What's the worst thing that has ever happened to you when playing a live show?

Dirty_Frank

Here's one:

I was performing for the mirror earlier, did a windmill and put my right hand through a light fixture.

That hand's going to be out of commission for a few days now.

Lots 'o blood.

ianvomsaal

ianvomsaal wrote:

I hate to admit this because it makes me feel like a real dumb-ass (especially since it was my 1st time playing on the Lollapalooza Tour).
I got a little crazy before one of the shows (I don't recommend mixing Patrone & Jose Cuervo - Remember, tequila is NOT your friend before a show). Anyhow, I actually wound up falling off the main stage while playing (this was during the show '03 Lollapalooza Tour).

I think the crowd thought I was attempting to do a stage dive (NOT REALLY). I almost lost my Les Paul to the crowd (luckily the gods of rock smiled on me, and I only lost my hat). I don't recommend this to anyone - kids, don't drink and play Luckily I only had to replace one of my pretzeled klulson tuners.

Honestly, breaking strings, having to switch out guitars, having bad patch cables, instrument cables, and mic cables, blown amp tubes and fuses, broken drum heads and drum sticks, or having effects pedal mishaps are all fairly typical problems for the active musician (especially on tour).
Seems like something along these lines happens every few gigs - if not to me or someone in my band, then one of the other bands.
Cheers . . .

- Ian C.T. vom Saal

Just to make it clear, I'm NOT telling people to go get drunk before a gig - Funny or Not, what happened to me was actually a bad thing (yes it was quite funny - but please don't do it)
- Cheers . . .

- Ian C.T. vom Saal

xtremehardy388

I started this thread when I was a young tike. I figured I'd bring it back for some of the newbies. Anyone got any stories or ones they'd like to add? I have a couple:

We were opening for Kansas and our rhythm guitarist is less than stellar and started playing the wrong song. Didn't realize it until about 2 minutes in.

We've had terrible soundchecks and it's been reflected in our shows.

We've had dead crowds

I forgot the lyrics to Last Kiss (except the oohs, at the end) and the crowd was forgiving since they sang it.

I have forgotten the lyrics to my own stuff and had to look at the crowd for the next line

sacto68

During the 3rd song of our first show this past summer my bass rig cut out. After looking everything over I found that the power adapter for my wireless system had fallen out of my Furman. Thank fully the rest of the band didn't miss a beat. Needless to say I now carry tape with me to every gig.

savman

Similar to one of exhaused's earlier posts -

I was playing drums one time and smashed my knuckle on the snare and was bleeding pretty bad. Not really willing to stop i kept playing. Trouble was it wasnt my kit... :oops:

Great post to bring back btw!!!

gimmesometruth27

haha great thread! we have all been there and had problems. over the last six years i have had some things happen to me or people in my band or bands we play with that have had some unfortunate things happen at shows. these things range from things like being out of tune, breaking strings, bad pedals/patch cables, etc. but i just wanted to share a few specifics.

last show my rotosphere was cutting out. i would have to bend down, unplug it, plug it back in, and pray that my rig would work for the rest of the show. not sure why that was happening but it seems fine now.

i have started songs with guitars in an alternate tuning.

when changing guitars i put my headstock through one of those lights with the red film on it. i poked a nice hole in it and had normal white light shining on me instead of the nice red one.

our bass player did a mega rockjump from the drumriser and landed on our bucket of beer that we keep on the stage and he smashed them. it was like a liquid explosion and we all got wet. he is really lucky he did not cut himself.

our drummer forgot his throne and had to play a show in a barchair. one time he forgot his high hat stand or other cymbol stands and had to rush to go buy new ones.

i had a moron dump a whole drink on my pedal board at a show. it cut out for a time but fortunately i was able to get through the show with a very sticky pedalboard.

i dropped one of my les pauls and broke the headstock. it was in the case at the time too.

