Your worst gig, EVER...

[dansouth]

Tell us about a gig that you would not want to relive for a triple the money and lots of delicious perks.

 

Mine had to be a bar gig a couple of nights after Al Jarreau won the Grammy. The intoxicated drummer in my cover band decide to cite this award during an impromptu speech in the middle of the last set about how much he hated "n*gg*r music." The crowd sat there nervously waiting for us to play something. I was so angry (and embarrassed) that I couldn't see straight. I plunked out the last two songs, packed my gear, and refused to look at the racist asshole. Luckily, it was one of my last gigs ever in a redneck bar.

[rumpelstiltskin.]

i was already dissatisfied with the band of musical morons i had joined mistakenly, but having committed to a gig in the future, i was going to stick with them until then and quit.

we scheduled a gig that i was ok with a few days before as a warm up. unfortunately, i remembered a few days after we scheduled it that i was moving the day after the gig and asked the guitarist if we could cancel. he gave a speech about how unprofessional that would be, and we absolutely could not cancel the gig.

i said fine, my fault. the day of the gig arrives and drive from elkhart, IN to ypsilanti, MI, 2.5 hours to the gig, the day before i move from elkhart to kalamazoo, MI (yes, that's a 400 mile weekend). the drummer gets stoned and the guitarist gets drunk BEFORE the gig. at this point i refer you back to the guitarists comments about "professionalism". despite my best efforts, we couldn't even play the first song right. by the end of our second set, there were nine people in the bar, including staff (3 people), four of whom were with us. one person clapped, and it wasn't one of our four people.

i was so embarrassed and angry, i left with my own equipment before everything was packed up. i called the next day and quit, leaving them on the hook for a show in three days without a bass player (professionalism, right?).

my cut for the gig was $20, which didn't even cover the gas to get there and back. never again will i be a part of something so grossly brainless as that. not for triple the cut, not for $1000.

[Ryan Griffith]

Well, unfortunately I don't have the gigging experience you guys do. While there were a couple lame bars my last band played for pocket change, there hasn't really been a total nightmare gig for me to look back upon yet. But man, I can't wait! From the sounds of it every musician runs into one at some point, so I guess I only have it to look forward to

[Carl1266]

My worst gig in terms of playing was a gig on New Years a couple of years ago. I just joint a well-known R 'n' B band in my area and I was pretty nervous. Plus I was getting a migraine that night. Man, I really sucked that night. I played so bad and was so embarrassed. But I didnt get fired and could get a lot of experience with that band.

 

Another really bad experience were some gigs I played with a theater group. Back in the late 80s I was a member of a group that had several plays dealing with neonazis/skinheads. By that time it was a big problem in Germany (actually it still is a problem). In some areas we had undercover cops in the audience and cops watching our cars and truck. That was a very eerie feeling. Fortunately nothing ever happened except some skins in the audience trying to disturb the actors with nasty comments.

[zujo]

Hey Dan!

 

I don't know if you read my Halloween Gig story but that was only one of the worst gigs of my life. For some reason I really used to attract or get into the wackiest situations.

 

THIS IS NO LIE AND A TRUE STORY

 

Back in Mexico I was playing with this church minister who was pretty well known for his songs (3albums) and his “healing touch”. After the church sponsored his last album they went on and paid for a short 4 month tour, going to all kinds of areas in the name of "community access'. On this tour we even played at bullfight arenas! On this one occasion we were playing at a huge church in this small town. Our drummer had quit the band once we hit his hometown, so we had only a couple of days with a new one. A woman "bout 40yrs old who knew the minister and had played for him "back in the day' (She wasn't aware of his Excellency's NEW type of show and recently acquired healing powers)

 

We start the service with a few praise songs as usual and then we took a break for the sermon. At the sermon people start asking the minister to use his "healing' right there and then, in a very demanding way, we usually saved that part of the service for the end. Since the customer is always right, people started lining up and his majesty gets on with the “healing”. People start dropping like flies to the floor as they get pushed by their heads in "healing touch' kinda fashion. Once he got tired, we get a signal from “his Excellency” to start playing so that we can finish the healing part of the service and move on to worship. BUT….

 

The drummer is nowhere in sight! As the keyboard player and myself start looking around the room, there she is…ON THE FLOOR! Apparently she bought the whole healing powers thing and got up from the drum set to be ONE with the messiah. who not only dind recognize her but knocked her out by healing means.By know the minister is looking at the band with a “you start playing now, or I'll exorcise you” face. One of the background singers walks up to him and explains the situation while our percussionist sits on the drum set and we start playing the end of the service. The drummer came to her senses as we finished the first song but couldn't continue playing because she hurt herself on her way down!

 

Boy many more things happened on that tour but that was definitively the topper…

[Chad Thorne]

Millbury, Massachusetts, summer 1978. My band was hired to play at "Olde Millbury Dayes". We set up in the school parking lot, just below a steep grassy embankment, and started to play.

