Bumpy Moments with YOUR Band?

~~GeddyVanHalen~~ · 01-20-2012, 03:05 AM

I'll tell you a story about not-so-good moments with my band. But in return I'd also like to hear yours.

I think the worst show my band has done was back in August. We got informed by the person in charge of the show that there's a little rec centre that's having a grand opening, and they're looking for bands. Well, at the time I was thinking "Hey, it's an all-ages show and that's what we want, right??" We didn't care how far it was, we were willing to drive as far as possible to do a kick-ass set.

Well, the band and I practiced as much as we could. And we were so sure it was gonna kick ass and everything. We were even told by e-mail that there would be pizza given to us. (SCORE...or so I thought for now).

So on the day of the show, we drove for like almost over an hour. As we got there, the new rec centre was located in the middle of a park. Didn't really bother me too much, but at the same time, it's like it was in the middle of nowhere. Then the guy organizing said there'd be pizza, but there was a very limited amount...I mean, VERY limited (one slice per person). We had to save it for the other staff members at the rec centre, and they weren't even large pizzas (alright, so maybe it shouldn't be a big deal, but we WERE told there'd be food for us, though they never stated how much food).

First band went on stage, they played a good set, but there was barely anybody there. Just their parents/relatives, but in few numbers. After that, it was our turn. And get this....the first band didn't stay behind for our set! I dunno what their reason was, but I'm pretty sure it was because they were fed up about how the show was run too and they just wanted to get the hell outta there.

During our set, our drummer was having problems with the kit in between a couple of songs, so I had to do some talking for a couple of minutes to the very few number of people in the audience who were sitting on their chairs.

After our set was over, the very few people who were there for our set liked what we did. That part was definitely worth it for sure. The part that was kinda hurting though was that a bunch of other randoms came in, but they obviously were NOT there for any of the bands....they were there for the DJ's during intermission.

The final act was this one guy, and again, only a few selected number of people in the audience. He did a good set, but definitely not the right audience.

So overall...wrong gig, wrong place, and wrong time. Though the few people who were in the audience liked what we did (and I thank them so much for that), the band and I agreed to not to play at bad locations like that, and we'll just stick with playing places that will be for sure bumpin'.
Definitely something we indie bands have to go through, but at the same time we all have choices.

Howard the Duck · 01-20-2012, 04:34 AM

there were none

mainly cos after two or three jamming sessions, they all left

(I'm like Hitler there)

10thLineStudio · 01-20-2012, 05:44 AM

Accepted a gig once at a campground, a summer party of sorts. The budget was low, it was a long weekend, so I ended up by myself and the bass player!! Thing is I had originaly agreed to play for 4 hours!! I had to bring my own little PA too. Well there was about 20 people there and only a few knew each other. And it seems that nobody was drinking, so most where pretty stiff. Another buddy showed up and played with us for about 45 minutes, so that helped. Still, makes for a long night.

We got paid right away, so that was good. And the organizers told us they loved it, so it wasn't all bad. But boy, I'm never going to do that again!!

Guybrush · 01-20-2012, 06:16 AM

I've been playing the occasional gigs with the band I'm in now for a few years and every concert has been great with decent turn-outs and really appreciative audience who tend to sing along and so on .. More than you can ask for, really! So I've no gig-complaints from the current era of my musicianship.

.. But when I was a teenager in the late 90s, we did some gigs that did not go down very well. We had this electronica group with a stage show that really was all about stuff I'd rather not mention on this site or any other public place; it was pretty awful and all we wanted to do was shock, entertain and perhaps offend. The music was loud and was more or less a mix of chiptunes and electronic acapellas. The audience were pretty shocked at what we were doing. Once we played in a bar and when we were through our first set, we had a break. Some tough guys came up on stage during the break and basically threatened to beat us up. One of them stumped his cigarette in my friends shoulder, but the fight didn't happen. We told the bouncers what was going on, but they didn't throw out the troublemakers. Just as the second set had started and we'd started playing, our sound got cut off and they switched to the DJ. Then we get told to get out

So we were the ones getting thrown out that day.

