Dumbest Thing Ever - Gig/Music Related

[Jose EB5AGV]

I have just played three gigs so far with my very first band. But I have already made several mistakes 😅

 

On first one, I made two: not bringing any kind of cart to move my 6 bags, which included a heavy one with my Montage, another with the Spider Pro and four other... Then, to add to that, the venue people sent us to the wrong access, at the other end of a very large building, and we moved all our gear, during an extreme heat wave, through about 800 meters of internal passages, of course not conditioned. The only good thing is that I ended up so tired that all my nervousness for being my first gig was completely gone 😆 and I played as if it was just another rehearsal. But then came the second error!. Before the gig, I told the audio guy that I was the less experienced of the band, so that he didn't care too much about me being low on the mix (I had thought that, in case of panic, I could lower my volume and keep unnoticed for a while. But then I didn't need to use that trick). And, yes, he followed my advice!. So, when gig ended, lots of friends who were there for my first gig, told me they could barely heard me 🤣

 

I did some smaller dumb things on my other two gigs, as forgetting again the cart on last one (but returning on time to pick it up). But that first gig will be always remembered!

 

Jose

[Al Quinn]

I've had some trouble with confusing the names of songs:

- On an organ trio jazz gig the BL asks if I know Work Song. I say yes so he counts it off. As soon as we start playing I realize that I don't know Work Song and was thinking of Road Song when I said yes. Having heard Work Song before I was able to fake it but since I was playing LH bass I felt stressed and dumb.

- For a wedding gig I learned the wrong song for the couples' first dance. I think I learned an Olivia Newton John song when I was supposed to learn a Journey song. Fortunately, the guitarist had a detailed chart, which I copied in a hurry (this was before we had cellphones and could just take a pic). The song came off OK but I felt like an ass.

 

On a jazz organ trio gig I forgot the power supply for my dual manual Mojo. The gig was an hour from home and I didn't realize my mistake until I was setting up. I felt like an idiot. The gig began at 7::00 and it was 6:15. I called my brother who lived ten minutes from the gig and also plays keys. He says he had a gig the previous night and his SK1 73 was still in the car -- he'll be there in 15 minutes. At 6:55 the Mojo's in it's case and the SK1 is ready to go. What a relief! It was a good gig. My brother sat in for a few songs.

[StanC]

Learning a new song:

Me:  3 chord blues in A. . . 

Lead Guitarist:  What are the other two?

[Outkaster]

Forgot my mixer and could only play two boards when I needed three.  Luckily a sax payer turned up to play the gig with us.  I didn't have to play horn parts.

[roygBiv]

While in Grad school,  I played guitar in several local bands, only some of which were popular.

One time, some friends (actual musicians) scored a huge frat party gig out at Lake Mcconaughy, in Western Nebraska.

They didn't actually have a band.

But, being the very talented musicians they were (drummer and bass player), they assumed they could easily find an equally good guitar player to learn some tunes and pull off this well paying, very large gig.

Turns out they were wrong.

So they  had to ultimately turn to me.

We practiced a couple of times and quickly learned about 2+ hours of material that one would learn in a hurry to pull off a well paying, very large frat party in the 80's.

Day of the gig, we do the 4 hour drive to get there.

Party is on the beach, with all power being provided by generators.

We set up about 10 feet from the lake shore.

1st set goes great - we rocked it!

Break time - party on!

2nd set - goes great too!

Break time 2 - party on some more!

But now it is late at night, and the rowdy fratizens want a 3rd set.

As we the "band' had been partying like its 1999, we said "sure!" (we were gonna sleep in a tent later, so who cares).

Problem 1:  we are out of materiel.

Solution 1:  we decided to do extended fusion jazz jams (remember, this is before Spinal Tap, and the  bass player and drummer were very very good rock and jazz musicians, so nothing fazed them).

Problem 2:  I'm the Pentatonic Rock Guy they scrounged up at the last minute to make this gig happen.

