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What Was Your Worst Gig and Why?
I made this post originally in r/guitar on Reddit and heard some great stories, so I figured I would ask you gents as well.
I'll start.
When I first started playing guitar (age 10, and 22 now) I played here and there usually around school and of course my performance skills weren't top notch so I don't really count those ones.
Having played some professional gigs by this point, I would have to say the worst one I've ever played was a jazz gig with a weak pianist and weak guitarist. I was actually playing bass for this event. The piano player was very arrogant and thought he was the leader because he was the oldest in the band. He was constantly bringing out his reharmonized lead sheets for standards that we were already used to playing. We kept getting lost playing over the weird changes and the whole night was just a disaster. I admit we were all playing with bad time. The piano player would tap his foot very loudly to try and stabilize everyone but he wasn't doing it with good time so it actually made everything worse. The guitarist would play lines completely out of time, and I kept slowing down the more up tempo tunes because I wasn't good enough to walk bass at 200bpm for more than a few choruses.
None of us really clicked on a personal level either and that is something I find makes or breaks the night.
What do you guys have for stories? Cheers
I'll start.
When I first started playing guitar (age 10, and 22 now) I played here and there usually around school and of course my performance skills weren't top notch so I don't really count those ones.
Having played some professional gigs by this point, I would have to say the worst one I've ever played was a jazz gig with a weak pianist and weak guitarist. I was actually playing bass for this event. The piano player was very arrogant and thought he was the leader because he was the oldest in the band. He was constantly bringing out his reharmonized lead sheets for standards that we were already used to playing. We kept getting lost playing over the weird changes and the whole night was just a disaster. I admit we were all playing with bad time. The piano player would tap his foot very loudly to try and stabilize everyone but he wasn't doing it with good time so it actually made everything worse. The guitarist would play lines completely out of time, and I kept slowing down the more up tempo tunes because I wasn't good enough to walk bass at 200bpm for more than a few choruses.
None of us really clicked on a personal level either and that is something I find makes or breaks the night.
What do you guys have for stories? Cheers
The 3 elements of western music are: melody, harmony, and rhythm. In my fingerstyle arrangements, I play them all at once. Check them out here
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I got so angry with him that I took my guitar off and was going to throw it at him. I stopped myself and finished the song but, I stopped our set 5 minutes early because it was incredibly embarrassing. I ended up quitting a month later.
It was around early 1988, Wimbotsham Village Hall, near Downham Market in Norfolk. Our singer, who was a bit like Terry Fuckwitt from Viz found us this gig with 2 other local bands. We turned up, set up and did a sound check and I noticed some washing up bowls down the side of the stage with some small balloons blown up in it. Didn't think anything of it and we finished sound check, audience turned up, hall was full and first band went on.
The first band were a skinhead Oi punk type group and after a few songs a load of lads, that we later referred to as the 'Downham Barebacks' piled in at the front with thier mates, with shirts off, on their shoulders, a bit like you would see at a New Model Army gig. The Barebacks started throwing water bombs and small bags of flour at the band (from the washing up bowls I had spied earlier). The Oi band's guitarist was angrily playing a Tele through a Marshall amp and as the melee ensued I saw smoke coming from the back of his amp, they soldiered on for a couple of songs before his amp broke down, the guitarist got really angry and threw his guitar down and then they fled the stage soaked and covered in flour.
Chaos ensued as the crowd started fighting.
I whispered to my mate who was helping us with our gear and told him to tell the others we were leaving and on my signal to raid the stage and grab our gear. I gave the go signal and we quickly got the gear into the 2 cars and were on our way out when the angy crowd surrounded our cars and were rocking them violently from side to side as we sat inside with doors locked. We escaped by the skin of our teeth and retreated back to the safe haven of our rehearsal room in our village some 15 miles away and set about berrating our singer for getting us into this mess.
We later learned that the riot continued resulting in police being called after a wheelbarrow was thrown through a neighbouring house's front room window and it turned out the organisers had broken into the hall anyway and not rented it! Nice touch.
Just one of several legendary blunders by our Terry Fuckwitt of a singer!
The DJ covering the break in our set (& seeing out the night once we finished) at a function took umbrage at our singer "disappearing" with the barmaid he fancied during the break.
