Your Bands Best Spinal Tap Moment

[Bluewine]

15 hours ago, Si600 said:

Being sectioned is a horrible thing to happen to you.  The hoops to go through to get treatment and be released are convoluted to say the least.  My mum was a non-executive director on a mental health board for a while and the days they had sectioning hearings were the days the entire board wanted to be elsewhere.  You're stripping another human being of their dignity and liberty for an indefinite period.

Sectioned is horrible.  So is committed. I don't think process is any different over here.

 

Definitely not hilarious. 

 

Daryl

[Bluewine]

11 hours ago, borntohang said:

Comes from "detained under Section X of the Mental Health Act", where X is a different section of the Act depending on the reason for detention. I think you guys use '5150' for roughly same thing.

 

Yes, I think you're right about 5150.

 

Daryl

[chriswareham]

2 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

Sectioned is horrible.  So is committed. I don't think process is any different over here.

 

Definitely not hilarious. 

 

Daryl

 

Absolutely. I knew someone who voluntarily agreed to being sectioned, but was close to being committed without their consent. It was a battle for them to get out once they felt better, since a lot of people soon relapse.

[Crusoe]

My wife has the power to have people sectioned and sadly, had to use that power this week on a client. ☹️

[miles'tone]

On 04/02/2025 at 08:29, Franticsmurf said:

 

 

Second one happened to me in my previous life as a GITarist. The band I was in were asked to play as part of a multi band line up for a charity night at a large club. It had a lovely stage and between songs the curtain would come down so the bands could swap over. We played, it was good. We finished and as I went to get my little effects board, the curtains closed - behind me. Guitar and effects board in hand and in front of several hundred people, I desperately tried to find the split in the curtains. Did I achieve this with style and coolness? No. I flapped and swished the curtain, pulled at the folds, paced up and down the stage. Just me. Finally one of the band members opened the gap in the curtains to let me through. 

Proper Eric Morecambe moment there! 🤣

[Stub Mandrel]

22 minutes ago, Bluewine said:

 

Yes, I think you're right about 5150.

 

Daryl

 

And a Van Halen album too.

[Beedster]

Great thread

 

On stage at City Poly early-mid 80s. My hair was somewhere between Mike Peters

 

 

and Tony James

 

 

Largely as the result of lot of......

 

 

....that my them GF, a stylist, used to apply for me

 

Anyway, mid gig, I became aware of two things going on at much the same time

 

1. A weird, sickly, smouldering smell

2. The audience paying an unusual amount of attention to the bass player

 

So, transpires that Andy, the keyboard player, had nonchalantly flicked a cigarette across the stage, by luck it had been caught in my 14-18" high barnet, had apparently smouldered there a while before igniting the spray with the result that my hair had pretty much started to melt. Guitarist helpfully came over and put it out with a few hefty downward pats to my cranium. Frankly I wish we'd had a malfucntioning smoke machine to hide it all, it was not a good look at any level. 

 

Had it all cropped off a few days later, nothing to do with health & safety and everything to do with minimising the chance that anyone who'd been at the gig would recognise me 👍

[iamtheelvy]

We haven’t had a drummer explode, but we have had one disappear…

 

Woke up one morning to a message along the lines of “sorry, but I’ve got to go…”, and that was it. No further contact, social media disappeared, not one sighting… In my day job I even work in the same building as the guy and haven’t seen him since…

[chris_b]

45 minutes ago, iamtheelvy said:

We haven’t had a drummer explode, but we have had one disappear…

 

Woke up one morning to a message along the lines of “sorry, but I’ve got to go…”, and that was it. No further contact, social media disappeared, not one sighting… In my day job I even work in the same building as the guy and haven’t seen him since…

 

We had a guitarist do that, except no message. One day he was here, next day he wasn't. Didn't answer any calls or other forms of communication. It was a good band but without him it just folded! A waste of a good band.

[bassbiscuits]

An original glam metal band I was in played a gig up near Stoke in about 1992. It involved us a driving up in our various cars from Swansea - quite an outing.

 

My dad drove me and my girlfriend, while the singer drove the guitarist and their girlfriends in another car. 
 

We got home about 3am.
 

The singer’s car didn’t get home till 7am having somehow taken a wrong turn; alarm bells began ringing when they reached the outskirts of London, a mere 190 miles east of their destination.
 

Looking at the map now I still can’t figure that one out. 

 

[Merton]

12 hours ago, bassbiscuits said:

An original glam metal band I was in played a gig up near Stoke in about 1992. It involved us a driving up in our various cars from Swansea - quite an outing.

 

My dad drove me and my girlfriend, while the singer drove the guitarist and their girlfriends in another car. 
 

We got home about 3am.
 

