Most embarrassing moment as a musician?

[Stokely]

^ That's more of a "most awesome moment" as a musician

[ChiefDanG]

I have a lifetime of embarrassing moments, but one that comes to mind is the night I started off "Old Time Rock & Roll" (Lord, I hate that song!) in the wrong key and got the singer stuck there. One of my bands at the time did the song in C, but the band I was with that night did it in E (the original key?). I brain-farted, played the piano intro in C, and the singer came in with me. When the band kicked in, we all -- except for the singer -- realized my mistake and I quickly jumped up to E.

 

No problem, right?

 

Except that the singer, bless his heart, somehow stayed in C through the whole song. It was like his mental transpose button was stuck. So we played the whole infernal song with him singing two steps down from us. The bassist tried singing the right notes in his ear to get him on pitch, to no avail. He even stayed on C following the instrumental breaks. Weirdest damn thing. After that, whenever that song was on the set list, someone would write "E" next to it in big bold type.

 

Not a big fan of Old Thyme R&R but. does that opening piano lick go

11111 b7 6 5 OR 55555 4 3 2 dumb ass question. but I can't recall.. and PTS disorder happens when I attempt to think of some songs like OTR&R.

I am guessing 11111 b7 6 5

and once again, the original key is?

Believe it's 11111 b7 6 5......orig.key = F#

(F# F# F# F# F# E D# C#) - might be lyin'

[Mogut]

When my X style bench collapsed.... if it would have been caught on video, it would have been a viral smash on youtube

[I-missRichardTee]

Chick Corea is a god sorry, I guess it wasn't embarrassing, but now I AM embarrassed, does this count 0_0

[rickzjamm]

Anything that can go wrong I've probably done twice.

But one of the "grates" was back in the early eighties playing at a club in San Antonio (hometown) & I thought I was cool dating two women at the time. I had my system worked out pretty well but... they both show up the same night front & center! When the set ended they both smiled waiting, I was stalling for time & the drummer told me " I'm glad I'm not you" & laughed. Needless to say one girl was pissed & stormed out. The girl I sat with said "I wonder what her problem is " & I quickly responded "probably didn't like the band".

[marino]

Reading Carlos response in the Weirdest place thread made me think that we need a most embarrassing thread. So here goes.

Great idea, and great stories. Here's another one coming to mind, which could belong to *both* the "Most embarassing" AND "Weirdest place" series:

 

I was hired to play some music for an exhibition of the Superbowl All-Stars from the USA, in tour in Europe. A sax/keyboard duo. Big indoor stadium. I brought a Roland digital piano and a little drum machine. No amp, as I was assured that we would have had excellent amplification...

And we had. They hooked my keyboard and drum machine, plus a mike for the sax, directly into the stadium P.A., with NO MONITORS FOR US!

Now, the closest speaker was about 50 meters away, so I could hear my keyboards with a *huge* delay, maybe one second.... but what was absolutely insane is that I heard the sax in real time, as he was playing 2 meters away from me! Add a huge echo created by the building, and you are straight in the middle of a nightmare.

To play with some kind of rhythm or timing was a total impossibility. We gave the very clear impression that we weren't able to play at tempo, in front of thousands of people.

So I switched the drum machine off, and we only played slow, rubato stuff. It was awful.

 

Another rather embarassing one:

 

The drummer called: "Carlo, where are you?"

"Why, I'm home."

"Are you crazy? We're doing soundcheck at the rock festival."

"What are you talking about, the concert is tomorrow!"

"Wrong... the concert is today ,starting in an hour"!

 

Luckily, the concert was in town. I frantically loaded my keyboards in the car, and made the concert start just a few minutes late. No soundcheck for me that time!

 

 

 

 

[TommyS]

Yeah Greg, had a X style bench collapse on me also rather recently by the way. Yeesh. Surely would gone viral.

[KenElevenShadows]

I tried out for a jazz fusion band, never really having played that sort of music before.

 

At the time, I had pretty good classical piano chops, and my friends convinced me that because I listened to Keith Jarrett and like some of Lyle Mays' work, I'd be fine.

 

No.