When we came back he put his dry ice machine on "for effect".
It was like something out of Spinal Tap- I couldn't even see our drummer let alone the crowd.
The CO2 built up so much that the fire alarm system was triggered & we all got evacuated into the rain.
Fun times.
Nice hotel in Stratford upon Avon, had played there before so we knew it was a decent room, no noise limiter or space issues or horrid natural reverb or any of that.
Met the bride, lovely, laid back, no stress.
We sound check, Father of the bride comes over to say that's too loud, people will want to talk, we should play afternoon dance music not blast everyone away.
"Eh up", thinks we, "Got a right one here, let's just keep a lid on the volume and what we do...." We're not the loudest band and we play a selection of music right back to 50's and 60's, so there is something for everyone.....or so you might think.
Part way into the first set he comes over, less polite is time "What are you doing? This is too loud, people are trying to talk!"
We carry on, with the effect that he gets more and more irate as the set carries on, to the point where after one song we can't begin the next until he has finished ranting in the middle of the dance floor: "It's a fucking RACKET! You're ruining the night! You've cleared the dance floor! Play something suitable not this rubbish!"
Now, the dance floor was empty because it was a gorgeous day and most people were outside. And what was the Death Metal noisefest that got him onto his feet for his latest rant? Moondance by Van Morrison!
He carried on in the vein all night, fortunately the bride told us during our interval to ignore him but by them our mojo was well and truly deflated and we just went through the motions...hard to put anything of yourself into a gig when right in front of you someone loudly expressing to you how rubbish you are.
Got to Summer of 69 and just didn't dare launch into it with our usual gusto so we turned it into a Jazz Lounge version.
Bride and groom were very apologetic about the empty dance floor and told us it wasn't our fault (it wasn't!) but for us it was just the worst gig.
I guess an awful lot of people would have just told him to go f*** himself rather than keep calm and businesslike as I did.....And whenever I remember the gig I always regret that I didn't....
Bassist Dave's parents Ruby Wedding anniversary at the Margate Winter Gardens, Queen's Hall. Almost a duplicate of rocknrolldave's.
First off we humped all the gear into the hall, and had to get back for 7pm. The drummer arrived late and pissed, admitting to downing a bottle of red wine, and then went to the bar, returning with a pint in each hand. The singer's husband was also there, who had inside info on the drummer's current bit on the side after he'd spotted them getting jiggy with it in the back of the drummer's van, and thus things were simmering between them.
The audience was a mix of Dave's parent's contemporaries with an average age of about 75, some of whom were in wheelchairs with oxygen, a high percentage were supported by zimmer frames, and their middle-aged children.
The comedian, who was very good, absolutely died. He managed to raise the odd titter, but failed miserably, it was like a fucking morgue.
By the time we got up to play, the drummer could hardly string two words together. Being presented with a rock band (albeit one that played out of time due to aforementioned pisshead drummer) had the audience unmoved. Well, not exactly unmoved, because after only two numbers, Dave's mum came up to the stage and shouted "You'll have to stop playing, people are leaving!"
Thus we stopped, and started packing the gear up. But the fun wasn't over because, just to put a cap on it, I stumbled on the drummer and the singer's husband having a stand-up fight outside.
There have been others, but that has to be the most cringeworthy.
At least with a pub gig or similar when something like this happens you are well within your rights to just say "Fuck this lads, lets pack up" but do you really want to ruin someone's wedding? You just have to stand there and take it on the chin. Horrible.
I'd tend to say the one in a big pub in Yardley. Nice summer evening so lots of people drinking outside. Nowhere to park so all the gear had to be carried 200 yards and through the crowd of drunks.
There was a very, very drunk man who spent the gig standing right in front of our singer, occasionally starting to topple over.
There were people snorting cocaine off the washroom sinks so going for a piss was an adventure in itself.
There was a chap going around the pub shoplifting from the supermarket next door to order.
A fight broke out, a bloke was glassed and an ambulance called. Freaked us out a bit although the clientele seemed to take it as normal.
Packing up was the 200 yards back through even more drunks.
We played, got paid and nothing of ours was damaged but I can't say it was fun.
