Gig Disasters

Nachobassman

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Hola, amigos...

Just finished watching this Rick Beato video about Embarrassing Gig DISASTERS

And I realized this could be a good thread topic because I think we all had a gig, rehearsal, studio recording, etc., situation that went bad, really bad.

Let me start:
About 5 or 6 years ago I was hired by a sound engineering academy in Madrid to be the bass player, along with a drummer and guitar player/singer, as the band for their live sound classes. We had to be there for about 4 o 5 classes at 9 in the morning, in a well known live music venue downtown Madrid.
We were paid 5 or 6 hours each day to be there with our gear ready to play, but actually played like 30 min, you know, like in a sound check, so the students could learn how to set up ALL the gear, backline, monitors, mics, learn how to use the mixer, etc.

All the first bunch of classes went pretty smooth, and the last day they had the final class/exam.

Well, The day of the exam my wake-up alarm didn't sound and I woke up like 1hour later, so I was already late.
I got my gear in the car and drove downtown Madrid (I live around 60km away) without having even a little sip of café.

Since the venue was in the very downtown of the city there was IMPOSSIBLE to park there due to parking and car traffic restrictions, so my car wasn't allowed to move inside those streets, so I had to park a little bit away then go to the venue. Have in mind that I was carrying my 2x10 combo and a gigbag with my bass.

On the previous days I went with the drummer because he lives in Madrid and he could get his car there, but not this time. He was already at the venue, of course, so my options were taking a really long walk, taking the Metro (underground) or grabbing a taxi. The guy in charge called me and yelled at me: -"Grab a fu*#@g taxi right now!!". And I started to look out for a taxi but there was no one, zero, NADA. What's going on here? How could it be there is not even ONE taxi in a city full of taxis at 10 in the morning on a normal working tuesday??????

Well, after 30 min trying to find a bloody taxi without success, someone told me that all taxi in the city were on STRIKE. Yep, the first time in many years I needed a taxi in Madrid, they were on a 24h strike.

Then I realized my fastest and ONLY option was to take the METRO and then walking like 4 streets untill the venue.

I got there almost 2 hours late, tired, stressed, hungry... the guy in charge wanted to kill me, the rest of the band wanted to kill me, and the poor students that had the exam were even more stressed because the delay and stuff.
Needless to say they had never called me again.

I have more gig dissaster stories but this is the worst I can remember. I felt so bad that day, that right now, as I'm writing this to you, I'm feeling the same kind of despair and anger that I felt that day.:oops::(:confused:

Your turn. ;)
 
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Hardy

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We had terrible situations. But I buried theses memories, do I really want to dig there? :D
 

DiMarco

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Gig on top of a parking garage, in march. It was near freezing temperature. During the first song the power went down and it took the festival organisation 45 mins to fix it.

We were on stage, in stage outfit (no coats or jackets). For the next few tracks my fingers were bloody frozen and I was playing a fretless. I sounded horrible and couldn't do any fast runs.

Other gig: Town idiot gets on stage with us and starts franticly blowing his harmonica. We played a crossover hardcore/metal style. After one song we kindly asked for him to be removed. That didn't happen so we kicked him off stage. Then the crowd turned against us and we had to be hidden in some office behind sealed doors as things escalated and I was holding a mic stand planning to bash in on the bastards. This was in Den Helder, I never visited that shit town ever again.
 

Hector

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Gig on top of a parking garage, in march. It was near freezing temperature. During the first song the power went down and it took the festival organisation 45 mins to fix it.

We were on stage, in stage outfit (no coats or jackets). For the next few tracks my fingers were bloody frozen and I was playing a fretless. I sounded horrible and couldn't do any fast runs.

Other gig: Town idiot gets on stage with us and starts franticly blowing his harmonica. We played a crossover hardcore/metal style. After one song we kindly asked for him to be removed. That didn't happen so we kicked him off stage. Then the crowd turned against us and we had to be hidden in some office behind sealed doors as things escalated and I was holding a mic stand planning to bash in on the bastards. This was in Den Helder, I never visited that shit town ever again.


:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:
 

DiMarco

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Yup. Wasn't always happy happy joy joy in the nineties. Back then I wasn't as mellow as well.

Oh and the food before every single gig if the venue arranges it is pretty much a disaster.
Always take care of that yourselves.
 
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One of my first gig was during a concentration of bikers, in the middle of winter!
It was a small concentration that was held for the 2nd time only and the first time he was doing a concert.
As much to say to you that we had the right to everything!
Generator failure during balances during the day, in the evening our sound was not well adjusted, the drummer did not have correct feedback.
The stage had been set up in a barn with no heating, everyone was frozen and what allowed us to warm up a bit was the alcohol.
All of this put together meant that we had a horrible concert, but since the bikers were even more drunk than us and they had a blast, we still got paid!
 

Henrythe8

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I have no "real" disaster. But a few stories y'all will relate to, I'm sure.

The great Classic : we played in a bar, and one particular guy was wasteed. he danced around so quickly and fiercely, he finally stiumbled across the wedges, straight through the singer and fell in the drumset.

The great Classic II : we played in a shady bar in the shady part of town. we set things up, and wait nicely for the time to play arrives. In te meantime, a guy, tatally wasted, sat in a chair JUST IN FRONT of us. With his dog. The guy threw up in the middle of the second song. I moved my pedalboard so it wouldn't get soaked in puke. The dog finally licked the floor. the cope arrived and stopped the concert after 4 songs.

