Your Worst Live Concert or Rec'ding Session.

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MISTERQCUE

MISTERQCUE

Not Just Anutha Brutha
Sorry to conjure up painful memories,but my worst live gig was at the age of 20 when our
manager informed us that we had been hired to perform our reptoire at Lincoln Center in
N.Y., Man, we practiced hard everyday for 2 straight weeks and really lookin forward to performing at such a grand venue.On the day of the concert,we packed all of our equipment
and headed over to Lincoln Center,home of various jazz festivals,big name musicians,and
world renowned operatic singers etc. When we pulled up in our beat-up van we noticed that the doors to the Center were locked and no one appeared to be inside the place. After bangin on the doors for about a hour, we finally got a hold of a janitor who informed us that there were no scheduled concerts that day.With a look of puzzlement I decided to call our mananger to find out what the deal was and he told me " You are at the wrong place!" "The concert I signed you guys
was for a benefit gig at Lincoln Community Center for disadvantaged youths which is 5 blocks away".Benefit? (which translates to free,no pay)Disadvantaged youths?(a bunch of screamin' brats who can't be controlled) Community Center?(we're takin our expensive-ass equipment to the projects!)After much anger and argueing we decided to do the gig for those brats of which they proceeded to throw paper cups,plastic forks, scream,and just make an overall nusciance of themselves.
After 2 songs(each lasting only 2 minutes each,with no solo's) We got the fuck out of there headin home trying to decide what form of sensless violence we were gonna enact on our soon-to-be fired manager! Never again!
 
I think I was about about twenty also when my band accepted an offer to play at this bar in Michigan. We had a 1972 School bus converted over for our use. (By the way if anyone wants to know it takes 10 gallons of paint to paint a school bus)Any we drive there with some friends who ran sound for us. Its about a four hour drive. We get to the bar and find out its a bowling alley that has live music every saturday night. Only we find out that the owner thought we were a country band and that is what he wanted. (sounds a little like the blue brothers) So we play anyway and proceed to clear the room in about an hour. Except for a few young ladies who stuck around. Well they ask us to go to a party on the beach after the show(lake superior). So we tear down, Get chewed out by the owner, and drive to bus to the beach, parking it in a resturant parking lot across the road. Still not of age we are busted by the cops and take off down the beach into the darkness and return to find or beer and the women gone. By now the sun is coming up so we watch it rize and head back to the bus to find an angry resturant owner telling us to get the fuck out of his parking lot. So we start back home with no slepp and blow the motor on the bus about three hours from home. It cost us $350.00 to have it towed home.

You know it all sounds like fun now
 
OK, this isnt as bad as that but hear goes.
I hate playing partys unless they are full of nice looking ladies. well my friend has his graduation,"can U guys come play it for me?" he says, so I say yeah we show up in this huge gym Im thinkin hey this ok....WRONG the acustics were so bad that everything reflects off the cement walls and floor and metal cealing, so thats woe #1.
then we set up to realize we forgot about 6 cables we have to have, so we leave and get em. me the dummy I am forgot to put my guitar proccessor away and I left it on to boot so some kids got into it and messed up every preset but the ones I dont use. so we finaly play and it hot and were just cookin and we cant hear each other cause of the room reflections and finaly I threw my arms up in disgust(not a good thing if ur trying to save face on stage) and my strap comes loose and my guitar hits the floor.

thats when I gave up and tossed my guitar at my amp and left the stage.
so maybbe that is a bad gig.
 
Last year I played a biker function that turned out to be the largest audience that I ever faced - THOUSANDS of em. That's not a problem with me. Problem was the security was other bikers and we had fights breaking out all over the place. It turned out to be like a mini Altamont. While we were on there was a huge ball of humans with flying fists, and feet rolling through the crowd, up and onto the stage. I had to step back several feet to keep from becoming part of it. Our sax players flute was broke in half. Later, during a break, someone ran off with the rhythm guitarists 57 Gretsch archtop, although it was later recovered. After the last song of the night, as I was unplugging and getting ready to quickly pack up, I was notified that I had a phone call. The call was to notify me that my dad died. I had to play a regular bar gig the next night, and it was fine although I was in a zombie-like state all night. I can't imagine a gig getting any worse. Trag.
 