[I-missRichardTee]

Reading Carlos response in the Weirdest place thread made me think that we need a most embarrassing thread. So here goes.

 

 

Another rather embarassing one:

 

The drummer called: "Tee, where are you?"

"Why, I'm home."

"Are you crazy? We're doing soundcheck at the rock festival."

"What are you talking about, the concert is tomorrow!"

"Wrong... the concert is today ,starting in an hour"!

 

Luckily, the concert was in town. I frantically loaded my keyboards in the car, and made the concert start just a few minutes late. No soundcheck for me that time!

 

Due to post traumatic whatever, and advancing age, and repression, I am sure I have had the same, for me, frightening conversation.. I am sure I screwed up a date like that.

[I-missRichardTee]

Yeah Greg, had a X style bench collapse on me also rather recently by the way. Yeesh. Surely would gone viral.

 

Very recently, some genuinely helpful drummer set up my collapsible seat. Only thing is , he did it improperly.. and the second I sat on it, it went down, and ruined the seat mechanism, in the bargain.

[Michael Wright]

My brother is/was a professional guitar player for years. After I got into the full time thing, our parents were always asking if they could come see us(different acts) in different venues and it was alway embarrassing to say "No guys, I don't think you want to come see us at (wherever questionable bar we were working). I am sure that they wondered just what we did for a living.

[frogmonkey]

The time my chair inched its way back and I fell off the stage in front of a packed house was NOT my most embarrassing moment. I landed on my feet, jumped back onstage, and barely missed a measure.

 

My most embarrassing moment was surely caused by accidentally and unknowingly hitting the %@#*ing TRANSPOSE BUTTON!

[Curly99]

1. I seldom play sitting down, I'm seldom front & center, and I seldom play in a church. This time, all three, at a large church. Using their gear, the stool they provided me collapsed in the middle of the first song. Now I stand all the time!

 

2. Did a street fair a few days after daylight savings time ended. No one thought to bring lights. It was full-on dark by our second set. So, no problem, we play in the dark all the time - but there were gremlins. Started with a broken guitar string, then another, then some kid walked behind the stage, kicking a cable that resulted in losing the left side of the PA. Needless to say, the crowd thinned quickly...

[J. Dan]

Not sure how to classify this...embarrassing? stupid? scary? Not embarrassing in terms of on stage, but stupid and maybe embarrassing among my band mates.

 

I'm Type I diabetic (juvenile, insulin dependent). So most gigs are after my evening insulin/dinner routine. We played a concert in an outdoor amphitheater for a local municipality for probably 5000 or so people. Gig started at maybe 6-7pm and it was dead of summer. Of course, running late, rushing for setup/sound check, couldn't get a proper dinner, took my insulin and snacked on stuff I brought (mainly breakfast bars and what-not). As the show went on, blood sugar kept dropping, but I had my emergency stash and kept stuffing carbs in my mouth (on stage during a concert, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do). 3rd set I ran out and blood sugar was still crashing. I don't remember the last half of the set. I saw video and couldn't believe I was still playing OK. After the show I went back stage and collapsed on the floor. The Guitar Player, knowing I'm diabetic, started stuffing my mouth full of Lemonheads from a giant box, and also found a rice krispy treat in my cable back that I ate. Paramedics got there, checked me, and my blood glucose level was in the teens (after all the lemon heads and rice krispy treat). A bag of intervenous glucose and I was golden in about 10 min. That was a huge lesson to me to take it more seriously. Never had a problem before or since.

[Pa Gherkin]

When the road crew had been fooling with the transpose function on my controller and I started the first song (solo intro)of an outdoor show in the wrong key. When the band kicked in it was puke city. Sunlight made the transpose button light and the readout screen invisible. I usually make it a rule to never use transpose,so perversely,a function I never use managed to sabotage me.

[humannoyed]

Many years ago (1970s) it was in the early evening about 2 hours before my regular gig with a house band at hotel bar and I was lying on my back reading a book. I got sleepy so decided to close my eyes for a just few minutes. Next thing I remember someone was pounding on the door of my apartment. It was my father. My parents had been called when I failed to show up for the gig. Knowing my normal reliability he (and the band) probably feared the worst and was relieved to find me alive. I however missed most of the first set. Fortunately for me the band including the band leader were relieved to see me okay and just laughed at me. Terribly embarrassing to me! I always set an alarm after that.