Another time, there was a local festival and we said we wanted to play with a band just for the hell of it. It wasn't actually a real band with any material, but me and a couple of other guys were making music so we just used some random stuff from our private catalogs. The stage was actually on a small pier in a lagoon so we had some shallow water between us and the audience who were sitting on the beach. One of my mates who is not really a musician at all joined us on stage (why not?) and we were all pretty drunk .. at some point, he decided to wade out in the water and show his junk to everyone. A journalist there thought we were pretty pathetic (we were!) and so our awful gig ended up getting half the press coverage of the entire festival. Of course, the press was pretty negative, but we loved the attention anyways

The hairiest gig-situation I ever read about was Mark Hewins tale about when he played a gig with Soft Heap in a french prison. It's posted on my website, but I assure you this is not a shameless plug; it's actually good reading and highly relevant to the topic.

Link : A Riotous Gig in a Strange Place | The Polite Force

~~GeddyVanHalen~~ · 01-20-2012, 10:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

Another time, there was a local festival and we said we wanted to play with a band just for the hell of it. It wasn't actually a real band with any material, but me and a couple of other guys were making music so we just used some random stuff from our private catalogs. The stage was actually on a small pier in a lagoon so we had some shallow water between us and the audience who were sitting on the beach. One of my mates who is not really a musician at all joined us on stage (why not?) and we were all pretty drunk .. at some point, he decided to wade out in the water and show his junk to everyone. A journalist there thought we were pretty pathetic (we were!) and so our awful gig ended up getting half the press coverage of the entire festival. Of course, the press was pretty negative, but we loved the attention anyways

I personally would consider that EPIC!!!

Tristesse · 01-20-2012, 01:39 PM

One of my friends lives in a small close-knit village a few miles away from where I live. She said they were having their annual fete and the organiser, a nice old woman, wanted to have a band playing towards the end, to keep the punters interested through to a jazz event they were holding in the evening. We agreed, and I, as the band's frontman and spokesperson, had a few conversations with her and a gentleman who had agreed to sort us out with a PA system. We were all set, until our rhythm guitarist suddenly sprung on us that he had to visit his grandmother on the weekend it was to take place and that he couldn't miss it. Our drummer was on a skiing holiday at the time, some place in France I think. He had said he was fine to do it, as we were keeping in contact through facebook. Unfortunately, a few days after we had confirmed that we would do it, he sent me a message mentioning that he had slightly broken his leg. And he was now in cast from hip to toe.

Safe to say, not wanting to back out on our word, the lead guitarist and I said we would sort out something acoustic out as we had done a couple of acoustic sets before. In the end, I forgot all my words, we had a crowd of about 7 people as everyone else had gone home, and a drunk couple fell backwards off of a haybale. The End.

Necromancer · 01-20-2012, 02:44 PM

I've played most all live venues except the (big Dog) stadium. And everything that could happen or go wrong has happened. From mic chords shorting out to total electrical failure. I'm not proud to admit, that I've been pretty fucked up on stage before. But I've always been lucky enough to pull it out of my ass, and finish the show. It doesnt take long to learn and work together as a band in order to cover up mistakes that come along. Just keep it "Fun" and learn from the mistakes that arrive. Its all part of paying your dues.

But one of the funniest ones, was back in the 80s when we had a two night gig, Friday and Saturday night. I pretty well sang 25 to 30% of my vocals out the first night. And we were sitting at the club a couple of hous before we started. And one of the guitar players suggested that I should take a hit of speed (Black Beauty), because it might help my voice. That was a major mistake on my part..Lol..so..
I suggested opening with a fairly easy cover by ZZ Top..(and nothing came out)!

I asked the guitar player "What am I gonna do now"? He casually turned and said "just drink whiskey strait, with no chaser".

I'll never forget playing somewhere in Columbus, Oh. And we were all just returning to the stage for our 3rd or 4th set, and one of our guitarist, while stepping up on the stage itself, fell flat on his face with his guitar on, Geesh..hehe. I could hear someone in the crowd reply "Damn, that guys drunk". I can still see that happening so vividly..hehe.

Franco Pepe Kalle · 01-20-2012, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Il Duce

there were none

mainly cos after two or three jamming sessions, they all left

(I'm like Hitler there)

Why did they abandoned you.

Howard the Duck · 01-21-2012, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Franco Pepe Kalle

Why did they abandoned you.

basically dictating what they should or should not play

ThePhanastasio · 01-21-2012, 05:09 AM

I do solo stuff, which is terrifying. I've been playing a little bit in a garage jamming with some other musicians, but my live performance has been all me.