my 1974 marshall jmp head fell off of my cabinet when we were loading out one time. it broke the power tubes but all of the parts are still vintage and original.

one of the bands we play with were playing and the bass started to sound funny, then it cut out. we turned around and the bass head was on FIRE! they put it out, but it was ruined. looking back it was pretty funny, but pretty scary at the time.

the worst thing to ever happen to me was new years eve 2008. we were playing with a band that we are very good frineds with and we were playing a game of one upmanship. they would buy us a round of nasty shots and we would return the favor trying to get them a worse shot than what they got us. this went on for what must have been 8 or 9 rounds. i had not eaten because i went to the gig straight from work so i got very drunk quickly with the mixing of these shots, beer and champagne. when i play i come to the very edge of the stage because i am kinda like mike and like to play to the crowd. well during a song during our set i began to get a little dizzy so i went to walk back to my normal spot near my board away from the edge and someone held on to my guitar cable and pulled it and i fell down off the stage and into the crowd. i landed on my feel luckily and did not land on anyone and nothing happened to my gear but i got lost and it took me a good 30 seconds to get back on stage and figure out where we were inthe song. i am not very proud of that moment and it was really embarrassing for me and for our band. as a result, i did not drink at shows for 4 months. now i am very careful about drinking at shows. so for all of you younger people out there take it from me and ian, be careful of how much you drink on stage. this is the only time i ever had a problem with drinking and playing and we look back on it and laugh now, but at the time it was a very serious problem for me and my band. we nearly got fired over it. the venue could have gotten sued over it too. the guys in the band refer to it as "the failed stage dive"...

ScrapeMySky

I think the worst thing is if you have to think about applying the Don't-play-if-there's-more-people-on-the-stage-than-in-front-of-it rule. That really sucks. Thank God we never had to do that, but we came awfully close once.
We have aquired an old, cheap 70s organ a while ago and that thing gets every soundman bitching and cursing. Another awkward moment was when our singer/guitar player's guitar head somehow got stuck on my belt during some wilder action on a very small stage. Had to finish the song that way and must've looked like complete idiots. Once I had to take a pedal off the board during a show and plugged the wha back in with the connections the wrong way. That was quite a sound! Think the seagull-like tones on Floyd's 'Echoes' in LOUD.
Oh, and I second the Don't-get-(too)-drunk! advice.
Other than that, just the usual stuff that has been mentioned before, but I can remenber only one time where I managed to break a string on stage, but that wasn't too bad cause I had a backup guitar.

TriumphantAngel

Pearl Jam and toast wrote:

My only real mishap other than the usual stuff..

this was a couple years ago during a practice..

I was jumping around.. playing loudly.. in a living room... and alllllllllllllllllllllllmost took the top of my head off via ceiling fan.




*whew*...

:shock:

i have a story kinda like that but it's too gross to repeat. it involved not a ceiling fan, but an exhaust fan and a rat. and bad timing at turning it on when it was getting too smokey near us.

it's scarred me for life. i shit you not.

xtremehardy388

It's tough when there are more people on stage than in the crowd. But, I learned that the 2 people in the crowd might have a lot of connections and can hook you up, later. That was true with us. The 2 people who heard us were from different venues and one was a promoter. She got an earful and decided to sign us up for three other shows! It is very frustrating though to not have a crowd.

The drinking thing also applies. Playing drunk helps my voice (I put salt in my wine so it coats my voice) but I have to make sure I'm hydrated too. I get very...interesting on stage.

Last summer, I played a show, in the rain, and ruined my Univox vintage amp. Thanfully, I bought it for 20 bucks and got that + some from some guitar shop.

I get hella stage fright, too. Usually, my band has to put me on stage, physically. Still, I get through the stuff.



You all have some AWESOME stories that are really interesting and funny, AFTER the initial incident has happened. I guess it's true...

"You'll laugh about this, someday!"