Solution 2:  After realizing my guitar histrionics were only buying me about 2 min per 15 min Phish-jam, an idea floats into my fogged mind -  I'll play a solo in the lake!  That will show those bastards ! (I used to spend a lot of times in blues bars, and the long-cable solo walk always seemed to work for Albert Collins).

Anyway, I was no Albert, but I had a long cable, so I started the trip down to the lake.

Luckily, literally a foot away from the water, my inner guardian angel voice said ("dude, why are you going to step into that lake whilst plugged into a  generator?  I recommend against this course of action.  Strongly. Lest you be  in for quite a shock!)

So, realizing the wisdom of my inner-guardian angel who apparently talks like a medieval hippy, I sheepishly retreated back, and continued with my lame wankery on the shore, fooling no one.

 In conclusion, I guess you could say this was both the dumbest thing I almost did at a gig, and also the smartest thing I didn't.

The End.

[allan_evett]

Not while on a gig, but after a gig.  Mid-1986 I'd just finished a corporate function job on Chicago's north side; drove home without incident then unloaded. I brought the gear upstairs to my apartment, staging it all in the hallway before opening the door. Usual rig at the time was a DX7 topped with a Korg DW-8000, keyboard amp and stands, plus cable/pedal bags. After loading in I locked-up the place and went to bed.

 

I was awakened the next morning by my now ex-spousal unit, telling me that neighbor down the hall had just returned my DX7. It had apparently spent the night in the building's hallway...

[stoken6]

I forgot my smart shoes, and spent the entire evening at a wedding gig in trainers, pretending I was the drummer.

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

One post above reminds me of a time when I got home from a gig, packed in and crashed. 

In the morning I went out the front door and saw my Gibson ES335 Studio sitting in the hard case on the porch. Nobody snagged it!!!! Yikes!!!!!!

[Bill H.]

This was as a keyboard player for a wedding. I was told to start the wedding march at a certain point in the processional, which I dutifully did without looking the room over. I turned up, played the fanfare and the march, and everyone stood. 

 

And stood and stood and stood. The bride wasn't ready (gown and train issues). 

 

After that, I never started the bridal entrance music until I could clearly see her waiting in the doorway. And if I couldn't see the doorway, I made it mandatory that someone came up and told me to go ahead. If the wedding planner questioned this, I would tell them this story. 

[TommyRude]

20 hours ago, Jazz+ said:

I forgot my keyboard's power cable. I pretended to play as a recording played the whole wedding gig. Nobody noticed and I collected $700.

Dumb thing forgetting the power cable, smartest thing pulling it off!

 

But a little cloudy on what was happening... was a recording playing the music?  Or did you fake playing, resulting in no keyboard sounds coming out the entire time?  Was there a full band playing live?

[stoken6]

23 hours ago, Jazz+ said:

I forgot my keyboard's power cable. I pretended to play as a recording played the whole wedding gig. Nobody noticed and I collected $700.

 

2 hours ago, TommyRude said:

Dumb thing forgetting the power cable, smartest thing pulling it off!

 

But a little cloudy on what was happening... was a recording playing the music?  Or did you fake playing, resulting in no keyboard sounds coming out the entire time?  Was there a full band playing live?

Presumably @Jazz+ had a solo gig?

 

Cheers, Mike.

[o0Ampy0o]

3 hours ago, Bill H. said:

This was as a keyboard player for a wedding. I was told to start the wedding march at a certain point in the processional, which I dutifully did without looking the room over. I turned up, played the fanfare and the march, and everyone stood. 

 

And stood and stood and stood. The bride wasn't ready (gown and train issues). 

 

After that, I never started the bridal entrance music until I could clearly see her waiting in the doorway. And if I couldn't see the doorway, I made it mandatory that someone came up and told me to go ahead. If the wedding planner questioned this, I would tell them this story. 

 

So much is riding on everything going right at a wedding. It could make or break it for the bride. For many girls you are part of her dream coming true, perhaps a reality you may have dreamed of.....the being many girl's dream come true. 🙂

 

[TommyRude]

8 hours ago, o0Ampy0o said:

For many girls you are part of her dream coming true

I heard this many times as a young man. 