 

But wait it gets worse... another night a few months later, same band, same gig - We had just taken a break and I decided to walk the back way to a convenience store on the next street to buy a healthy snack to get me through the gig since I missed supper. In the store they had some dead ripe bananas which were a great find as often they are too green to eat immediately (I like plenty of brown specs). As I lay a bag of dry roasted peanuts and the ripe banana on the counter I smile and remark to the female clerk who was looking at the banana, "just like I like it" meaning perfect banana ripeness. She then gave me such a freaked out look that I said nothing else, but just paid for my snack and left. I proceeded through the dark empty lot behind the store back to the club. When I got to the stairs going up to the club I heard a voice behind me telling me to put my hands against the wall. It was a police officer. (They had the store staked out that evening in anticipation of a robbery.) He frisked me, put me in the car and took me back to the convenience store for the clerk to try to identify if I was someone who had recently robbed the place. First thing he told me in the car was that he thought the banana I was carrying was a gun and that I was fortunate that I did not get shot. I could tell from his nervousness that he was not joking. By the time we got to the convenience store I think I had enough conversation with the officer at this point that surely he was thinking that he might have picked up the wrong guy. I had to sit in the car while the clerk continued to stare at me in an un-nerving way. After much more conversation with the officer I was finally taken back to the club and released only to find the band through most of the next set. It was such a crazy story that the band got an even bigger laugh than the first incident. Fortunately they did believe me. I am not sure about the club manager though...

 

Apparently what set the store clerk off was my statement just like I like it which though meant for the banana was taken to mean the condition of the store of having just one clerk, and no other customers in the store as in just right for a robbery.

 

 

 

[I-missRichardTee]

OT humannoyed: humans can do the dumbest things... and it is based on what I call conjuring... an uncontrolled, unexamined, negative imagination. That woman owed you a major apology.

Reminds me of a book title "Love is Letting Go Of Fear".

And now back to our regularly scheduled program -)

[Piktor]

Lonnie's story of Ave Maria reminds me of my own most embarrassing musical moment. Years ago, in my early and naive twenties, I got a gig backing up a MOR singer who had a house gig. Though I knew that there likely wouldn't be any great moments in Western music, I had hoped the situation would work out to be a reasonable summer job. I got right to work, working through recordings and writing some charts for myself. Virtually none were supplied, except for a mysterious scrap of paper that was almost a napkin. The gig involved three high pressure elements: I was expected to play LH bass, something that I had not done before and I had to deal with a very highly strung musical director who could not stand my inexperienced nervousness. His demeanor ranged from hilarious to super A hole. Alas, the act's house gig folded soon after I had started rehearsing with the band and the only compensation was that the band had been hired to play as an opening act at two concert gigs for a touring Italian pop singer named Bobby Solo.

 

On the day before the gig the band had the luxury of setting up and sound checking early. The mysterious piece of paper made its way to my music stand high pressure element number three. It turned out to be a chord chart of some sort for, of all things, Schuberts "Ave Maria". Well, to tell the truth, I had never even heard of the piece. Apparently, the singer act was used to performing it in a stripped vocal/piano arrangement with his previous keyboard player. We had a bit of go at rehearsing it, but none of my attempts to count bars or provide sensitive accompaniment met with success. The singer sang in a very rubato style, i.e. Follow me, cause I aint counting any beats. I headed home that night under the assumption that there was no way that we were going to tackle that piece in front of an audience.

