Hill appeared, it was all a case of a "no no no, this won't do..." tantrum and the rest of his band giggled at him as he struggled, huffing and puffing, trying to pull a mobile partition across to divide the room into two halves. I think when we had stopped laughing, we did the gentlemanly thing and put our stuff in our cars and got out of his way. He was absolutely insufferable that day and when the rest of the band tried to headhunt me because their bassist was leaving, I politely declined.

[grapefruitmoon]

Last year, last band, the venues dry ice/smoke machine went haywire halfway through the set and engulfed us all in a a thick fog. Singer coughing, one guitarist trampled his pedalboard, drummer no clue what was happening and me and the other guitarist nearly wiped out by the sound guy running on stage past us to try and fix it. Audience couldn't see us for a few mins. There's a video of it somewhere.

[Franticsmurf]

We ended the first half of a very quiet and sober pub gig (a last minute booking through an agent) with 'Knocking on Heaven's Door', only to be informed by the landlord that we were playing a wake.

 

At the end of a decent gig in West Wales, we were asked to play a further 30 minutes for extra money. At the time I was playing rhythm guitar in that 4 piece line up, but the bassist was using all my gear as I played bass in the trio version. He decided he didn't want to do the extra set and sat in the dressing room while we emerged as a trio with me on bass. As he was having a lift home with me, he didn't get to leave early. We played for more than 30 minutes and, of course, he didn't get any of the extra cash. The journey home was very quiet. The following day he was encouraged to leave.

 

We went on stage at a holiday park immediately after the children's entertainer, and for about 20 minutes played rock classics to an audience of hyperactive 5-8 year olds who were wondering where 'Bradley Bear' was. One of the best audience reactions we've every had from a noise point of view, but the dancing was a bit dodgy. 😀

 

We opened to a club audience only to see a woman dancing with a short, bald headed guy. No problems, except she was wearing a pink PVC/shiny skin tight outfit (and she was a large lady) and he was barely as tall as her shoulders. I couldn't look as I was in danger of dissolving into laughter so I looked to my band mates for help. Alas, they had already succumbed to the hysterics. There was a long intro to the first song as the singer couldn't sing.

[Franticsmurf]

14 minutes ago, 12stringbassist said:

Years ago, supporting Dave Hill's version of Slade, we settled into the backstage dressing room area at The Queen's Hall, Widnes. We took up a very small corner of the room, but when Dave Hill appeared, it was all a case of a "no no no, this won't do..." tantrum and the rest of his band giggled at him as he struggled, huffing and puffing, trying to pull a mobile partition across to divide the room into two halves. I think when we had stopped laughing, we did the gentlemanly thing and put our stuff in our cars and got out of his way. He was absolutely insufferable that day and when the rest of the band tried to headhunt me because their bassist was leaving, I politely declined.

We supported an ex 'Stars in Their Eyes' Roy Orbison act at a holiday camp. His band were great - we got on really well and they allowed us to use their gear rather than set up two set of kit on the stage. But 'Roy' was a bit of a drama queen. Fortunately we'd met the band before him and they warned us. Basically, his voice was gone and he couldn't hit the highs. The guitarist was covering for him but 'Roy' had run out of bookings. They told us that he was telling everyone he was off to America, but in fact he was off back to his day job. They hated him. Sure enough, when he turned up he explained to us that this was his last gig and he was touring the states. Then he proceeded to slag off his band with them in the dressing room with us. It was rather embarrassing but to their great credit the band put on a good show. They even allowed us to take the headline slot to end the night after persuading 'Roy' that they could make a night of it as they had accommodation booked at the camp.

Edited Monday at 11:45 by Franticsmurf

[GoodShowSir]

My favourite wasnt mine but my brothers.

 

Played a festival somewhere in europe and the drummer is really late for their soundcheck and no where to be seen. They head to the hotel where he was staying and they hear music or a tv inside but theres no answer, they are geniuely worried now so get the staff to open up the room. Heading inside they find the drummer in massive bubble bath with two women, painting nails, doing hair (they were very glam!) and drinking champagne. The rest of the band are like, what the hell are you doing we needed to sound check like an hour ago. Perfectly serious looks at them all and says, "Just having a bath..."

