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How to get over a bad gig?


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First post; been lurking for about a year, after I got back into regular gigging after a couple decades of mostly being away from the stage.

 

So anyway, had an awful gig today. I screwed up majorly, twice. One where I totally fell asleep on the intro where I"m the one who leads the song in, and the other where I had the wrong sound up, on an intro where I"m the one who leads the song in. And to make it worse, it was some stupid auto-accompaniment type sound with Arps and drums and the whole works.

 

Being a perfectionist and my own biggest critic, I"m absolutely killing myself right now. Like... can"t sleep and can"t think about anything else. My wife thinks it"s rather funny and not a big deal, and I guess she"s right ultimately, I mean I didn"t botch a surgery or somesuch. But good grief that was embarrassing. How do you all deal when this happens? I"m trying to remind myself of my successes (made it through 25 gigs with no major hiccups), but it"s not working right now. Help.

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Welcome to the forum. Everybody has a story, even the best pros. For me, it seems like when something happens, I'm more likely to get rattled the rest of the gig. Just get back on the saddle and brush it off! Shit Happens.

Dan

 

Acoustic/Electric stringed instruments ranging from 4 to 230 strings, hammered, picked, fingered, slapped, and plucked. Analog and Digital Electronic instruments, reeds, and throat/mouth.

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Hi,

as far as I know, there's only one way, and it's forward. Yes, what happened sucks, but what can you do to make sure it doesn't happen again? That's what matters.

If you can't sleep and can't think of anything else... BREATHE... slowly and deeply. Really. As long as it takes.

Others will probably come along with more keyboard-oriented suggestions.

I've been gigging for almost 20 years and have triggered the totally wrong patch a few times. Now these events are just funny stories.

Good luck,

Martin

"Show me all the blueprints. I'm serious now, show me all the blueprints."

My homemade instruments

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I think everyone can relate to what you are going through: a bad gig can ruin sleep while you replay the tape over and over! Bad gigs are just that, one gig! There are no do overs and I"ll bet you are thinking about it more than others.

I agree with the others, play another gig!

 

If you believe the intro is not quite under your fingers, practice. If it is well-known and a one time event, no big deal. We don"t carry malpractice insurance for a reason.

 

I have seen Grammy-award winning artists do the same. Hell, I witnessed Steely Dan train-wreck an intro and stop a tune cold once. I saw Peter Gabriel lose his place during Solsbury Hill...you are in great company. It feels like crap, and this too shall pass.

 

Thanks for sharing and welcome to the forum.

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I try to remember first and foremost that this is supposed to be fun, and one of the reasons people enjoy live music is that unexpected things can and do happen. I"ve made mistakes like this plenty of times, and so have my band mates. We all have stories. It can be scary, frustrating, and embarrassing in the moment... except when it"s a funny bonding experience.

 

Part of that is unpredictable. It"s all about where you are in the moment, and your relationship with your band. Sometimes the mistakes make you lose sleep, other times they crack everyone up and you move forward immediately.

 

If there"s any advice I can offer, I"ll steal it from this podcast about the history of Phish as an influential live band I"ve been listening to (lord knows they"re a band that a lot of people love fervently, and they make PLENTY of mistakes onstage): take your art seriously, but don"t take yourself seriously.

 

Remember that it"s about the music and having fun, not about you auditioning for the respect of the audience and the band. That makes mistakes something to avoid and fix, but not something that reflects on your worth as a musician or as a person. Hopefully then it can make you laugh, sooner rather than later.

Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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Welcome Jonesy. We have literally all been there. It is impossible to play gigs without things going wrong from time to time. Some things will happen which will not be your fault: power problems, weather, being told the wrong key!!..., dogs running into the band, audience members falling on top of the band... etc etc etc...; some will be entirely your fault: memory lapses, pressing the wrong button, forgetting to bring important items of equipment.... and on and on....The list is endless. The thing is though, as you become more experienced these things happen less frequently because of lessons learned through the previous toe curling moments, but they still do occur. I have had crazy memory lapses with songs which I have performed literally hundreds of times. Total mind blank moments.... The difference between this happening to some someone with lots of experience and someone relatively little is in how they cope with it. You learn to cover your mistakes: either by keeping playing something vaguely appropriate or stopping altogether and letting the band carry it until you are ready to rejoin them. You also suffer a lot less because you know that this stuff is part of live performance. We are all human and imperfect. Everybdby I have ever worked with - no matter how good - has made all sorts of mistakes, as do I. We all forgive each other because we know it could just as easily have been us who did it. (A big messup can also be a moment of wonderful fun for both the band and the audience if looked upon with a sense of humour. My bandmates generally kill themselves laughing if I accidentally play the wrong sound....) You need to forgive yourself and simply accept the valuable gifts which these painful performance experiences are offering you: the knowledge of just how easy it is to go wrong at that point and the incentive to work out what can be done to minimise the chance of this happening next time...

