How many of you have had a night like this. Sat night I was doing a gig, but nothing was flowing, and in come the competition. The guys in the combo I was playing with decided I needed a chance to show my stuff a little so they stick me out there in a song I hate, let alone don’t like to solo in, well to cut through the chase “I Sucked” What’s funny is crowd loved what I was doing, but I just could not get my mojo going . Anyone have nights like that? It would not have been bad if there wasn’t another musician in the house “aka” a bass player.

Walk it off, bro. Everyone has a bad night occasionally.

Not that unusual.... It was probably better than you think. I have nights where it just doesn't click. No mojo.... Next time it is back. I think I have finally gotten to the place were a bad gig is still a decent gig. Sounds like you are there too.

Happens to everyone. What's more, it will probably happen again. Comes with the territory.

You right, and it isn't the first time I've had a bad night. The worst night I've ever had was the night I play and I ha pnumonia, they asked me if I was sure about doing the gig, but I didn't want them to lose the gig so i played. That night truely sucked.

It was not your fault. Blame the soundman:

EZ,

We've all been ther or will be there. It sounds like your group was more worried about the 'competition' than anything else. When you worry about that stuff, there is no room for mojo. The competition has had nights where they suck too. Just roll with it and keep doing what you do

It happens. You can hit all the right notes at exactly the right time, perfect tone and nothing, just dead. Other times you can be screwing up all over the place and it feels great and no one notices but yourself. Like I said it happens.

I used to record myself all the time and it seemed like the best playing I ever did was when I was feverish and you can hear me coughing up a lung in the distance.

Sounds like YOU didn't know you already had it going.

Maybe you were focusing more on your bad notes than bad groove--if your groove was basically okay you were 90% of the way there.

I can't count the number of times I have ended a show feeling down about my playing and then I receive this shower of compliments from the other bassists or people from the audience. One of my former band's regular gigs (one of the best paying) got started up because, after a particularly lousy-feeling show, a bartender from a different club chatted me up for ten minutes about my playing. A week later we have a very good weekly gig lined up, and the mystery is solved when we find out that the gig is at that bartender's bar. Sure enough we were signed up to play HIS night, too.

Keep on pluckin'.

Well there's the key right there. You knew a rival bass player was in the house. Because of it you were really over sensative to any mistake you made and thus thought you stunk. You tightened up. It happens to everybody. Also everybody has off nights. It's no big deal and besides you got a good crowd response anyway.
You did fine.

I would hate having to do that too and having an off night is no fun, but you would be the only one who really knew what you were feeling on a given song, or what you wanted to play during your solo. Even your band mates wouldn't know that.
Sometimes I'm on autopilot and don't particularly like what I'm playing, usually because I feel like I'm being repetitive and not creative enough, but if you can put it on auto and still sound good to others - that's a good thing.
Don't worry about the other bass players either, just give it your best shot and go for it.

Yeah this happened to me when we had a sub drummer with no notion of the concept "groove". I switched on autopilot rather than listen to what he was playing (so as to ensure he played off me and not vice versa), put a big grin on my face and danced around as I always do, all the while just checking out the mostly empty venue Great gig that was

I remember a song we recorded and used on a demo a year or so ago. I played it and thought 'what a piece of junk'. When I went back and listened to the recording I was really funky. The bass line carried the song, if I may say so myself. That was a good lesson for me.

(I wonder if songs I think are good actually stink.....?)