 

 

Then I would always wake up

[Adam Burgess]

On 4/8/2023 at 2:42 PM, EB5AGV said:

I told the audio guy that I was the less experienced of the band, so that he didn't care too much about me being low on the mix

 

Nooooo! It's bad enough being heard, anyway 🙂 

My quick story…

Was doing a week's run of South Pacific in a local theatre playing the harp parts. On the Wednesday, I took my board home to do a recording for something. 

So, on the Thursday, me and the drummer are in the bar having a quick beer before the show. The 10 min bell rings so we make our way to the pit. The feeling when there's five mins to go until showtime and all you see is an empty keyboard stand with a few cables dangling over it is not a nice feeling! 😶‍🌫️

Managed to borrow a Roland E-15(!) from a friend who lived quite close - much harder than you think in the times before text messaging and cell phones! Missed the first 30 mins of the show and was embarrassed for the next 30 eons!

Also, with a club band I was in for years, we used a few songs with string/horn parts, walk on music etc on track from my XP50 via the floppy drive. I, of course, being sensible, had backups. Except that I'd made sure all the backup disks were still working that week, along with the primary disks. Fatal mistake of all the disks being together. They're all at home and not with the gear!

No great loss but such an annoyance. Think we actually finished that gig and in the bathroom, some guy asked what time the band were on…
 

[Bill H.]

19 hours ago, o0Ampy0o said:

 

So much is riding on everything going right at a wedding. It could make or break it for the bride. For many girls you are part of her dream coming true, perhaps a reality you may have dreamed of.....the being many girl's dream come true. 🙂

 

Fortunately the bride laughed it off during the reception, but I was mortified. This was a pretty big deal for me at the time - a fairly large ceremony at a mountainside resort. One of the families was well connected, and there were state and local officials in attendance. 

 

Anyway it taught me to not bury my head in the music, and to be more aware of my surroundings. What's that saying about if anything can go wrong, it will?  Yeah that. 

[AWkeys]

Oh man, there are so many good ones!  I'll start with this:

 

I played in this band that was incredibly LOUD. The bass player would bring this huge 10,000 watt PA with the mains sitting atop the subs on either side of the stage, and even though we're only a 5-piece, somehow I always ended up being at least partially hidden by one of these speaker stacks. A friggin' bar gig that any band with some sense [yeah, I know...] would throw some speakers on sticks with maybe one sub.  Anyway, this band prompted me to get two KSC K10s which were just out on the market, and I still couldn't keep up because naturally I was barely in the FOH mix. One night I just had enough and turned my volume off for a whole set and mimed playing. I remember one song the guitarist came over to trade solos with me and I still kept my volume off. Set finished, people came up to me slapping me on the back saying "man, that was GREAT!"

 

Blood money, no enjoyment. I didn't last much longer in that band.

[AWkeys]

Another great, but long story. Total clusterf***! Had a couple dates at a resort in Cancun about 10 years ago.  These were outdoor shows at a resort that was specifically reserved that weekend for our leader's fan club.

 

First night:  at sound check, for some reason I cannot hear the low mids coming from my stereo monitors and keep going over to the monitor guy requesting more mids. Other than that, we get done and go eat. They have to cover our gear as there are thundershowers in the area. 

 

Show starts and some stagehand forgets to uncover the bass rig, so the bassist is scrambling as we begin the first song.  A couple songs later, the 2nd guitarist screws up an intro or something - it was his first gig with this lineup, but he gets some stink-eye. Then another song or two  later, the lead guitarist/MD of the band, his guitar amp dies. Roadies replace it with another one, DOA. Another one, DOA. Takes about 5 minutes to fix the problem, and the band is feeling tense. We get going again. Next thing that happens, bass player starts a song in the wrong key - this is a guy who NEVER screws up. I think we actually restarted that song. Next up is me. Three white-keys in a row on my backlined 88-key controller all break in the middle of a song and I'm scrambling to get through it. What our employer doesn't know is that I saved my own ass and shipped down a backup controller. (76 semi-weighted keys, so not as desirable otherwise I would have used it first.) Takes 2 minutes for me and a roadie to swap it out. Then, the piece-de-resistance: the very next song we start  and there's a huge BOOM over and over. The singer is yelling at me and the percussionist "WTF!" and we're shrugging as we don't know what the hell it is. Turns out they were using clip mics on the rack toms and one fell off onto the floor tom, so when the drummer hit the floor tom this mic would bounce up and down! OMG, I'm laughing out loud at this memory now!