Probably the worst was a set in which I seriously got so tense, I decided to replace some of my more complex songs with some really easy songs I knew, because I was super-tense.

One of the songs I replaced a harder song with was VERY simple: The only chords in the song were Am, C, F, G. It was easily the simplest song I was going to play.

Things didn't go tragically awry - I was, however, for some reason unable to play the easy song...because I kept forgetting the lyrics. My hands were shaking so badly that the change from Am to C kept being weird, and I kept just singing the weirdest lyrics to the general tune of the song to cover. At one point, the lyrics became: "I'm on stage and can't play guitar / I'm onstage and my feet are asleep / I can't remember lyrics, I'll go far... / duh-duh-duh, lightning to strike."

It was nerve-wracking. My friends were kind and said they didn't even notice...because I just kept playing anyway...but I don't believe them.

01-20-2012, 03:05 AM	#1 (permalink)
~~GeddyVanHalen~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jan 2012 Posts: 13	Bumpy Moments with YOUR Band? I'll tell you a story about not-so-good moments with my band. But in return I'd also like to hear yours. I think the worst show my band has done was back in August. We got informed by the person in charge of the show that there's a little rec centre that's having a grand opening, and they're looking for bands. Well, at the time I was thinking "Hey, it's an all-ages show and that's what we want, right??" We didn't care how far it was, we were willing to drive as far as possible to do a kick-ass set. Well, the band and I practiced as much as we could. And we were so sure it was gonna kick ass and everything. We were even told by e-mail that there would be pizza given to us. (SCORE...or so I thought for now). So on the day of the show, we drove for like almost over an hour. As we got there, the new rec centre was located in the middle of a park. Didn't really bother me too much, but at the same time, it's like it was in the middle of nowhere. Then the guy organizing said there'd be pizza, but there was a very limited amount...I mean, VERY limited (one slice per person). We had to save it for the other staff members at the rec centre, and they weren't even large pizzas (alright, so maybe it shouldn't be a big deal, but we WERE told there'd be food for us, though they never stated how much food). First band went on stage, they played a good set, but there was barely anybody there. Just their parents/relatives, but in few numbers. After that, it was our turn. And get this....the first band didn't stay behind for our set! I dunno what their reason was, but I'm pretty sure it was because they were fed up about how the show was run too and they just wanted to get the hell outta there. During our set, our drummer was having problems with the kit in between a couple of songs, so I had to do some talking for a couple of minutes to the very few number of people in the audience who were sitting on their chairs. After our set was over, the very few people who were there for our set liked what we did. That part was definitely worth it for sure. The part that was kinda hurting though was that a bunch of other randoms came in, but they obviously were NOT there for any of the bands....they were there for the DJ's during intermission. The final act was this one guy, and again, only a few selected number of people in the audience. He did a good set, but definitely not the right audience. So overall...wrong gig, wrong place, and wrong time. Though the few people who were in the audience liked what we did (and I thank them so much for that), the band and I agreed to not to play at bad locations like that, and we'll just stick with playing places that will be for sure bumpin'. Definitely something we indie bands have to go through, but at the same time we all have choices.

01-20-2012, 06:16 AM	#4 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	I've been playing the occasional gigs with the band I'm in now for a few years and every concert has been great with decent turn-outs and really appreciative audience who tend to sing along and so on .. More than you can ask for, really! So I've no gig-complaints from the current era of my musicianship. .. But when I was a teenager in the late 90s, we did some gigs that did not go down very well. We had this electronica group with a stage show that really was all about stuff I'd rather not mention on this site or any other public place; it was pretty awful and all we wanted to do was shock, entertain and perhaps offend. The music was loud and was more or less a mix of chiptunes and electronic acapellas. The audience were pretty shocked at what we were doing. Once we played in a bar and when we were through our first set, we had a break. Some tough guys came up on stage during the break and basically threatened to beat us up. One of them stumped his cigarette in my friends shoulder, but the fight didn't happen. We told the bouncers what was going on, but they didn't throw out the troublemakers. Just as the second set had started and we'd started playing, our sound got cut off and they switched to the DJ. Then we get told to get out So we were the ones getting thrown out that day. Another time, there was a local festival and we said we wanted to play with a band just for the hell of it. It wasn't actually a real band with any material, but me and a couple of other guys were making music so we just used some random stuff from our private catalogs. The stage was actually on a small pier in a lagoon so we had some shallow water between us and the audience who were sitting on the beach. One of my mates who is not really a musician at all joined us on stage (why not?) and we were all pretty drunk .. at some point, he decided to wade out in the water and show his junk to everyone. A journalist there thought we were pretty pathetic (we were!) and so our awful gig ended up getting half the press coverage of the entire festival. Of course, the press was pretty negative, but we loved the attention anyways The hairiest gig-situation I ever read about was Mark Hewins tale about when he played a gig with Soft Heap in a french prison. It's posted on my website, but I assure you this is not a shameless plug; it's actually good reading and highly relevant to the topic. Link : A Riotous Gig in a Strange Place \| The Polite Force __________________ Something Completely Different

