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

mfc2006

i was so into the song that i forgot how small the stage was...accidentally jumped off, stumbled & landed on a table where i knocked over a pitcher of beer all over someone. before i started singing the next song, i asked if i could buy them another pitcher. 3/4 of them were fine with it & said no worries...but one guy was being an ass about it and walked out. oh well. the other guys stayed & i bought them 2 pitchers.

then there was the time that i hit our bass player in the head with the headstock of my strat & knocked him down...again, i was into it. haha

the same bass player in my old band at one show was so drunk that he couldn't stand up, let alone play the right note. that was pretty embarrassing b/c it was a big show in Houston. we told him to go lay down about 3 songs in & James & I took turns on bass and guitar (depending on the song).

reaching hands

Playing 'Evenflow' in my old band..somehow after we all tuned to the same tuner, my guitar was 1 step higher than the others...my friends dad said it sounded like free form jazz!...intresting

when i was at college we had to play St Patrick night gigs (our tutor was in the pogues for a while)..i was playing bass on 'thousands are sailing'. We had a stern warning pre gig that anyone who was drunk would be turned down on the mixer...right ok....when they handed me the bass to play the song it was a five string with no dot inlays and this COMPLETLY threw me...i don't think i got one note right and got a bollocking for 'being drunk' when i has hadn't had any guiness!!

bad times.....

other things like missing stomp boxes for solos and it sounding piss poor but in your head you didnt hear it and your rocking away to a hank marvin tone

was very handy and changed a fuse once in my old peavey amp i leant to my band mate for a gig..did that in the dark in under a minute

Mindless Drifter

just as we were about to play i fell backwards off my drum stool into a black curtain...dont think anyone saw tho, i kept my cool :P

Stonerlady

I don't make music myself. But my boyfriend's guitar string tore and after 2 minutes the string of the backup guitar tore as well. Couldn't get any worse? 5 minutes later the base drumhead tore. Great show

gimmesometruth27

2 nights ago my rotosphere crapped out during soundcheck..we were to go on at 9:00 and soundcheck was at 8:30 so i had about 20 minutes to troubleshoot all of my pedals and george ls cables...it was a mess...i found out the rotosphere was not working so i just ripped it off of my board and went without it...that sucks because i love that pedal...to my ears it is the best chorus i have ever heard through my rig, so i used it a lot....hopefully it is something easy like needing a new tube or something....at this point i do not feel like dropping a bunch of money into it when i got it used for $80 in 2003....definitely the best value for a $350 pedal..

this is not the worst thing to happen to me, as you can tell by my post earlier in the thread, but still it is a pain in the butt when something is not working the way you want it to...

xtremehardy388

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

2 nights ago my rotosphere crapped out during soundcheck..we were to go on at 9:00 and soundcheck was at 8:30 so i had about 20 minutes to troubleshoot all of my pedals and george ls cables...it was a mess...i found out the rotosphere was not working so i just ripped it off of my board and went without it...that sucks because i love that pedal...to my ears it is the best chorus i have ever heard through my rig, so i used it a lot....hopefully it is something easy like needing a new tube or something....at this point i do not feel like dropping a bunch of money into it when i got it used for $80 in 2003....definitely the best value for a $350 pedal..

this is not the worst thing to happen to me, as you can tell by my post earlier in the thread, but still it is a pain in the butt when something is not working the way you want it to...

Hope you can fix it. I've had pedals crap out on me at shows. I was playing when my wah went out and killed my whole signal. I had to rip it off, during the song, and pray the band could keep on going without me doing lead guitar AND singing...but we made it

gimmesometruth27

xtremehardy388 wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

2 nights ago my rotosphere crapped out during soundcheck..we were to go on at 9:00 and soundcheck was at 8:30 so i had about 20 minutes to troubleshoot all of my pedals and george ls cables...it was a mess...i found out the rotosphere was not working so i just ripped it off of my board and went without it...that sucks because i love that pedal...to my ears it is the best chorus i have ever heard through my rig, so i used it a lot....hopefully it is something easy like needing a new tube or something....at this point i do not feel like dropping a bunch of money into it when i got it used for $80 in 2003....definitely the best value for a $350 pedal..

this is not the worst thing to happen to me, as you can tell by my post earlier in the thread, but still it is a pain in the butt when something is not working the way you want it to...