 

Somehow we finish the night and go to our rooms with our tails between our legs.

 

Second night:  As keys and drums are always the first required to show for sound check and given that Murphy's Law shit all over us the previous night, I decide to show up to sound check hours early.  I get there and we come to find out that the gear rental company not only covered the FOH board with plastic and left the damn thing on overnight - a plume of steam rose when they took the plastic off - they zeroed out the faders! So we have to start over from scratch. Meanwhile, the FOH engineer is working on the drum riser next to my keyboard riser while the monitor guy is dialing me in. He notices something wrong and asks me to hold out a piano chord. Turns out my monitors were wired out of phase - thus my problem with the low mids from the previous day. I felt vindicated about that.

 

Eventually the rest of the band shows up and we start sound-checking. Everything is going well then POOF! No sound. Guess what? The monitor board blew!! We get escorted to the tent behind the stage where we sit for a few hours while they try to figure out how we are going to do a show. The nearest replacement mixing board is about 3 hours away. By the time it would arrive and get patched in we'd be into our first set, so that's a no go. Finally the stage manager peaks his head into the tent and says "remember the days of playing a bar gig and you could barely hear yourself? That's what you're going to do tonight!" They realized that they had a couple of extra buses on the FOH board so that they could send our leader his own mix as he always gets and the rest of the band would have to share the other mix. Luckily, I thought to ask about the state of those backup guitar amps. They were all double-checked and working, and there were plenty of them so I requested one to run my aux out into as my keyboard monitor, and couple of the other non-guitar instrumentalists did the same for themselves. The end result is that we put on a killer show and totally redeemed ourselves. I think I kissed the ground when I got back home.

[sagetunes]

I could be the dumbest of the dumb. I packed up my stuff and headed to an outdoor gig at a campground. There was a slight delay so I unloaded my stuff and placed it near the stage. When it came to set up, I couldn't find the keyboard. Figured I forgot it---Raced home about 25 minutes, only to realize it was not there...I must have misplaced my NE3 in the black case camaflouged by guitar cases one foot from the stage. This was marrijuanna aided of course. Note to self: smoke less, much less.

[stoken6]

Reminds me of a festival gig years ago. I pack up my Nord Stage into its red Nord bag, and pack up some other bits and transport them to the car. Nord bag is by the stage, so I pick it up - it turns out it's an Electro belonging to someone from another band!

 

No harm done after a quick swap, but lesson learned.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[MathOfInsects]

Ugh, just remembered another one.

Loaded into a sort of PITA gig, very long lead time before we played, very long gig once we started. There wasn't really a place for us to put our cases and the like, so they had us hide them under the long banquet tables. This isn't always a bad thing, but it turned into its own PITA because at one point they changed their own set-up once we were set up, so those tables moved, and we had to grab our stuff from basically under their feet and hide them away again once they got settled in the new place.

The gig ends and it's time to load out. Most of the guys find their cases. Mine are gone. Other people's stuff is under the table mine were under--like, catering supplies and that kind of thing. My cases are nowhere to be seen. I want to go home but figure I'll just wait until they have cleared the tables a bit. Table after table is cleared and my cases are nowhere. It's the Nord gigbag and some other stuff. That thing ain't cheap!

I am not at my best. No one seems interested in helping me. I am tired and not patient. I send someone to get the catering boss to get her people to tell me where they put my stuff. I say "I need my cases, someone moved them or someone took them. I don't want to have to wait for the entire facility to be broken down for me to go home just because your people moved my stuff."

She pulls some people off some other job, I tell her where they had been, they confirm what I know, which is that they are not there. I'm not finding it funny at this point.

One says, "Didn't you put it under this table over here when we moved?" "No," I insist. "I know which table they were under."