 

Next, congratulate yourself on having had the guts to get out and gig after such a long break. It is these tough experiences which teach us the most and make us into the seasoned performers which we become. They are not only unavoidable, they are essential. Finally, do another gig as soon as possible. And don't expect perfection from yourself - it is not achievable and demanding it of yourself will make you unwell. Instead just aim to give your very best. Your best is good enough. :)

"Turn your fingers into a dust rag and keep them keys clean!" ;) Bluzeyone
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right now I have to go make a big pile of french toast for the family.

 

Sounds delicious... and welcome to the forum by the way.

 

I'm a fan of pumpkin french toast myself. :laugh:

 

http://img.sndimg.com/food/image/upload/w_614,h_461,c_fit/v1/img/recipes/46/65/77/picAQyE9X.jpg

 

 

When an eel hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's a Moray.
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Do you have a day job? What do you do when you make a mistake on you day job?

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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No one who is trying to play well wants to be the one making the mistake -- especially right at that moment! But if bandmates work well together, they tend to smile or laugh together (rather than be upset) because we all do it. And they tend to try to help bail each other out by finding a way to carry on. Sometimes it even makes for one of the more interesting parts of the show for the band because it's not routine! It also turns out that this is where some of the best stories come from!
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Get over it. Figure out what you screwed up and make sure it doesn't happen again, at least on those songs. Shit happens and will happen again.

Last night I blew an intro because I missed my sustain pedal - a couple of seconds of dead air. Audience didn't know or care. Fellow band members laughed with me and played on.

If I lost sleep over every mistake I made, I would have died somewhere around 1971.

Professional musician = great source of poverty.

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That"s why it"s called live music. Humans aren"t perfect, and we all have flaws that surface from time to time. I constantly hit wrong notes since my thumbs have been hit with arthritis, but it"s part of the aches and pains I"ve bestowed on myself just for getting older. I bitch to myself when it happens, and really curse out when I"m trying to perfect a Youtube video, but overall I just keep at it and remind myself that if the contractor took away a buck for every wrong note but paid me a buck for every correct one I"d be a millionaire at the end of the gig.

 

Relax. Vow to make the next gig better, and staple a note to your forehead to remind yourself about those two instances that won"t happen again.

 

Well, maybe a Post-it instead..... :facepalm:

 

Jake

1967 B-3 w/(2) 122's, Nord C1w/Leslie 2101 top, Nord PedalKeys 27, Nord Electro 4D, IK B3X, QSC K12.2, Yamaha reface YC+CS+CP

 

"It needs a Hammond"

 

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Thursday night I played a pickup gig. I had cheat sheets, it's been a few months since I played with this singer/guitarist.

She asked if I would "jam" with her, the language relieved pressure. So I went and jammed. I didn't hose any tunes but I clammed enough for chowder.

Noboby cared, gotta keep moving.

 

Saturday we were the openers for a gig, the "sound crew" had not finished setting up the PA by start time.

So we waited and started late.

Then the "soundman" could not get our lead vocalist's monitor mix correct or my mic to work at all.

In their desparate but meticulous bumbling about, they even replaced a new looking SM58 with another new looking SM58. If your SM58s aren't working, there is something truly wrong!!!

Like, somebody put a bad cord back in with the good cords. That makes sense...

 

It didn't help. We played through it. They hosed our gig, big time.

Eventually they got everything working, about half an hour into a 45 minute set.

We stayed calm, kept smiling and did our job.

The audience loved us.

 

You will have worse things happen and better.