gig

I can remember a gig, when I was 17, that a guy at our school had organized. When we arrived at the time we had agreed, there was still nobody of the organisation there. After waiting an hour, the first guys showed up, including the PA man, who was some kind of prehistoric man, or wathever, who was yelling all the time. When we nicely asked during the soundcheck if he could turn the keyboards a little bit up he even started to insult us.
Anyway, we started the gig, much too late because of the bad PA and dreadfull organization, and after half an hour they just pulled the plug from our PA: "sorry guys, no time left", while they promised us we could play an hour. After some yelling at eachoter we found out that the screaming PA man was the drummer of the band who played afterwards and they just wanted to begin.
But we didn't give up, got a lot of our friends on stage and we stated we wouldn't leave it untill we could finish our set. Meanwhiles the PA man and my brother in law were almost starting a fight because of the whole situation. At the end, they permitted us to finish our set. But the fun was gone off course.
Maybe not that spectacular, but I remeber that I was totally shook up by that gig at that age....

Brett
 
The worst show I have played to date, would have to be a bar called Bumpers. a 5 piece band, being jammed into a space of about 7 wide by about 6 deep and no stage... the only "lights" we had, was a little light they use to light the dart board behind us. now being all crammed in there, and it being the winter time, they also had a huge heater blasting out hot air onto us so we're sweating our bags off. now, since we are a hardcore oldschool punk band, you gotta have moshers. well, this is where the night really went down hill. by the end of the night, our list of things broken was to this extent: one jcm800 100watt head, which had fallen to the ground cause some stupid drunk mosher stumbled head first into my 4x12, a 150watt Crate stack fell backwards, 1 metal zone, got the knobs ripped off somehow, i think someone used it for a diving board, the bassist glasses were trompled into a million pieces, 2 mic stands bent like an "S" dont even ask how we managed that one. and a foot through a monitor. after that gig it took us a while to regain our selfconfidence to play again. and we didnt get paid anything for getting our stuff trashed. I was quite angery. its a good thing i was tanked.
 
I once played a Broadway show "Oklahoma" and due to budget problems we pre recoded the strings in a studio and used the Cd as a playback while we played live with the Cd together.
I was in charge of the Cd player and played keyboards.

During one of the Dance parts, the dancers shaked the crappy pit we were playing in and the CD player jumped to another section in the middle of the dance.It was a fiasco

No matter how much I explained everybody thought it was my fault.
 
i was 15 playing a high school talent show with my wet behind the ears 3 piece band. although a pretty forgiving group of young punks like me, moms/dads, and grandmothers we were cruising along to "TNT, I'm Dynamite", you know the one. The guitar player had that goofy CFMartin electric guitar, and in mid strum mistakenly flipped the pickup selector to his treble pickup to which he had the volume turned completely DOWN, and didn't know what he had done. you may realize that at this point the song sounds completely bogus without guitar, thus the drummer, and myself playing bass were left fumbling along without strings. Not realizing his mistake, he became frustrated, and in the middle of the packed auditorium screamed, "WHAT THE **** IS THE MATTER WITH THIS GUITAR", bringing the room to an almost dead silence except for bass, and drums. to make it worse the 3 of us got detention, but i never quit playing, or singing. it's a crazy life
 
Gee, I've never had a meltdown quite that bad, although I have a "tale of woe" from when I was playing guitar for a contemporary Christian band last April. I start playing and knock my guitar into a mike stand, sending my D string out of tune. Badly. Here I am faking my part, trying to retune without messing everyone else up. I was almost in tune by the time I got to my solo...

MikeDog
 
I haven't had one show that was completely horrible, but several small bad experiences:
1.Having the volume all the way down on my guitar, and playing along not realizing I wasn't making sound until we get to the part of the song where everyone stops but me. Then it was pretty obvious.
2.Playing a show where the people running things turned off all the lights but some dim blue and red lights to create mood, resulting in none of the band members being able to see their instruments (ok we're not rock stars yet, we still have to look when we play).
3.Playing a garage in the middle of the summer, with the garage door closed, sweat streaming down our backs, with me and the bass player sniping at each other through the entire show (though we played really well-this actually has been one of our best shows so far performance wise).
4.Breaking a string in the 2nd song and having to borrow a guitar from a guy who's about a foot and half taller and 100 pounds heavier than me. The guitar was down around my knees.
I could go on and on. Of course I just like to complain.
 