The singer’s car didn’t get home till 7am having somehow taken a wrong turn; alarm bells began ringing when they reached the outskirts of London, a mere 190 miles east of their destination.
 

Looking at the map now I still can’t figure that one out. 

 

Some people have no sense of direction do they! The guitarist in one of my bands once accidentally went onto the M25 at Jct 8 rather than continue to head down the A217 into Reigate. Instead of going north at Jct 7 and doing a U-turn, he went south and ended up in Brighton, before turning around again. Because to him, that was the obvious choice. 
To be fair this was before Sat Nav but even so, it was quite the feat.

 

ETA: we grew up and live in Reigate, so I thought the local roads would be obvious but I know nothing

Edited Friday at 09:48 by Merton

[bassbiscuits]

2 minutes ago, Merton said:

Some people have no sense of direction do they!

To be fair my sense of direction is awful so I can’t say too much.
 

I was driving home from Wales last month when I noticed the surroundings were no longer familiar and realised I’d missed the entire M42 and driven through Birmingham. 

[bassbiscuits]

There’s a hotel just off the M1/A50 roundabout which I was gigging at a couple of years ago. In the dark and the rain I missed the lane to access the hotel and then had to drive most of the way to Derby before I could turn around.

 

Cursing, I eventually got back to the roundabout - and did exactly the same mistake of missing my turning again!
 

By the time I got to the gig I was well cheesed off, late, properly stressed out and having pointlessly driven to Derby and back twice. 
 

 

 

Edited Thursday at 22:00 by bassbiscuits

[Lozz196]

53 minutes ago, bassbiscuits said:

An original glam metal band I was in played a gig up near Stoke in about 1992. It involved us a driving up in our various cars from Swansea - quite an outing.

 

My dad drove me and my girlfriend, while the singer drove the guitarist and their girlfriends in another car. 
 

We got home about 3am.
 

The singer’s car didn’t get home till 7am having somehow taken a wrong turn; alarm bells began ringing when they reached the outskirts of London, a mere 190 miles east of their destination.
 

Looking at the map now I still can’t figure that one out. 

 

It happens, in my first proper band we played at Manchester poly. On the way back, once we were on the M6 I fell asleep and when I woke up we were in this dark lane with Welsh sign posts. 
 

Apparently the driver/singer got lost cos I was meant to be navigating. Manchester to Hemel is essentially south on the M6 then M1, that’s it.
 

 

[Geek99]

I fell asleep driving on the m62 in a Montego

true story 

[tauzero]

5 hours ago, iamtheelvy said:

We haven’t had a drummer explode, but we have had one disappear…

 

Woke up one morning to a message along the lines of “sorry, but I’ve got to go…”, and that was it. No further contact, social media disappeared, not one sighting… In my day job I even work in the same building as the guy and haven’t seen him since…

 

That happened to the vocalist with one band. We drafted in Mrs Zero as a temporary replacement who became permanent (and was a considerable improvement, in my totally unbiased opinion).

[Norris]

I played in a show band for most of 1985. It was a relatively short period of time, but so rich for incidents.

 

The time that the band leader sacked 3 of us for being late back from a break - it was only a 5-piece band and we were the ones who could actually play. The Butlin's camp manager had kept us talking. There was a slight climb down the next, sober morning: "take as much notice as you need"

 

The time I turned up for a posh do without my bow tie. My efforts to craft one from the vinyl cut out of the back of the driver's seat of the band Transit van and gaffer tape were not appreciated. I ended up wearing a horrendous giant vampire moth tie borrowed from one of the guests

 

The time the band leader quaffed an amount of brandy and accidentally tipped his keyboard synth off the front of the stage. It laid there on the floor screaming away for several minutes until someone could cut the power

[casapete]

7 minutes ago, Norris said:

The time I turned up for a posh do without my bow tie. My efforts to craft one from the vinyl cut out of the back of the driver's seat of the band Transit van and gaffer tape were not appreciated. I ended up wearing a horrendous giant vampire moth tie borrowed from one of the guests

When one of our sax players forgot to bring black shoes to a gig, I remember black gaffer tape being

used to cover his white trainers, quite well IIRC. 
Same fella also had a hole in his black dinner suit trouser knee, so we used a Sharpie on his skin

to disguise it. Had to do two marks though, one for playing sitting down and one for standing. 😆

 

[borntohang]

I've successfully improvised an emergency belt from black gaffa several times. The trick is to pull a length long enough to wrap round your waist and fold it over onto itself so the sticky sides are inside, repeat with two more lengths on both sides for sturdiness, and then create a 'buckle' connecting the two lengths BUT ONLY AFTER YOU PUT IT ON.