In the end, we are selling fun. Keep smiling and move forward. It's over, leave it behind.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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While we're sharing our mistakes, a few months ago I did a gig with a "karaoke band" where the guests sign up many weeks in advance. We would only rehearse the trickiest songs before the gig, without the singers of course. So, this female guest comes on stage to sing her song, some kind of 80's power pop ballad that starts with a piano/vocal intro. This might be the big moment of her life, who knows. There was some ambiguity about the key between B flat or B (original? live? chart? requested by singer? facebook conversation?...). Among the band we settle for B. Somehow I have this huge brain fart and start the piano intro in B FLAT. By the time I figure out what's happening and the singer has come in, I try to tell the guitar player and bassist at the other end of the stage that I'M IN B FLAT, but they're staring at their charts. When the rest of the band joined in like a ton of brick, with loud distorted guitar and all, in B... oh man... that did not sound good. It took a few painful bars to settle on a key... :facepalm:

"Show me all the blueprints. I'm serious now, show me all the blueprints."

My homemade instruments

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Agree with all the comments. We've all been there.

 

Those of us who have been playing a lot, we have lots of stories we could tell. I've screwed up intros, played parts with the wrong patches, gagged solos and realized I was on the wrong tune several measures into it.

 

Nobody dies.

 

Only a few people notice.

 

Even fewer remember at the end of the tune.

 

For what it's worth - here's what I've found: What people really remember is the energy, joy and humor you respond with when things don't go as planned.

 

And then I get home and I can choose to beat myself up about it. Because after all, I'm supposed to be perfect in my own eyes, just like all my heroes.

 

Or I could choose to admit I'm far from perfect, those expectations are completely unrealistic and I didn't get into music to be perfect anyway.

 

 

..
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Selecting the wrong patch or performance is pretty easy to get over. Screwing up an exposed part (like an intro or break) is harder, and can mess with your head.

 

What I would do is put that song very early in the night - when the pressure was off and it didn't count much - until I was completely comfortable with it. I used to do this a lot in my piano bar years.

 

Some of this may just be nerves getting back in the game. That will go away with time.

 

You'll be ok! Welcome to the forum :)

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Joining the misery.

 

I started a song. Well, actually, I was supposed to start a song. I could not remember how it starts. Drummer started a count off. I still couldn't remember. Guitarist tries singing the riff to me. I assure you, that never works. Our lead singer, a wonderful lady, asks "Where's the song?" on microphone. Keyboardist (yours truly) responds, "The stupid piano player has totally forgotten the song!" We all laugh; one drunken woman in the audience heckles. But the tension is broken. Five seconds later, someone successfully communicates to me how the song starts; I tell the drummer I'm ready now, and off we go.

 

Total damage to the audience / venue / band / gig / me: zero.

-Tom Williams

{First Name} {at} AirNetworking {dot} com

PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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If you were playing rock n roll .. just shrug it off. Rock n roll is dirty, its all good. 2 mistake hardly make a tragic gig - how many songs did you play? 12? 40?

 

I agree / paraphrase with above - for one, one a couple people even notice, and they notice the 100 great things more than the 2 bad. Second - it"s about energy and attitude. People don"t want a live show to be an mp3 recording. They want some human inflection. Don"t sweat it, you"re fine.

The baiting I do is purely for entertainment value. Please feel free to ignore it.
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I give you Cindy Lauper on the Tonight Show in one of her very first national TV appearances.

 

They are playing their current big hit and smoking along, then the song dissolves in a train wreck at the end.

 

You just shrug it off and laugh, and move on.

 

[video:youtube]

Moe

---

 

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You go to the diner that you know other musician friends hang at in the wee hours and and talk sh17 about the band or audience and end up everyone has the same story, you realize it's not worth giving a dam about. Or in today's world now and then there's a musician's online hang so your can make your own coffee as other drop in and out. Used to be one that was really cool at 4am and some big name cats would pop in and out after gigs and some wild stories. One piano player would join for an about and hour then take off to start practicing at 5am, now that's dedication or insomnia.

 

 

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First off, major thanks all! I am feeling much better now that I've had some time to reflect. And practice. And talk to a few of my band mates. And read your words of encouragement and advice. I can't respond to everything, but I did want to reply to a few comments.

 

For me, it seems like when something happens, I'm more likely to get rattled the rest of the gig.