She walks right to the table she thought I'd put them under, and there they are, literally untouched, every aspect of them exactly as I'd left them...after we switched where we stored them, which apparently I'd forgotten all about by then.

I slinked out. I know that caterer through friends. She still judges me for it. 

[Moonglow]

Okay, here’s another one, going way back. I was loading my gear into my 1973 Cutlass Supreme (badass car) after a gig. Thought I had everything loaded in…..

 

Nope. Left my ARP Omni 2 in its makeshift case, the bag that originally came with my Farfisa VIP 345 to hold the legs (fit like a glove). Turns out I left it leaning up against the rear right rear tire.

 

Backed-up the car, while slightly turning the steering wheel to the right, and ran over the ARP Omni.

 

Fortunately, it was only a glancing blow; it first tipped over, so I only clipped a portion of it. It sustained a small dent on the corner, but that thing was built like a tank, and I continued to use it without issue for a few more years.

 

But the fact remains: I ran over my keyboard.

[CowboyNQ]

I did a very dumb thing less than a month ago.

 

Power for my keys was run (by venue techs) from a powerboard near the bass riser.  During sound check our bassist kicked the powerboard accidentally and it took down my entire rig.  It took us about 5 minutes to work out what had happened and another 90 seconds to reboot my keys rig.  Upon inspection we discovered the powerboard was a bit dodgy but worked fine - until somebody touched it.

 

Once the cause of the issue was found, did I insist on a replacement powerboard?  Did I suggest a different power source for my rig?  Did I question the placement of the power source right where the bassist could easily trip over it?  No, none of those things.  Instead I went with the good old Aussie “she’ll be right” attitude.

 

Fast forward to the start of the show.  Theatre is dark and silent as the audience wait for the keys player to start an impressive swelling pad to commence the first song.  As the keys player raises his hands to play that first chord, The bass player noiselessly arrives on stage in the dark.

 

You KNOW what happened next…

 

 

[AWkeys]

I think my previous two stories weren't really about me screwing up, and I've had plenty:

 

1. Playing in front of thousands of people, starting a song with the wrong patch dialed up and being called out on it.

2. Driving to a corporate event 3 hours away and turning around halfway because I forgot my suit.

3. Another corporate event and I forgot my suit. Went to K-Mart down the street and spent about $40 on a pair of black jeans, a button down shirt, vest and tie. Get complimented on how I look, LOL!

4. Leaving my brand-new iPad on top of my car in a bad area of town for about an hour before I realize I forgot to bring it inside. Luckily it was still out there.

 

There's probably 100 more of those...

[EscapeRocks]

One thing I've learned over the 30 or so years I've performed on stages very small to very large:  If you/your band don't have a Spinal Tap moment now and the, you're doing it wrong. 

 

We played a very fun downtown show a month ago. We were given access to this very nice and secured parking garage for our vehicles.

They escorted us there so they could use their badge to get us in, then told us just to take the elevator up to the street level exit door.

 

We find the elevator....oh wait, it needs a key card to operate.  Okay, we find some stairs, walk up a couple flights.   Yep, doors require access cards.   The one door we found that went outside was an alarmed door.

We didn't feel like setting it off.

 

So there we were, just like in Spinal Tap, running all over passageways trying to get out.

I finally called the very nice woman in charge and explained the situation.   We had a good laugh about it when she came to let us out.

She apologized profusely that the new guy she sent to let us in had forgotten that no key card, no elevator

 

It really was funny, and no one was upset.

[TommyRude]

OK this was bad.  Over 40 years ago.  I was young, and occasionally (often) a real idiot.  I had saved and scrimped up enough funds to get a Yamaha CP-70B.  This was going to be a big deal for me and my band at the time.  So I was shopping around, trying to get the best deal possible.  Which really boiled down to Guitar Center and West L.A. Music.  This was way before the internet and cell phones.  So the process was me and my bandmate heading down to L.A., driving from one store to the other, trying to negotiate the best price.  And using telephone booths on the street corner.