 

You do have to cut yourself out of it afterwards unfortunately and it's not a particularly load bearing band so not worth it if you have slim hips and heavy trousers - I haven't got a solution for that yet but I imagine a similar set of improvised braces could work. Careful not to get it on your chest hair. 

[casapete]

22 minutes ago, borntohang said:

I've successfully improvised an emergency belt from black gaffa several times. The trick is to pull a length long enough to wrap round your waist and fold it over onto itself so the sticky sides are inside, repeat with two more lengths on both sides for sturdiness, and then create a 'buckle' connecting the two lengths BUT ONLY AFTER YOU PUT IT ON.

 

You do have to cut yourself out of it afterwards unfortunately and it's not a particularly load bearing band so not worth it if you have slim hips and heavy trousers - I haven't got a solution for that yet but I imagine a similar set of improvised braces could work. Careful not to get it on your chest hair. 

We used to have a spare ‘dep’ suit, which was for anyone who didn’t usually play with the band.

As some of the deps we regularly used were quite often big lads, we had it made in a generous size.

The occasional slimmer deps wearing this suit meant use of gaffer tape to keep the trousers from

descending whilst playing. Great stuff gaffer isn’t it? 😆

[stewblack]

On 03/02/2025 at 22:52, EMG456 said:

counts us in with a vocal count and stick clicks - One, Two, Three, Arghh...

This got me. Beautiful, just beautiful 🤣🤣🤣

[MacDaddy]

The following is a true story.

I put the details in to an AI (not ChatGPT!) and told it to write the post in the manner of a raconteur.

Here's what it came up with:

 

The night was electric, the air thick with the rumble of engines and the scent of beer-soaked revelry. Our band had just wrapped up our set at a biker rally, the kind of gig where leather jackets outnumber smiles, and the headlining act was ready to take the stage. We were tight with them, so we stuck around to watch the chaos unfold.

The bassist of the headlining band—a man who lived like his strings, taut and unpredictable—had won a bottle of Jack Daniels in a raffle earlier that evening. With a swagger only a bassist could muster, he brought it on stage. By the second or third song, half the bottle was gone, a feat impressive even by biker rally standards. This was on top of an all-day beer marathon that would have felled lesser mortals.

Then came the moment: mid-set, still cradling his bass (thankfully wireless), he wandered off stage. At first, we thought it was some avant-garde performance art. But no—he plopped himself into a front-row seat, clutching that £20 bottle of Jack like it was Excalibur, and promptly passed out cold. Attempts to wake him were futile; he was in a whiskey-induced slumber so deep it might as well have been mythological.

The kicker? While he clung to that bottle for dear life, his £2000+ Rickenbacker bass—a gleaming piece of rock history—was left unattended. I had to step in, pick up his instrument, and finish the gig for him while he snored away in blissful ignorance.

It was rock 'n' roll distilled into one perfect moment: absurdity, camaraderie, and a touch of chaos. And yes, we made sure he got his bass back—eventually.

[Bluewine]

On 06/02/2025 at 15:50, bassbiscuits said:

To be fair my sense of direction is awful so I can’t say too much.
 

I was driving home from Wales last month when I noticed the surroundings were no longer familiar and realised I’d missed the entire M42 and driven through Birmingham. 

 

My gig was 5 minutes from my condo. On the way home I missed my turn at the high school.  15 minutes later I'm lost driving on a back countryside road.

 

Now you understand why you see " I'll be picked up" in most of my gig reviews. Lol

 

Daryl

[Downunderwonder]

The drummer used to have difficulty getting the countoff tempo correct in the heat of a big gig. I would have to wave him off if he was too far adrift.

 

This time he counted it off double time and foxed me. Trouble ensued as the deps we use had the opportunity to pretend they weren't familiar and show off by playing it double time.

 

Then the singer comes in,  looking like a deer in the headlights but sounding like a member of The Chipmunks, trying to get all the words out instead of walking off.

 

We finished hardly any slower than we started, shrugged, and carried on.

 

To his credit the drummer bought a tablet for keeping it all under control from that day forward.

[King Tut]

Arrived at Bideford Bay Holiday Camp for a Blues Festival. The band was Stray but billed as Del Bromhams Blues Devils. 
 

Rather than check out our cabins we decided to play first and sort it later. By the time we’d played it was pitch black and we drove around the holiday camp in the peeing rain looking in vain for our accommodation. We parked up and one of the roadies volunteered to go on foot to find the cabins. So off he and his helper trotted. Once they were clear of the bus, Del put on his best upper class royal accent and said “Hmnn just as well we have staff!”. Cue immediate eruptions of guffaws!

 

Anyway, we eventually found our cabins only to find that the electricity was metered pay as you go with tokens that could be brought from reception which was now shut. With just a tiny bit of power left we had to eke it out the best we could until we set off next day. The glamour of being in a touring band eh?!