Hope you can fix it. I've had pedals crap out on me at shows. I was playing when my wah went out and killed my whole signal. I had to rip it off, during the song, and pray the band could keep on going without me doing lead guitar AND singing...but we made it

yeah that is the cool thing about gigging....when everything is working properly it is an amazing theng, but when there is trouble with your gear it just makes for s stressful evening...sometimes i wish i could afford to keep a guitar and amp tech on site at our shows just in case somethig bad happened...

i love reading these stories because its like "yep, been there, know what that is like" lol...

xtremehardy388

Our bassist was my tech. He still does all the repairs and stuff but now, he's on stage and not on the side! I usually have someone to hand me my guitars and occasionally tune them. I don't know about anyone else but, when I read PJ had some kind of technical trouble, I always kinda find that interesting, in itself....shows that we're all human, we make mistakes, and we're NOT PLAYING SOMETHING THAT'S PRE-RECORDED!!(Unless the album skips or the wrong track is being played ) It also makes the event/gig unique

gimmesometruth27

xtremehardy388 wrote:

Our bassist was my tech. He still does all the repairs and stuff but now, he's on stage and not on the side! I usually have someone to hand me my guitars and occasionally tune them. I don't know about anyone else but, when I read PJ had some kind of technical trouble, I always kinda find that interesting, in itself....shows that we're all human, we make mistakes, and we're NOT PLAYING SOMETHING THAT'S PRE-RECORDED!!(Unless the album skips or the wrong track is being played ) It also makes the event/gig unique

it also shows that no matter how well something is made it can break down on the road or under the heavy demands of the musician that uses it. its unpredictable...

by the way, how do you get people to tune and hand you your guitars? i dont think anyone has ever done that for me. i had one guy that sold all of us our stuff change a string for me one time during a set, but that's about it...i wonder what it would be like to have someone set up your stuff and soundcheck it for you and get it just how you like it so all you have to do it show up, walk on stage and rock....that would be so cool, but i think i am waaaaay too hands on for that and like to make sure my stuff is set up how i want it...

xtremehardy388

Depends on the show. Sometimes I have friends do it. Othertimes they are provided at the venue I'm playing. When I opened for Kansas, Loverboy, Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels, and the Isly Brothers, I was supplied roadies and techs. Otherwise, it's all on us.

ScrapeMySky

I wish I had a tech who takes care of my stuff. Then again, I mostly play bass nowadays and we don't need techs!

uuhhh... Just kidding. I need a tech!

rollings

xtremehardy388 said:

Depends on the show. Sometimes I have friends do it. Othertimes they are provided at the venue I'm playing. When I opened for Kansas, Loverboy, Mitch Rider and the Detroit Wheels, and the Isly Brothers, I was supplied roadies and techs. Otherwise, it's all on us.

awww

scrufftonemusic

Used to use a Boss multi-effect unit till it died in middle of a set. Took short break and bypassed it all together and did rest of night with no effects, just clean and dirty channel. I have since gone back to stomp boxes. Another time I completely forgot song, I pretended there was problem with my guitar till I remembered the song. When I listened back to recording of that night it turned out it was only couple beats but at the time seemed like an eternity. Have had guitars go out of tune in middle of song but you get through.
On the flip side, one of my proudest moments was watching a bandmate's wife pass right out and collapse on dance floor right in front of us and entire band didn't miss a note or beat while she was being dragged off the floor, good times, good times, to this day, one of the funniest things I've seen

Thoughts_Arrive

Stepped on the lead going into a boss chorus pedal causing the guitar to lose sound, people started clapping thinking that was the end of the song. I crouched down, plugged the lead back into the pedal and played the last 20 seconds of the song.