The Power Drummer : with my first band (we're talking late 90's, here) we played some bars. The Drummer was great, guitarist too, and we had a REAL singer. The drummer used thos "marching band" drumsticks, so huge that they had almost no olive. And he was a REAL hard hitter. he had the habit to hit the cymbals from top to bottom, bottom to top, top to bottom.
We were playing Crazy Train. just at the beginning of the solo, Drummer hits the crash from the bottom up. the cymbal detached and flew on the scene, falling like an axe on the guitarist's cable. Cutting the sound of the guitar. The fun thing was that the guitarist was sooo into it he didn't realize that the sound went off. I stopped playing cuz I was laughing soooo hard.
 

Hardy

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Our worst disaster is really something I don´t want to remember. In 2017 our band split because the guitar guys went to straight Thrash Metal and founded their own band. We are still friends and support each other but in this moment it was a shock. We happily immediately found a new guitar guy who brought his best friend in the band, a sax and keyboard player. This also meant we had a bigger change in our style. After 5 months we had our first gig in the new formation. The sound guy was and is an idiot and gave us the worst sound ever. During the first song he cut the bass signal to zero(!), there was no bass at all. Our keyboard guy was upset and overmotivated and raised the volume of his keyboard. We sounded like a fair chapel. After two songs a cable of the guitar guys setup failed, he was on his knees for 5 minutes to fix it. The whole gig was a catastrophy. We lost fans this evening. Too bad the drummer didn´t fall over to distract the crowd... let me put this evening back behind closed doors.
 
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At a bar gig in Knaresborough, Yorkshire I played in back in around 2003 a fight broke out between a father and son and they started scrapping right in front of the stage. The son punched his father so hard in the face, the guy went flying, tripped over our monitors missed our singer and ended up in a heap just in front of the bass drum. Most of us had glasses of beer near our equipment. Mine got knocked over and my pedalboard got a washing of beer, but miraculously kept working! Door security came and pulled the guy off the stage and as they did so the guy's son tried to attack his dad again. Like troopers we had kept the song going this whole time despite having a WTF moment. The our singer who was female and normally quite polite spoken just shouted mid song through the mic 'will somebody get these f***ing twats out of here!' before carrying back on with the song. At that point I couldn't help smiling. My pedalboard was covered in sticky beer, but somehow survived - so not quite a disaster really, but one of those moments! :)
 

Hardy

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A "funny" memory: At a bar gig the partying crowd came in contact with the mic of our former guitar guy. The stand with the mic was swinging and in danger to fall over. The guitar guy saved it by stepping on the pedestal - too bad the mic now with momentum crashed in his face. He was nearly knocked out. We couldn´t stop grinning. Even though it was a tough moment it also was funny like a Walt Disney comic!
 

kimgee

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Worst was dropping acid a hour before playing and yeah, that did not go so well ha ha. Or when our drummer was addicted to meth. they were interesting shows. I miss that band.......
What? Acid didn't help you play? The Grateful Dead seemed to thrive on the stuff. I watched a huge documentary on Amazon Prime about that group recently. I have never been or understood "Deadheads", but the documentary was very interesting and made me appreciate the band and Jerry Garcia more. Anyway, in the documentary, I guess it was before acid was illegal, the band would frequent regular events in the San Franciso area called "Acid Tests". You paid to get in and were provided with "special koolaide". The whole band would go to these events and get high and play until the sun came up. Very healthy I am sure.
 
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What? Acid didn't help you play? The Grateful Dead seemed to thrive on the stuff. I watched a huge documentary on Amazon Prime about that group recently. I have never been or understood "Deadheads", but the documentary was very interesting and made me appreciate the band and Jerry Garcia more. Anyway, in the documentary, I guess it was before acid was illegal, the band would frequent regular events in the San Franciso area called "Acid Tests". You paid to get in and were provided with "special koolaide". The whole band would go to these events and get high and play until the sun came up. Very healthy I am sure.


The secret is to drop as you go on stage and then it comes on as you are playing which puts you in the zone and is usually epic. If you take too early then its just a totally weird experience and turns into a disaster. ha ha.

Anyway this was all 20 years ago. too old for that now.
 
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Another interesting one we had was we hired some mates who had a stunt crew.

In a warehouse party we put on they poured 30 litres of petrol on a guy and blew him up mid set. We tried to get everyone to stand back which they did but the explosion was massive, flames approx 8 meters high and we had flames wash over the stage.

The guy on fire ran around for about 3 minutes until he ran out of oxygen then his crew put him out. No one got hurt but when the explosion was so huge and when flames came up on stage I totally forgot what I was playing ha ha. Could have been a lot worse.

We did this about 8 times are various parties and events afterwards but never inside again.
 
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Another interesting one we had was we hired some mates who had a stunt crew.

In a warehouse party we put on they poured 30 litres of petrol on a guy and blew him up mid set. We tried to get everyone to stand back which they did but the explosion was massive, flames approx 8 meters high and we had flames wash over the stage.

The guy on fire ran around for about 3 minutes until he ran out of oxygen then his crew put him out. No one got hurt but when the explosion was so huge and when flames came up on stage I totally forgot what I was playing ha ha. Could have been a lot worse.

We did this about 8 times are various parties and events afterwards but never inside again.
ROCK 'N ROLL!!!
 
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