 

At the sound check next day it became clear that we WOULD perform Ave Maria. Desperate now, on my way home, I ran to the nearest print music store to buy a copy of it, but I knew, unlike some members of this forum, I wasnt going to do a good job or reading that chart. I did my best to prep by drawing in some chord symbols and the like. Cut to the gig the place was packed with members of the local Italian community. They did really like our local singer. Im sweating bullets, not only because the bands MD is standing right above me the whole time, giving me the stink eye, but also because I know AV is coming up. Then it comes. Ladies and gentlemen, and now my piano player and I would like to perform Ave Maria.Aaaaaveeee Mariiiiiiiia, Graaatia plenaaaaa, Mari...Shit! Im lost! I cant find any sense of where the singer is in all this paper that I brought. I spent the three or four minutes fumbling around, sounding like a total ass. If it wasnt me up there and I was watching someone else doing what I was doing, I would probably laugh my butt off, but this was me and it was horrible. I looked up just once, and saw the singer bending down on one knee, clutching the mic, pouring his oblivious heart out Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us , his entire being attempting to draw the attention of the crowd. Right in front of me I also noticed a rather large Italian woman who was staring at ME, her face twisted in horror. Her expression said it all - What the hell are you doing my beloved Ave Maria and Louis D?!!! Looking back at the now virtually useless sheets of paper laid before me, I proceeded to sweat a whole lot more. THIS was certainly the worst moment of my life. The professional mercenaries in the band, all a bit older and more experienced than me, disowned me completely. I could not even get one of them to help me carry a Hammond organ to my van. I had to hire my neighbour the next day to help me carry it out.

 

Two days later, we got to Winnipeg, and before the show, the other hired guns would not associate with me. At the concert hall, just before we go on, I heard sweet words Men, Ill just do Ave Maria a cappella tonight. That just freed me and the concert went very well. Oddly, we opened with a Coltrane tune, and everything clicked for the rest of the show. The gig ended and the MD paid me a bonus, although that might have been related to the fact that he had photocopied my charts, gave them to the band and anyone else that he hired afterwards. Today, I actually like Schuberts "Ave Maria", but darned if I will even attempt to play it.

 

[erik_nie]

When I was 17 years old, my grand parents were married for 40(?) years and had a celebration in the church, I played the big church-organ. There was a big choir, and we played around 7 pieces of a classical Latin mass. You know the Sanctum, Kyrie, etc.

I studied hard and went to the church to learn the organ. The conductor was not available to rehearse, so we had to do it without seeing the choir. Luckely my organ teacher was a very experienced church organ player and helped me to learn the mass.

 

The first pieces went okay, but during one piece I played a musical part, then the choir would come in, but they didn't. So I played the last cue before that part and still they didn't start. I watched the conductor and he was waiving that they never played that part.... I was so into reading the music that I hardly watched the conductor.

Never did a mass again...

 

Another thing was that a married couple asked us to play Viva la Vida (Coldplay) and we had no rehearsal. I found a karaoke version and we faked the complete song, nobody noticed.

Then in bar performance we decided to do it again, and my laptop (at that moment a old windows Dell laptop) started to hick. This was really embarrassing, we had to stop in the middle. From that moment I started to use a MacBook Pro and never played Viva la Vida again.

 

Other smaller things:

- One song i learned in a different key and used the transpose button. In the next song forgot to reset the transpose setting... (happened several times) Quickly learned it in the right key.

- Played 5 songs in a set and when I unplugged my in-ears I couldn't hear myself. My channel was not un-muted on the mixer, no-one noticed. Was almost going home.

 

The good thing: Keep on smiling, keep the energy and no-one will notice anything, except perhaps the musicians at the bar, but they are already drunk....

[omvibes]

I'm sure there are many embarrasing musical moments that I've personally endured in the past, but I've buried them deeply in my psyche, never to be revealed... I do remember a particular performance though... I was playing timpani in the national final of a Brass Band competition at the Royal Albert Hall (of all places) in London, and one of the wheels on the chair I was sitting on broke mid-performance, meaning the chair began tilting forward at an alarming angle, making it very hard to keep my balance and move the pedals on the timpani (which is how you change notes). Very unnerving to say the least.

 

My best story though involves another musician, who's name I never found out. Many years ago I played vibraphone in a jazz big band. Our regular guitarist couldn't make a particular gig, so along came a dep, a nice guy and a good player. There were about 20 of us in the band, and we often had to huddle up on small stages, with the rhythm stage on the edges, and at this particular gig the bass and guitar had to stand right on the edge of the stage. Anyway, first song up is the Bond theme, big guitar solo and all. Our lovely dep psyches himself up, hits that all-important first note...and promptly loses his footing and falls off the stage! Amazingly, he gets up off the floor (it was quite a drop from the stage to the floor), and continues playing from the side of the stage, without missing a beat. The funniest thing about it was that only myself and the drummer (and most of the audience) noticed this happen, and for the next 45 minutes we were unable to play a note due to our laughter, while the rest of the band were turning round asking 'what happened??'