On the hometown gig of a national tour we dropped the gear off at the venue at lunchtime and thought it would be good to go the the pub and have a full English brekkie and a couple of pint before soundcheck at about 3pm. Only myself and the singer actually had something to eat and the bassist, drummer and rhythm git decided to drink on empty stomachs.
Soundcheck went OK-ish but things were clearly going to be worse later on. The Swedish band we were taking on tour with us looked a bit concerned. They'd been out sightseeing in Nottingham for the day, not on the piss.
A few more drinks and the promoter shows up with the rider: 3 crates of stella, 2x bottles of whiskey and a bag of coke.
The gig turned into a disaster. The singer kept storming off because he was embarrased to be fronting such a mess. The bass player got thrown out DURING the gig for playing his bass in the ladies toilets and them fighting with them when they objected. The other guitarist ended up passed out in a heap in front of his amp, wailing feedback leaving just me and the drummer keeping things going.
The flipside is the vast majority of gigs we play are great, celebratory events - don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming full credit for our band for that, although of course we try to contribute to that atmosphere!
We get to meet some lovely, lovely couples and to be part of a special night for them is quite a life-affirming thing.
We played a gig in a tipi in a private garden last year, kind of a joint 40th birthday do and a celebration of a recent wedding between these two lovely ladies. Absolute sweethearts, couldn't have been friendlier, we set up, play, break down, go home ,never to see these people again.
However, one of the brides' dad's , he whose house it was, booked us again for his 70th birthday, same place. Gave us the opportunity to say on mic about how we get to meet such great people only to disappear out of their lives again after one night, so it was a rare treat to meet up with them again and share another celebration.
not sure I believe this fanciful tale.
We turned up to find a bar full of wrecked, toothless, shirtless nutter types (man with massive spider tattooo on his throat), it was like something out of 'Britains Hardest Bars'. To be fair we were treated like royalty by a couple of geezers who lifted our gear in and then stood at the side of the stage to 'protect us' if needs be. We played our set somewhat nerviously, during which several fights broke out as people got more and more wasted, and then decided to GTFO quick. We'd come by 7 seater taxi so we could drink and when we called them to pick us up they told us we'd have to meet them up the road as they wouldn't pick us up outside the venue at night. The next day we found out someone had been badly stabbed in the stomach 5 mins after we left, another wasted audience member had broken their hip after trying to scale the pub and one of the bouncers had 'accidentally' fallen under a car outside and broken his ankle.
We we got a decent gig at some trendy club in north London, because the bass player knew John Hegley who was topping the bill. We were on first. It was going ok-ish until the bass player announced our next song would be Misirlou. It's a hard enough tune to play at the best of times but when your drummer launches into it at twice the normal speed it was doomed. He was a decent drummer just a bit ummm, enthusiastic with his timing. It was predictably awful. We got booed off. We split up not long after.
Years later I got a call from the bass player telling me the drummer had suffered a massive brain haemorrhage and died. He was only in his 30s, poor bastard. At the funeral the bass player and I were talking about the old band and he reminded me about that awful gig. Apparently he'd kept the gig flyer and discovered that the truly dire comedian who'd followed us onstage, and also got booed off, was Paul Merton. So my claim to fame is: I was as good as Paul Merton.
couldn't play well enough
didn't know the song well enough
rabbit in the headlights stuff
Some mates and I had put a band together to play as the evening's entertainment (followed by another kid DJing). We played out first song which was a rockin instrumental we'd written - everyone loved it and was jumping around - it was brilliant and gave us that amazing feeling that only playing live can give you. But...
The second song was an Oasis cover that I was singing, within about 3lines of me singing there was a mass exodus! Literally about 290people left the room within about 30seconds. I've never seen so many people move so quickly. I wonder if I should record my singing for companies to use as fire alarms as a quick way of getting everyone out!
played at a wake.
yup a wake. Guy who had died was early 30's, had been ill (MS, I think) ..had a young family. We played next to a projector screen showing him in happier times, including his wedding day.
His wife said it was just what he would have wanted, but for us it felt exactly like a wedding gig - even the way the room was set up felt the same - except everyone wore black ....and the groom wasn't there.
Nearly lost it when I saw the notes his kids had written. So sad.