Snoopy Died For Our Sins

shocked badly by the mic...knocked me on my ass :shock:

Gardenparty

This past October we did an east coast run of shows (west coast based band) so we rented amps. The first show was a radio performance in Philadelphia. Set the amp up and no problems during soundcheck. However, just before we started the performance I hit a chord and the amp crackled bad. Sure enough, the second after i realized i had a problem the dj says "You're live in 5..4..3..2..1. " Shit!! live performance begins with a long intro by yours truly. my amp is crackling all over the place. It righted itself after a couple songs but that was not a good way to kick off a tour.

other than that usualy just playing in the wrong tuning, power dropping out, guitar falling apart, drummer stepping through his kick pedal etc.

it makes you better though. or at least gets you ready for anything that can be thrown at you

keep 'em coming

whatsgoingon

A guy I know was playing a show and this happened
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpH8PEBr82A

DewieCox

I went through the "too much drink" thing.

Went to the bar before our last set and asked for a jager bomb. The bartender says, "What's that?" Jager and red bull I tell em. He basically reversed the ratio. We were goin on and it was " a shot" so I slammed that beast. We got up on stage and I gave myself a bit of a head trip thinkin about how wasted I was gonna be when that shit hit.

Well....I was right to think that way. I made it through most of the set, but with about 3 songs to go I got the full on pre puke(spinnin head, cold sweats) thing goin. I lost it on the 2nd to last song and just kinda went back by my amp and spewed behind it.

I'm proud to say that I didn't miss a beat, according to my bandmates, though we did have to cut the last tune.

steppin on the wrong pedals(tuner, doh!!!!!!)
comin unplugged, in various places of my signal chain
smackin my singer with my headstock

one time I forgot I had my amp on standby between sets and we came out and played something that started in a very loud raucous manner. I certainly didn't have the appropriate volume.

PJFAN_seattle

when i was like 14 i was so scared of playing in front of anyone so i screwed up the solo of the nirvana song i was playing lol.

SomethingCreative

My drummer put a hole in his kick drum and the mallet actually got stuck inside the drum...we had to stop and I played Immortality for about 10 minutes while he found and used a half a roll of duct tape to patch his drum back together.

I've had a couple pedal problems, but usually if I'm cutting out altogether, I just unplug and go straight into my amp and figure out the problems later if I get a chance. I've also broken strings but nothing to serious.

Hitch-Hiker

One time my strap broke. It was between songs so I wasn't holding my bass at all. It took a pretty hard knock. fucked up the electronics inside. had to get a bass from a guy in another band for the remainder. Didn't like it at all.

xtremehardy388

Hitch-Hiker wrote:

One time my strap broke. It was between songs so I wasn't holding my bass at all. It took a pretty hard knock. fucked up the electronics inside. had to get a bass from a guy in another band for the remainder. Didn't like it at all.

I've had that happen but not to your point. Good to know I'm not the only one that's more comfortable using my own stuff--even if someone elses might be "better" or "more expensive"

Hitch-Hiker

xtremehardy388 wrote:

Hitch-Hiker wrote:

One time my strap broke. It was between songs so I wasn't holding my bass at all. It took a pretty hard knock. fucked up the electronics inside. had to get a bass from a guy in another band for the remainder. Didn't like it at all.

I've had that happen but not to your point. Good to know I'm not the only one that's more comfortable using my own stuff--even if someone elses might be "better" or "more expensive"

yeah, gotta have my own instrument. I have to be comfortable with what I'm playing.

xtremehardy388

Is it the same way with pedals/rigs? With me, I have to be using my own pedals and amps, too...just because I know "the sweet spots".

Hitch-Hiker

xtremehardy388 wrote:

Is it the same way with pedals/rigs? With me, I have to be using my own pedals and amps, too...just because I know "the sweet spots".

On the bass, it's not as big a problem for me. I rarely use effects so its ok. AS far as amps go I'd rather have my own, but if I can play around for a little while beforehand I can usually get something I'm happy with.