 

Well, this was right around July 4th, and some townie idiots thought it would be funny to rain fireworks down on us from the top of the embankment. A couple of firecrackers - we tried to ignore it. A couple became a shower, and when a cherry bomb went off too close to our keyboard player's Leslie (in those days you carried a real B-3 with you, by gosh), he took off up the embankment. The rest of us went with him. Fisticuffs ensued. WE got fired on the spot, and the town fathers never paid us.

 

I WOULD go back to Millbury to play, but I'd carry Mace and insist on a a thousand bucks per person IN ADVANCE...

[dcr]

My worst is not bass-related, but comes from a youth choir I did back when...well, back when I could realistically be in a youth choir. We were doing a tour & in addition to singing I was also doing tech set-up & tear-down; that was a cool job, but it meant that you had to be there long before practice to set up & long after to tear down, or whatever. The first night of the tour, we practice, & the choir goes off to have dinner & find places to sleep in the building that our host is letting us use. We techies get back very late, so there's almost no food left, but worst of all the only place left to sleep is on the bare concrete floor in a basement. Well, that night I freeze my butt off sleeping on that floor & catch a raging sore throat--which really sucked because I had to sing a solo every night! I had to spend most of the shows singing quietly, skipping the high notes, somtimes just mouthing, so that I *might* have something left to sing with when the solo comes. I hard to croak my way through that whole stinking tour. That's embarrassing.

[Jeff Addicott]

July 4, 1997: Parade float. Back of a flatbed truck, high up with a slippery metal floor. Every time the driver lets out the clutch, everything lurches and slides and things generally go haywire (fortunately that only happened 2-3 times a minute).

 

Funky generator power. 5 minutes before we're about to be wheeled out in front of 10 000 people, my Hartke head literally goes POP and starts blowing smoke. Fortunately, the PA still works, but the guitar amp is blowing fuses. We talk to a guitar player we know who happens to be waiting, 3 floats ahead. His apartment just happens to be 100 yards away, so we pop in and grab his spare fuses (thanks, Boris!). The guitar amp keeps blowing fuses, so we dispatch one of the others to run behind the float (in his toga) with a screwdriver and replace the fuse each time.

 

So that part was pretty horrid. But at least we got to stand out in the hot sun in 95 degree weather for 3 1/2 hours. And at least we had the satisfaction of knowing we were doing a good deed (that's right: no pay) for a hotel lounge that was about to go out of business.

 

And the whole ordeal did put me in a good frame of mind for the 3 other gigs that were to follow that day (two of which could easily qualify as runners up for my worst gig ever...)

[Bob Gollihur]

New Years Eve 1975.

 

A couple months earlier we'd played Fri. of a Fri-Sat night gig. Came back Sat to find the club had burned down early that morning, with our gear inside. All the speakers were destroyed, both bass and guitar amps, though the Yamaha mixer/PA's knobs were melted to the metal top, I got parts and repaired it - but it still wasn't quite right.

 

Our agent got us a replacement gig when the original NYE party gig was cancelled - a shabby has-been club in Philly. We were a high-energy rock trio, and found ourselves in this well-worn club that had been a hot spot at one time, but time passed it by, with torn fabric wall hangings and most of the decorative lights burnt out. The largest number of people in the club at any time was about 12 (including us and employees), and the club could have held 200 easily. Our roasted PA kept giving out or making loud pops every so often, and we were still down from the fire and the $$ loss. The miserable bar owner sat there the whole night and bitched every time we stopped to fix the PA, made us play five sets in spite of the fact that at most times the club was empty except for three bartenders and us.

 

It was the longest gig of my life. Fortunately, I haven't got that many horror stories considering all the gigs I've played.

[Mike H.]

I guess I've got 2 bad gigs total; both at the same establishment. The first, not as bad, and reliveable: I was in a heavy metal cover band at the time and we were doing our usual hoo ha playing etc. A lone drunken patron decided to come up and start moshing by himself directly in front of me. Mind you there is NO stage at this establishment, so we're at ground level. As he moshes he continues to come right at me, and threaten to take me, my bass, and my rig out all at once(his long hair is in the way of while moshing so he doesn't see this). So, I give him a polite hand on the shoulder to get him back. He continues to mosh, repeating the previous step 2-3 times more. The last time, I finally gave him a good shove to get his attention. He didn't appreciate it, and as he realized what had happened, his sober friend came and got him, apologized, and took him out.

 

The second was much worse, and I'd never do it again. Long story short, our singer got piss drunk and began cursing very regularely through the PA. Not normal cussing either; very vulgar. To further add fuel to the bon fire, he began insulting patrons and the employees. Man did we have to kiss ass up one side and down the next after that!