[MorayM]

Got another one!

 

My first gig with my old Floyd tribute band was in the back garden of a classic English country village pub in the Cotswolds. Pretty sure it hadn't changed since 1948. The whole thing is probably worthy of the "weirdest gigs" thread, I'll post more there.

 

So near the end of our set, a policewoman comes up to the stage and asks if the singer can make an announcement about a car blocking part of the junction - my car! "Can you wait 15 minutes to finish the set?" "No." I was way over the limit so legally couldn't be driving, but (at the time) I quite liked the band and didn't think that having an argument with the police on stage would be a good start. So I decided the best thing to do was hit the helicopter sample for the beginning of Another Brick Part 2 and leg it out of the garden and through the pub to the road. By some miracle I managed to park the car to the satisfaction of the fuzz and made it back through the pub to the stage to hit the massive Hammond smear up into the chorus. Fortunately the crowd seemed to think it was part of the show, but I don't remember much about the rest of the set I was shaking so much. And the band let me stay...

[Pale]

Had a gig at a private party with the "boss" insisting that we start exactly at 21:00h. We were are trio of guitar/vocals, guitar and me on piano. The guitarist/singer was late for 50 minutes, and we had to play 50 minutes of something without him.

With singer missing we ended up burning through any imaginable instrumental we could think of. I think the guest thought we were the most boring band ever.

[DanL]

Last year I did this big fundraiser at a local theater. They do a Rolling Stones tribute, and there are 40-50 musicians involved. A giant spreadsheet on the wall with the song list and who is playing what, as the players constantly rotated. I was mostly playing a Hammond they had, and one song had a huge solo for me. The scene back stage is chaos, players and staff all over the place. I'm in one of the green rooms chatting it up with some guys and all of a sudden I say "I'm supposed to be on this song!" I run out to the stage and sit down at the organ in time to hit the last note! Missed my big solo, caught a lot of ribbing from the guys on that song since we'd rehearsed it to a T and it sounded great. To this day the thought of that moment causes a pit in my stomach, because it's so unlike me to be like that.

 

Many years ago, in the young days, holding down a day gig and playing 4-5 nights a week. Got home from work and needed a nap, I had about 3 hours before I had to leave for the gig, which was about 30 mins away and we had played there the night before so my rig was all setup. I wake up at downbeat time, do the "oh crap" thing, hustle to the gig, came in thru the back door onto the stage, sat down and played like I didn't miss a beat. I've never been late for another gig, though I came close one time. We had been playing a group of gigs 3-4 hours away from home, and after 1 gig, the next was about 200 miles away. The horn player and I got a hotel for the night, it was probably 4am when we checked in. We woke up the next day and thought it was dawn- when it was actually dusk, we had slept the entire day. We were supposed to sound check at 6pm, it was 5pm and we were 100 miles from the gig. We get there, my gear is mostly set up, we get the sound check done (since I've rarely had a sound check that said "6pm" and had it actually be at 6pm) and the gig goes off without a hitch.

[nadroj]

Not only is this thread entertaining, but it's both encouraging and refreshing to see that many of you guys who may be considered as "pros" still fall victim to all of the playing in wrong key/starting wrong song/falling off stage/having gear issues mid song situations.

 

None of my "embarrassing" moments on keyboard offer anything new to the ones stated above. There was one time here on burns night, when I was piping (bagpipes) the haggis in to a burns supper - basically leading the food in so that it can be cut and served. There is a specific tune many play in this part, called "A Man's a Man." I got half way through it then had a mind fart. Couldn't remember the B section. Since you have the single scale on the pipes, my improvisation options were limited, and I was only 17 or something, and couldn't improvise very well anyways.