Edited Monday at 11:56 by GoodShowSir

[chris_b]

I play with a guitarist who uses a wireless set up. He runs about in the audience, stands on tables etc. He also walks around outside the pub, still playing. In Camberley, one night, he decided  to run across the road (the A30) and play from the other side. The audience laps it up. He just made it back to the pub as a Police car pulled up.

 

Also, at a festival, he jumped off the stage and walked through the audience, still soloing. Then discovers there’s no way back. He had to climb over a fence to get back stage and forgot to turn the guitar down, so we were rocking away with a shrieking cacophony of noises coming from the guitar amp until he got over the fence.

[Steve Browning]

7 minutes ago, chris_b said:

I play with a guitarist who uses a wireless set up. He runs about in the audience, stands on tables etc. He also walks around outside the pub, still playing. In Camberley, one night, he decided  to run across the road (the A30) and play from the other side. The audience laps it up. He just made it back to the pub as a Police car pulled up.

 

Also, at a festival, he jumped off the stage and walked through the audience, still soloing. Then discovers there’s no way back. He had to climb over a fence to get back stage and forgot to turn the guitar down, so we were rocking away with a shrieking cacophony of noises coming from the guitar amp until he got over the fence.

Wasn't Robin Bibi by any chance?

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

2 hours ago, knirirr said:

 

A long time ago we had a drummer who was very much into Taekwondo. Once, he took the singer's microphone so he could inform some of the audience that if they didn't STFU he'd come down there and fill them in.

 

I was friends with the guitarist at the time . He took me over to his house one afternoon ..and introduced me to his 2 alsations!

He told me not to move a muscle as they came up to me one ny one ,while I was sitting in a chair . They came right up to my face . To say  was frozen was an understatement 😬

 

[Bluewine]

4 hours ago, upside downer said:

We had to pause our Halloween gig at a Working Men's Club when one of the committee jumped up on stage and asked the singer if he wouldn't mind judging the children's apple bobbing contest.

 

Hilarious!

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

2 hours ago, grapefruitmoon said:

Last year, last band, the venues dry ice/smoke machine went haywire halfway through the set and engulfed us all in a a thick fog. Singer coughing, one guitarist trampled his pedalboard, drummer no clue what was happening and me and the other guitarist nearly wiped out by the sound guy running on stage past us to try and fix it. Audience couldn't see us for a few mins. There's a video of it somewhere.

 

I love smoke machine mishap stories.

 

Hilarious 😂 

 

Daryl

[ead]

Loving this thread and chuckling away at some of the tales.  Disappointingly I have nothing like this to contribute 

[chriswareham]

3 hours ago, GoodShowSir said:

My favourite wasnt mine but my brothers.

 

Played a festival somewhere in europe and the drummer is really late for their soundcheck and no where to be seen. They head to the hotel where he was staying and they hear music or a tv inside but theres no answer, they are geniuely worried now so get the staff to open up the room. Heading inside they find the drummer in massive bubble bath with two women, painting nails, doing hair (they were very glam!) and drinking champagne. The rest of the band are like, what the hell are you doing we needed to sound check like an hour ago. Perfectly serious looks at them all and says, "Just having a bath..."

 

That sounds familiar. The drummer wasn't known by the name "Belle" was he? A legend on the London alternative music scene who unexpectedly passed away in 2023.

[borntohang]

We played a little festival somewhere down south (I can barely remember where to be honest) and ended up with a midday slot on the main stage. There were in fact two main stages which ran consecutively so there was no downtime and the audience didn't have to move. Nice site but as we pulled up a band that shared our management were heading out looking like they'd just been kicked in the collective nards and gave us a sarcastic "good luck" on the way past, which was not auspicious. It was a family festival with a real mixed line-up and we had not been pitched well, so our audience was mostly kiddies playing twenty-five-a-side in front of the pit barriers: at one point a misplaced volley came up onstage and I had to hoof it back which got the biggest cheer of the set.