[Tom Capasso]

This is a great thread, because it unites us in misery (?) When we fill this up, everybody kick in real names and permission, and we should publish it (forward by Ed of course). The thing is that we learn from these, but (hopefullly) we laugh later. That's what I'm hoping for personally, as my 20 year old son was trying to buy a Porsche on the other side of the country ("It's OK, I'll send him the $10,000 check first"). The laughter has come easier from bad gigs...

 

I've got 3.

 

Like so many 70s rockers, I have the "freebird" moment. We're really playing well in a popular club, and the crowd is lovin' us. Then somebody makes that one request, which we didn't know. By the end of the next song, the whole crowd is shouting "FREEBIRD !!" with beer mugs held high. We kept playing what we knew, but the feel and enthusiasm was gone.

 

We played a bar 3 times a month for about a year. It was next to a movie-theatre-turned-concert-hall, and we kept hoping to catch the concert goers looking to prolong their night. It was in a questionable part of town, and usually the bouncer kept out any questionable characters. One night, the guitar player is standing by the door talking to the bouncer during a break. A live body flies into the doorway, crashing into the cigarette machine and the guitarplayer's hand. It took the bouncer by surprise, and it took a few of us to peel the guy off and get him out. Fortunately, the hand wasn't too bad, but poor Kev had a tough night playing, and we cut it shorter that night. The cops were called, and the last we saw of the invading individual was him trying to get out of the police car's back seat by smashing out the back window with his head. He did not succeed (as far as we know).

 

When I was in high school, our band (Biplane) was invited to play at a college football game, to help the attendance. In those days, Hofstra University was not as well known a it is today and we welcomed the chance to play at a - stadium !! and there would be local radio coverage !! We were contacted by the cheerleaders to see if we could coordinate any music to their routines. We couldn't, because in those days traditional cheers didn't mix with rock. It had nothing to do with the fact that we couldn't stop drooling

 

We drag our equipment out to the track behind the sidelines and test a bit. Everyone - various suits, officials, and all, are looking at us with disgust. We keep asking when we can play, because the game hasn't started. They keep saying to wait. Finally, they give us the go. We get out 4 bars of Johnny B Goode (on request), and they wave us off. The game starts, and we wait for half time. At that point, we're in guy's faces trying to make sure we get a couple of songs during the break. The marching band plays.... Next thing we know, the game has started. We pack up and go home, our "big break" a bust. Friends told us about the radio coverage, and the announcer's comments served as inspiration to find better gigs for many years.

"Here they are - Biplane (3 notes heard) And there's the kickoff !! "

 

Tom

[BenLoy]

I've got a particularly unpleasant wedding gig story...

 

The swing band I was playing in was doing a wedding gig up in Connecticut. It was one of those outdoor wedding gigs with those giant plastic tents set up over the dinner party. The bandstand was under a small plastic tent that was attatched to the larger tent. Now, these tents were meant to keep us dry, but, in the extremely rainy and humid springtime weather of this day, the tents also worked extremely well at trapping the extremely muggy and humid air around us. The result? We ended up being drenched in as much sweat and steam as we would've been if we were standing in the rain. Fortunately none of our amps shorted out.

 

And then there were the caterers. I don't know if they had too many encounters with unscrupulous club date musicians or what...but they were an extremely rude and obnoxious bunch...even for caterers! During our break, the bride's own father had come up to us and told us to go back to the kitchen where our meals were waiting for us. So...we walk back to the "kitchen" area (another tent) where we see the caterers running about like mad loons...busy as hell. Being the professionally-minded people we are, we stood there, waiting patiently for them to finish whatever they were doing when the cook, who finally noticed us, flashed at us with her nasty, angry eyes and said "Don't you boys even THINK about it!!! Get the hell out of here!!!!" She must've assumed that were going to start grabbing food that wasn't meant for us, I guess. We finally got our meals after our second break...some cheese sandwiches...

 

We played very well, but it was a most uncofortable evening.

[Jim T.]

My wife Betty and I were playing onstage at a regional festival when we were suddenly drowned out by an incredibly loud and initially unidentifiable sound.

The festival promotors had chosen to place the tourist ride HELICOPTER pad right next to the stage! In the middle of our ballad, with our audience of 200 hanging on every word-this whirleybird lowers itself out of the heavens and lands just to our stage left. As if that wasn't ludicrous enough, (and incredibly unsafe !) the thing sits there "whopping" and turbo "screaming" for a good 5 minutes before taking off in a crecendo roar with it's next batch of passengers. (try syncing two rapid acoustic guitar fingerpickers to that) for 5 minutes while keeping a straight/professional face!)

 

The next week, when we told our recording engineer (who is also a famous fingerstyle guitar stylist) about our gig, he asked: "Did you get Paid?" Us: "Yeah".

He: "Well then it was a good gig." That has laughingly been our mantra ever since when we encounter these "amusing" situations at gigs. Jim T.