So I bluffed my way to the top table, basically just making noises, and found that our band's Pipe Major was sitting directly where I stopped. When someone was giving a speech, he just shook his head and laughed at me and said "...play Scotland the brave or something on the way down. Don't do that again." (scotland the brave being the easiest tune there is.)

 

So I did that then went to sit at my table. I didn't think anyone who didn't know music very well would have noticed, but immediately after sitting down, the guys at my table said to me "Wow, you sure cocked that up, didn't you? Don't worry, it's on video."

 

Aaaand there was another time, I was piping a funeral for a distant family member. There were about 30 family members up from England whom I didn't know. It was my first funeral, and I wasn't very sure of what to do, other than what to play and when. Anyways, after playing the song a couple of times at the graveside surrounded by family, I started to wonder "...When am I supposed to finish?". So I played it a couple more times, then stopped abruptly. A lot of awkward looks were thrown about.

 

Minister spoke to me afterwards: "First funeral? Yeah, typically, you play it once then slowly walk away while playing it again, so that the music fades into the background. That's the queue for me to give the last rites before finishing."

 

Still, did the job, and got food/drink thrown at me all day. By the time we left the wake, it was 12am. Funerals can be fun.

[nadroj]

Oh, and the first wedding I piped at, I was asked to lead them out of the church with a tune. Again, I was very young. The couple wanted a slow walk out for pictures etc. Not with me. Maybe it was because I was nervous or something, I basically jogged out of the church, with them trailing behind me. What should have been a 5-10 minute affair was over in 20 seconds. Luckily I haven't ruined any weddings or funerals with my keyboard playing. Yet. (TOUCH WOOD).

[AlanV]

My brother is/was a professional guitar player for years. After I got into the full time thing, our parents were always asking if they could come see us(different acts) in different venues and it was alway embarrassing to say "No guys, I don't think you want to come see us at (wherever questionable bar we were working). I am sure that they wondered just what we did for a living.

 

Yeah, I've had those gigs. My old band was aging hippies and I was the youngest guy. Playing divey smoky places.

 

My parents always supported my musical endeavours, and they were very upper middle-class type folks.

 

It was always great when they'd walk into one of those joints, dad in khakis and a sports coat and mom in a nice outfit with her pearls.

 

Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb. But they liked music and like to drink, so there you go.

[marino]

This one had slipped from memory, probably due to the *extreme* embarrassment.

 

Once upon a time, I used to play classical concerts occasionally. Among other things, I had a duo with a flutist. At this particular concert, we both arrived at the last possible moment; I had just a few minutes to try the piano, before they let the audience in - then the flutist spent most of the waiting time to warm the instrument up. Of course, the program had been set weeks before... for some reason, we just relaxed an exchanged a few words, without re-checking it.

 

Well, the first piece on the list was a Mozart sonata. We had played the Mozart flute sonatas quite a few times already, so we knew them quite well... but this time, there was a misunderstanding about *which* sonata would have opened the concert. So we went onstage, he gestured at me for the attack, and we started... two different Mozart sonatas!

 

After a couple of notes, the mishap was clear, and we stopped. Fortunately, I found the nerve to say something funny to the audience, they laughed, we agreed on what to play, and the concert went well.

But that first moment, when we realized that something was *very* wrong, was pure terror. Nothing like being emberrassed in front of a *classical* audience!

 

 

[JeffLearman]

Q: When was your most embarrassing musical moment?

A: When was my last solo?

[JeffLearman]

After a couple of notes, the mishap was clear, and we stopped. Fortunately, I found the nerve to say something funny to the audience, they laughed, we agreed on what to play, and the concert went well.

But that first moment, when we realized that something was *very* wrong, was pure terror. Nothing like being emberrassed in front of a *classical* audience!

 

This is proof that the common rule "Never stop, no matter what!" is an overgeneralization.

[CEB]

I remember one.

 

Why you do not use transposer.

 

Played in a band and they did Despardo in B, Linda Ronstadt version. I played for in G for years, the Eagles version. G feels better so what the heck I used this new fangled button that say Key Tranpose which I set to +4.

 

One night I forgot to turn on the button. Of course it sounded right to my ears. LOL!

 

We stopped when Judy said That is wrong key.