01-21-2012, 05:09 AM	#10 (permalink)
ThePhanastasio Killed Laura Palmer Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Ashland, KY Posts: 1,679	I do solo stuff, which is terrifying. I've been playing a little bit in a garage jamming with some other musicians, but my live performance has been all me. Probably the worst was a set in which I seriously got so tense, I decided to replace some of my more complex songs with some really easy songs I knew, because I was super-tense. One of the songs I replaced a harder song with was VERY simple: The only chords in the song were Am, C, F, G. It was easily the simplest song I was going to play. Things didn't go tragically awry - I was, however, for some reason unable to play the easy song...because I kept forgetting the lyrics. My hands were shaking so badly that the change from Am to C kept being weird, and I kept just singing the weirdest lyrics to the general tune of the song to cover. At one point, the lyrics became: "I'm on stage and can't play guitar / I'm onstage and my feet are asleep / I can't remember lyrics, I'll go far... / duh-duh-duh, lightning to strike." It was nerve-wracking. My friends were kind and said they didn't even notice...because I just kept playing anyway...but I don't believe them. __________________ Phish: Studio Discography Reviewed 100 Albums I Heartily Recommend My last.fm It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken Perhaps they're better left unsung

01-20-2012, 05:44 AM	#3 (permalink)
10thLineStudio Groupie Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Bromont, Qc Posts: 21	Accepted a gig once at a campground, a summer party of sorts. The budget was low, it was a long weekend, so I ended up by myself and the bass player!! Thing is I had originaly agreed to play for 4 hours!! I had to bring my own little PA too. Well there was about 20 people there and only a few knew each other. And it seems that nobody was drinking, so most where pretty stiff. Another buddy showed up and played with us for about 45 minutes, so that helped. Still, makes for a long night. We got paid right away, so that was good. And the organizers told us they loved it, so it wasn't all bad. But boy, I'm never going to do that again!!

01-20-2012, 02:44 PM	#7 (permalink)
Necromancer Divination Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 2,655	I've played most all live venues except the (big Dog) stadium. And everything that could happen or go wrong has happened. From mic chords shorting out to total electrical failure. I'm not proud to admit, that I've been pretty fucked up on stage before. But I've always been lucky enough to pull it out of my ass, and finish the show. It doesnt take long to learn and work together as a band in order to cover up mistakes that come along. Just keep it "Fun" and learn from the mistakes that arrive. Its all part of paying your dues. But one of the funniest ones, was back in the 80s when we had a two night gig, Friday and Saturday night. I pretty well sang 25 to 30% of my vocals out the first night. And we were sitting at the club a couple of hous before we started. And one of the guitar players suggested that I should take a hit of speed (Black Beauty), because it might help my voice. That was a major mistake on my part..Lol..so.. I suggested opening with a fairly easy cover by ZZ Top..(and nothing came out)! I asked the guitar player "What am I gonna do now"? He casually turned and said "just drink whiskey strait, with no chaser". I'll never forget playing somewhere in Columbus, Oh. And we were all just returning to the stage for our 3rd or 4th set, and one of our guitarist, while stepping up on the stage itself, fell flat on his face with his guitar on, Geesh..hehe. I could hear someone in the crowd reply "Damn, that guys drunk". I can still see that happening so vividly..hehe.