So true. After the first guffaw I felt like I was on pins and needles the rest of the night.

I've been gigging for almost 20 years and have triggered the totally wrong patch a few times. Now these events are just funny stories.

I'm sure mine will be one of those someday. But right now half the band is kinda pissed at me.

Play another gig!

Absolutely, but that's two whole weeks away lol.

you're now a proper musician.

So I've been doing it wrong all thee years? Haha!

I have had crazy memory lapses with songs which I have performed literally hundreds of times. Total mind blank moments....

That's exactly what happened. Hate that feeling.

The difference between this happening to some someone with lots of experience and someone relatively little is in how they cope with it. You learn to cover your mistakes: either by keeping playing something vaguely appropriate or stopping altogether and letting the band carry it until you are ready to rejoin them.

Yeah that's a great point. I've got to figure out a strategy to get through tough spots like these. Right now I'm just all panic.

You need to forgive yourself and simply accept the valuable gifts which these painful performance experiences are offering you: the knowledge of just how easy it is to go wrong at that point and the incentive to work out what can be done to minimise the chance of this happening next time...

So true.

Do you have a day job? What do you do when you make a mistake on you day job?

Apologize and work harder. Which is what I'm doing right now.

No one who is trying to play well wants to be the one making the mistake -- especially right at that moment! But if bandmates work well together, they tend to smile or laugh together (rather than be upset) because we all do it. And they tend to try to help bail each other out by finding a way to carry on. Sometimes it even makes for one of the more interesting parts of the show for the band because it's not routine! It also turns out that this is where some of the best stories come from!

Funny you mention that! On the first flub, our drummer actually started taking apart his hihat to give me some cover. Now that's love lol! On the second one, the lead singer tried to get the whole band going doing something totally new, but it was to no avail! He tried though... They're also the only two band members who aren't pissed at me right now lol.

Last night I blew an intro because I missed my sustain pedal - a couple of seconds of dead air. Audience didn't know or care.

Nobody dies.

 

Only a few people notice.

 

Even fewer remember at the end of the tune.

That's an important point you both brought up, especially given that they type of music this band plays is half cover (modern top 40 hh/r&b) and half original material. So the crowd often, literally, can't know when we mess up.

staple a note to your forehead to remind yourself about those two instances that won"t happen again.

 

Well, maybe a Post-it instead..... :facepalm:

Hah!

Bad gigs?? Screwing up royally?? I"ve made a career of it,,, the cure for grief is motion,,,

I'll have to remember that one Thanks!

how many songs did you play? 12? 40?

Eight. It was a 45 minute set because we were one of several bands/acts. I dunno if that makes it better or worse...

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I understand your embarrassment because the mistakes were front and center, but I think you"re taking it too hard. Try to redirect the energy used on beating yourself up into developing ways to minimize the chance of it happening again. This is a good way to get over it because you become focused on self-improvement.

 

I think it"s safe to say that anyone who does gigs has had some rough experiences â I know I have. The key is to not let it deflate you. What doesn"t kill your makes you stronger.

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Only a few people notice.

 

Even fewer remember at the end of the tune

What I was going to say.

 

Most of the audience didn't notice. The ones who did forgot it by the end of the song. Or before the first chorus.

 

The band members might not remember it at the end of the gig. If they do remember, they may give you a hard time about it. But like the audience, they are mainly thinking about themselves. By the time they get home, they won't remember it â until you bring it up at next rehearsal. Moral: don't bring it up at rehearsal.

 

These are only my opinions, not supported by any actual knowledge, experience, or expertise.
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I"m absolutely sure that with huge amounts of additional gigging experience, you will find that... (wait for it)

 

You (me and everybody"s Uncle Bill) will totally forget how to play an exposed intro on a tune you"ve played perfectly the previous 1073 gigs.

 

I think that the notion that one should 'practice until you cannot get it wrong' is at best an aspiration and is actually a disservice to 95% of us.

 

(Yes, I still often feel deep misery in the moment, but the time to recover back to my baseline level of mixed self-loathing/self love gets shorter with repeat experience.).

Barry

 

Home: Steinway L, Montage 8

 

Gigs: Yamaha CP88, Crumar Mojo 61, A&H SQ5 mixer, ME1 IEM, MiPro 909 IEMs

 

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