Playing on the back of a stationary flat-bed truck outdoors at a small country fair in Pahrump, Nevada (Temperature 102)

They had guaranteed us that there would be everything we'd need, but the power came from one $11.99 extension cord from K-Mart (for me, the other guitar player, the P.A. and the bass player).

The voltage was so low, the relay to click in the overdirve on my Boogie wouldn't work - and we had to play Achy Breaky Heart TWICE!!!!!

or...
1988 - small bar with full-size basketball halfcourt attached (complete with fluorescent lights, maple hardwood everything and wire fence. Talk about natural reverb. I think you can still hear the last tune in there if you listen very carefully.)

or...

there's too many nightmare gigs -

foo
 
1976 - Backed up a group of Argentine dancers passing through from Vegas called the Argentine Gauchos. Overture was 18 pages of fast 6/8. Well, if your music fell off your stand, you were a dead duck, and you guessed it, about 4 minutes into the overture I hit my stand by mistake and the whole damn thing went down, along with my 18 pages of music. As I tried to catch it, I bumped the bass player's stand and damn if it didn't go down too. Geeez, I shudder when I think about it, even now, 24 years later.

Howzit, Misterque.

Lee
 
Well, my band is still relatively new (about 7 or 8 months), and we only played 2 gigs (both at the same place, same day)...outside at my sister's graduation party. We're both 17 and still have a ways to go, but...For one, I do not like playing outside anymore...the sound was terrible. Our "PA" system consisted of a mic plugged into a little 15W practice amp, with headphone out to this stereo...in other words, you couldn't hear me. The first set went surprisingly well, we got 5 people to clap, but I don't care, it was my first gig and I was having the time of my life. The only problem was when my drunk uncle came up and started creating a scene, we all had a laugh from that, but it was still weird. Our second set was bad...I think. I guess I really didn't know my limit, and I had a LITTLE too much to drink...I didn't screw up THAT bad, I could have done worse...I think...but the bad part was that my friends came for the second set, including this girl I wanted VERY BADLY to impress, as well as other things...but this is a PG-13 message board :) Anyhow, I guess she was impressed, but we were trashed and screwed up big time. I will NEVER drink before a gig again.
 
23 years of full time gigging leads to this "worst of" story...

In around 1986, the band I had formed 6 years earlier were booked for the first time "across the border" which meant working visas, etc. If you don't know, they frown upon anyone "with a record" entering certain countries, especially if they lie about it on the forms...anyway, my "new" bass player (for 3 months) doesn't tell anyone he was busted for "substance" about 10 years prior, in his "wild years"...we get across the border, arrive at the bar where we will do two nights. Halfway through the first night, things are going really great, when the "border patrol" show up...seems the misinformation had been detected, and he was being deported...we convinced them to let him finish the night, and that's probably where you think this story ends, but...that's just the beginning!

Since we live an hour from the border, we cross back that night...what are we going to do for night two? Here comes my brainwave...the next morning, we will have the bass player "record" a bass track for every single song we do, in the order we do them, on my old four-track,(complete with click tracks) and then, get this, we'll bring along a friend (happened to be a drummer) who, because he has blond hair (like our bassist) will probably fool everyone into thinking he's the same guy as last night, same as in the poster! We'll put the bass on him, tape the cord to the floor behind the bass rig, he'll jump around like a banshee "pretending" to play to the tracks!!!

You might think this is crazy (I do now) but "if" you had a drummer who could "lock in" to the tracks, I thought we might pull it off...but guess what happened? From the first number, it was plain to me, WE WERE IN BIG TROUBLE! The drummer couldn't even come close, he was all over the place...meanwhile the new bass player is leaping all over, sliding up and down the neck like he's "jerking off"
but somehow we get through the first set. The looks from the crowd, most of who we're there the night before, not really aware of what happened, could best be described as "puzzled"...comments overheard were "they aren't quite as good as last night" and "I think the bass player is playing too fast for the drummer". To top it all off, the border patrol show up again, and they think it's the same guy, which now, to me, is totally ludicrious, as one weighed 120 lbs and the other closer to two-hundred (not to mention one wore glasses, one didn't but, what the hell). Once we convinced them it was a different guy we were informed "this" guy didn't have a working visa and he was going to be deported at the end of the night!