 

So how does a young guy (idiot) secure the cash?  Why in a paper bag of course!  Somehow I didn't know what a checkbook was.  Yup, walking around the streets of L.A. carrying a large wad in a paper bag.

 

So we're at one of the aforementioned telephone booths, calling one of the stores.  Concluded the call, proceeded to walk towards West L.A. Music to finalize the exciting deal and get that baby!  As we walk into the store, I'm thinking something doesn't seem right... where's the cash?  OH S***** I left it in the telephone booth!  Both of us start running back to the booth at really high speed and DAMN - it's still there, just sitting up on the phone.  Breathing a huge sigh of relief, stroll back over to the store and get the piano, which I used extensively for the next 4-5 years.

[stoken6]

2 hours ago, EscapeRocks said:

We find the elevator....oh wait, it needs a key card to operate.  Okay, we find some stairs, walk up a couple flights.   Yep, doors require access cards.   The one door we found that went outside was an alarmed door.

We didn't feel like setting it off.

 

So there we were, just like in Spinal Tap, running all over passageways trying to get out.

 

The Borderline in London's Soho was like that. We sent the bass player in the lift (elevator) with the gear while we took the stairs. It took about half an hour for the bass player and equipment to emerge.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[analogika]

16 hours ago, stoken6 said:

 

The Borderline in London's Soho was like that. We sent the bass player in the lift (elevator) with the gear while we took the stairs. It took about half an hour for the bass player and equipment to emerge.

 

Cheers, Mike.

"The bass player locked his keys in the car. It took over an hour to get it open and let the drummer out."

[yannis D]

A midi cable that i forgot was my problem in the first gig with a serious band 20 y.a. I was in Rome in a Saturday night and I had to put all the engines to work (friends who had friends who knew someone with a music store, you get the point) After a crazy car drive in the city, a good man opened his store and gave me the much desired midi cable to do my gig but I lost many years of my life 😅👍 Since then, there are always multiple midi, USB cables in my MAudio bag 

[Josh Paxton]

Aaaand I added this to my list just last night...

 

The gig is at 8:00. Duo with a singer, piano on site, no gear to bring. Shortly before 5:00, I'm out for a run, and I get a text from the singer asking if I mind if she moves the piano a bit. I think, "Why is she there three hours early... Oh no..." So I check, and yes, it turns out the gig starts at 5, not 8. So now I have a choice: I can show up 40 minutes late in stage clothes, or only 20 minutes late in my running clothes. I opted for the latter. So our first set consisted of the singer in a lovely evening dress, and me in a visibly sweat-soaked t-shirt and shorts. Far from my proudest moment, but thankfully the singer had a sense of humor about it, and the jokes it enabled carried the set until my wife mercifully showed with better attire for me to change into.

[wineandkeyz]

Back in the 00's, my band was playing a wedding reception and the couple had requested that we play the recorded version of a Celine Dion tune (I forget which one) for their first dance. Several weeks before the gig, our manager/soundman downloaded the song with plans to burn it onto a CD. His CD burner crapped out, though, so he emailed me the file and asked me to burn it for him. I told him it'd be no problem and I'd take care of it.

 

Fast forward to the day of the gig. We were all loaded in and soundchecked when he asked me for the CD. I realized that, not only did I forget the CD, I had forgotten to burn it in the first place. We thought we were screwed and would probably never get another gig, wedding or otherwise after that, and I was sure I was fired.

 

Our bass player Tim remembered that there was a used music store nearby and ran to see if he could find the song there. When he got to the store and saw the staff and clientele, he realized he may have embarked on a fool's errand. But we were desperate, so he asked the heavily tattooed and pierced kid behind the counter if they had any Celine Dion. The kid gave him a look that said, "Do we LOOK like we'd have Celine Dion in here?" and pointed disgustedly towards the "D's". To Tim's relief, there was a very clean copy of Celine Dion's Greatest Hits in the bin. The kid looked absolutely mortified that anything by Celine Dion was in his store, so he couldn't get Tim and that CD out of there soon enough. Crisis averted...

 

Which is how I came to own a copy of Celine Dion's Greatest Hits.