 

We were pretty dispirited by the end and even more so to see the much larger crowd of parents gathering in front of the other stage for Dr And The bloody Medics, so we packed up and booked off sharpish. I was driving the van and remember pulling a slightly narky take-off out of the main gates with a muttered "...never coming back to THIS disaster again". Sadly, we had to sheepishly crawl back through security fifteen minutes later when our singer remembered they had left a custom mic stand behind the stage instead of packing it away.

 

Nothing really wrong with the festival, just a bad match, but so far it's the only show where anybody has ever asked me for their ball back mid-song.

[Bilbo]

I did a one-off reading gig playing fretless bass with an orchestra and a 60-piece choir performing Karl Jenkins's The Peacemakers. Full tuxedo and everything . It was at The Arc in Bury St. Edmunds.

 

After the performance ended, I did the classic Spinal Tap lost backstage thing and got lost wandering around between the curtains trying to find the dressing room. What made it more surreal was the fact that I bumped into Terry Waite who was also lost... 

Edited Monday at 17:08 by Bilbo

[Lozz196]

Many moons ago the band I was in had bought onto another bands tour, as support - yes kids, this did happen in the 80s & 90s.

 

Anyway, all in the van and off to the first gig. We pulled into the city centre to ask directions. I asked isn’t the gig in Bradford, yes was the answer.

 

So why are we in Barnsley was my next - and rather unpopular it seemed - question.

Edited Monday at 17:19 by Lozz196

[knirirr]

6 hours ago, knirirr said:

 

A long time ago we had a drummer who...

 

I remember now that at the end of that same gig the drummer revealed that (for reasons lost to history) he had no way to get himself or all his kit home. As the only member of the band with a car I was volunteered to solve this. Unfortunately, the car was a 2CV like that shown below.
The only way to get all his kit in was to fully open the roof (fun on a cold Scottish night) and lower the bass drum through that, and he still had kit on his lap in the front.

 

[tauzero]

A band I was friends with were playing in the basement at the Tamworth Arts Centre (now the Tamworth Registry Office where Mrs Zero and I got married), and asked me to do the lighting (nothing complicated, just move a couple of sliders up and down). They also got another friend, the late Titch, to do the pyros for them. Titch had some flash powder which he enthusiastically filled a trough with, then he tripped over the trough and deposited the contents on the floor. Nothing daunted, he refilled it.

 

A few minutes into the set, I was wiggling the sliders (which were right by the stage at the front corner) when Titch fired off the pyro. The contents of the trough ignited, immediately followed by the contents of the floor, and the stage area was completely filled with smoke. The bassist was about two metres from me and completely invisible, I could just see the headstock appearing now and again through the fog.

 

And one that happened to a band I was in - we had got our first gig in a Tamworth pub, and the drummer got his other band in as support for us. We set up and there was no sign of our guitarist. The support did their slot, still no guitarist. Then we found he had jumped in the canal. We roped in the guitarists from the other band as we were doing standards and got through the gig. I never did find out the underlying reason for Pete jumping in the canal (he did recover but I don't think I ever saw him again).

[AndyTravis]

Played at the Roadhouse in Manchester one evening; we were young and nobody drove.

 

Oasis were tailing off at this point - but still had a big Manc following.

 

The city centre was gridlocked.

 

Drummer and Guitarist got a taxi to Black Friars and sat in traffic.

 

Taxi Driver decided he’d had enough and chucked them out

 

SWR 410 cab & Matching head

Marshall 112 combo

marshall 212 combo

3 guitars

bass

pedal bags…

 

so I went to meet them (i worked on Portland street at the time)

 

so. We piled what we could on the 410 cab (luckily on casters)

 

and carried the rest up Market Street…

 

to “ORRRRR YES M8, ITS OASIS”

”PLAY US A SONG MAAAAYYYTE”

 

Etc.

 

was pretty annoying.

 

gig was dead.

 

met the mother of my first born that night.