How did this all end? We trashed the bass tracks, the rhythm guitar player played bass, the "new" bass player, who was really a drummer (now that I think of it, maybe "he" could have locked in to the tracks) ended up "pretending" to play guitar (you should have seen "that") I covered all of the guitar and we finished the night...

And now, you ask? ...the band, minus a few of these guys, just "celebrated" 20 years together, have released 3 CD's, constantly play fairs, festivals, arenas and corporate events, and nobody seems to remember any of this but us, even though we go back to that town about once a year, now for much "larger" shows!

Thanks for letting me tell this story, it's absolutely true, and I've broken down laughing 3 times since I started to type it! If you don't think it's funny, maybe you had to be there, but I've often wished I hadn't been!!!

BW
 
Bad gig morsel...

A real quickie...

Was playing as an "acoustic duo" with my best friend at a college coffee house in 1982. We were heavily into the Beatles, so one of the tunes was "Norweigan Wood." My friend started the song, in the "D" position with the capo on the 2nd fret. After his intro, I entered with a confident strum...only I had put my capo on the 3rd fret by mistake.

The room, full of pretentious, turtle-neck wearing beatnik types, fell silent. They were embarrassed for us. And I was embarrassed for us, too!

(Thanks for the memories, Rich Torres...wherever you are!)
 
Great thread! (Should be in the Dragon Cave, though -- probably a lot of non-guitarists who don't know this is here.)

In the summer of 1974 I was in a band in an upstate NY college town (New Paltz). In the late summer or early fall, after a couple of weeks of travails, we had just added a new guitar player and keyboard player, and we rehearsed a couple of times in preparation for a regular Fri/Sat night gig at some little place over the mountains (Krumville County Inn, if I remember the name correctly). But then on Friday afternoon our "manager" (a friend who was trying to fill this role) had landed a gig at a much more prestigious club in the nearby town of Kingston (if I recall correctly), where we presumably would get much better exposure which would lead to better things -- if we, of course, cancelled out on Krumville at the last minute. Which, after a quick confab, we did. The owner of the Krumville place was PO'd and told us that we had just lost our steady gig and we could go f*** ourselves.

So off we go to Kingston. Alas, it was a horrible night, and there was a huge rainstorm, and to top it off, there was some kind of train wreck or bad fire or something, and it turns out the club we'd dumped our steady gig for was a sort of hangout for fireman, police, and emergency workers. So we get to our gig (pass-the-hat only, I forgot to mention) and there are four people in the bar, not counting us and the couple of people that work there.

So we played, and they hated us. The vocals sounded really strange. Midway through the second song or so the drummer smells smoke and looks at the back of the PA speaker, sees smoke rising, and tries to signal to the "sound guy" (also our "manager") that something is wrong. "Sound Guy" thinks the drummer is grooving to the tune and he grins and moves like he's really into it. Finally the drummer throws down his drumsticks and hops up and yanks the wires out of the speaker. Turned out the crossover was wired backwards and the tweeters were getting the bass frequencies and the bass driver the treble frequencies. The PA speakers were now dead.

After the first set the bar owner tells us to pack it up after the next set. So after one song or so we start to just improvise completely freely, just for a gas and to blow off frustration. The remaining 2 patrons look at us like we are the wedding band for the AntiChrist and they leave. Finally we stop, pack up, load up in the rain, and head back home.

To top it off, we stop for gas, and then the car won't start. We're out there with the hood up in a downpour trying to get it going.

Wonder if any of you guys are out there reading this? Or if anyone reading this knows them? Them being:

Bass: Jimmy Diven
Drums: Dan Comorada
Guitar: Jimmy Sarle
Keys: William Seaman

-AlChuck
 
I used to play drums in this band called Lost Cause, when I was 17. It was like our second gig at this hole in the wall bar(Blue Flamingo). We were a five piece with one guitarist and two vocalists(screamers). Well, our guitarist decides right before we play that he'll go around the back of the club and, uhhh, take care of some extra-cirricular activities.......if you get my drift. Time comes to play and no guitarist. We asked all of our friends if they had seen him, but nobody knows. Someone had a cell phone and we called the jail. Sure enough, he was booked, POM. Christ. We went on to play with just bass and drums, and broke the news to everyone that our guitarist was just arrested. Horrible. The show turned out okay, though, the club paid us(a bunch of 17 yr olds) with free pitchers of beer.........
 
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