 

the only thing I don’t regret about that evening is the first born child (who came about 5 years later).

evidence of said gig…

 

Edited Monday at 17:43 by AndyTravis

[rwillett]

After reading all this I still think the "Gong solo" is the winner, though some of these are fabulous and have made my evening. I'm still giggling over some of them.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Rob

[Rayman]

I got lost in Maida Vale while waiting to record my vocals for a BBC session in the 80s. I wandered off looking for food, but ended up in some kind of office area. I found the drummer, and we wandered up and down various corridors before finding our way to the studio. A slightly irritated producer was waiting for us. 

[TimR]

8 hours ago, grapefruitmoon said:

Last year, last band, the venues dry ice/smoke machine went haywire halfway through the set and engulfed us all in a a thick fog. Singer coughing, one guitarist trampled his pedalboard, drummer no clue what was happening and me and the other guitarist nearly wiped out by the sound guy running on stage past us to try and fix it. Audience couldn't see us for a few mins. There's a video of it somewhere.

 

5 hours ago, Bluewine said:

 

I love smoke machine mishap stories.

 

Hilarious 😂 

 

Daryl

 

Surely every band has at least one smoke machine story.

 

Firstly. We are playing my local, a very small pub and I tell them, no smoke machine and no vapeing allowed in the pub (the singer is a chain vaper). Within 5 minutes of the singer arriving the pub is evacuated due to horrendously loud smoke alarm. No problem found, the alarm is silenced, we all go back in, only for the alarm to go off again. Singer asks why does the fire alarm keep going off. I ask if they'd been vapeing. Yes, but have been blowing the smoke out gently away from people. 

 

Secondly. Played a another pub gig. A bigger pub with a sound guy who was also managing lighting and effects. At one point the smoke machine came on, and wasn't stopping, the whole pub was full of smoke, no one could see anything. We continued playing until finally the sound guy reappeared and  realised he'd turned the machine on and walked off outside for a cigarette.

[Norris]

1 hour ago, TimR said:

 

 

Surely every band has at least one smoke machine story.

 

Firstly. We are playing my local, a very small pub and I tell them, no smoke machine and no vapeing allowed in the pub (the singer is a chain vaper). Within 5 minutes of the singer arriving the pub is evacuated due to horrendously loud smoke alarm. No problem found, the alarm is silenced, we all go back in, only for the alarm to go off again. Singer asks why does the fire alarm keep going off. I ask if they'd been vapeing. Yes, but have been blowing the smoke out gently away from people. 

 

Secondly. Played a another pub gig. A bigger pub with a sound guy who was also managing lighting and effects. At one point the smoke machine came on, and wasn't stopping, the whole pub was full of smoke, no one could see anything. We continued playing until finally the sound guy reappeared and  realised he'd turned the machine on and walked off outside for a cigarette.

I managed to do this around NYE last year. I'd taken loads of lights and my smoke machine. It looked great with a bit of misting in the air. The "whiteout" occurred because I didn't realise the footswitch had become gummed up and got stuck on, until I glanced behind me to see a wall of smoke and no sign of the rest of the band. The smoke machine was tucked behind my amp on a cramped stage too, so took some effort to switch off 😂

[EMG456]

10 hours ago, grapefruitmoon said:

Last year, last band, the venues dry ice/smoke machine went haywire halfway through the set and engulfed us all in a a thick fog. Singer coughing, one guitarist trampled his pedalboard, drummer no clue what was happening and me and the other guitarist nearly wiped out by the sound guy running on stage past us to try and fix it. Audience couldn't see us for a few mins. There's a video of it somewhere.

 

Please locate video.

[Buddster]

7 hours ago, Bluewine said:

love smoke machine mishap stories.

Ah, well then... 

 

I was doing sound for a live jazz/dub/funk/improv thing at a venue just off Caledonian Road in London back in the 90's (I forget its name now). This involved a lot of working the desk (echo, sweep eq etc). Head down I was really getting into it. 'A quick blast on the smoke machine will add a bit of atmosphere'... 

 

10 minutes later I look up and the whole venue was just smoke! 

However, with the stage lighting, everything looked awesome, with just the silhouettes of the band and this heavy dub going on. It really added to the vibe. 

Me and the other guy on the desk just wet ourselves laughing.