Gig Disasters- losing a player

[Bob Gollihur]

Our normally pleasurable Friday gig started badly last night.

 

We're setting up, and one of the Yamaha PA cabs is one click too high on the stand to fit snugly against the wall. I ask Tom, our excellent guitarist/vocalist/heart of the group and "Merlin" (young keyboard player from Macedonia sitting in) to steady the cab while I lower it one notch. As I lower it I suddenly get hit with the falling cab-- I'm bent over,it fortunately lands just south of my head, grazing it, and mostly on my shoulders. I leaned into it, I'm ok.

 

Tom isn't.

 

Grasping his hand, I'm not sure if he is screwing with our heads or actually hurt.

 

Choose "B". He drives himself to the ER. Tom showed up during the second set break with his arm/hand in a splint, hanging off his neck- bones broken in his hand, one in his wrist, he hyperextended it trying to rescue the cab.

 

The gig was ok, the guy from Macedonia just sitting in is quite good and pulls out some life-saver tunes for us.

 

Anyone else have stories of gigs minus a player? I can remember a couple others where guys got lost or otherwise showed up late.

[getz out]

Oh my, that stinks. Wishes for a speedy recovery to your mate are offered.

 

I've filled in twice for a band from DC when their flaky (yet extremely talented) bass player decided not to make the trip to NYC for a gig. It would have been more acceptable if he mentioned that to the rest of the band. The first time around, I had 30 minutes to learn an hour's worth of original material.

[moot]

We were booked into an Olde Irish Pub for St. Patties day and our drummer was almost 2 hours late. Said he ran out of gas somewhere. I think he was sleepin' one off.

 

There was an ancient man that resembled a large garden gnome who came up and gave us a hand. He sang and clued us in on the chord changes and I learned many Irish folk songs that night.

[rotosound45]

A guitarist and myself were installing a window unit air conditioner in our rehersal building. First we had to remove the vertical angle-iron bars covering it, which was held in place by one bolt on each end. Well, I removed my bolt first and the angle iron came swinging down like a pendelum, catching his pinky in between it and the window pane. It nearly severed the damn thing right off! Four stitches and three hours later, we made the gig on time. Thank God for his weak pinky-skills on the guitar and Loratabs .

[g.]

Few bands ago, a guitarist I've often joked about for more often than not wearing a flannel shirt to gigs because he'd just come out of the woods with a cord of firewood, cut into the 2nd and 3rd fingers on his fretting hand. Fortunately it wasn't too deep and it was at the first knuckle area and didn't get his main barre finger.

 

It cost him 2 gigs, but we had plenty of songs I could fill his space in and either me or the other guitarist could cover the vocals. The next 2 gigs a week later, he was superglued and taped up.

 

I wish I had a picture of this lumberjack look he cultivated. Complete with chainsaw oil on the cap brim and shavings and sawdust here and there.

[Raven]

Bummer Bob.... hope Tom recovers quickly.....

Back in Miami, I was in a 4-piece band, guitar, bass, drums and keys. The drummer and guitarist were brothers, both known for their bad tempers, huge physical size, (Guitarist-6'5", 290, Drummer-6'7, 320)and love for brawling. The night before we were to go into the studio to do our first album, they got into a fight with each other over a girl, both wound up in the hospital with broken bones and lacerations from crashing thru a sliding glass door and into the empty swimming pool at (of all places) their mother's house.

The album didn't get done and I decided to find a new band...(what a pair of toolbags....)

[moot]

Great story Raven.

 

don't judge them too harshly though - up until about 10 years ago my older brothers and I were still brawling every time we got together. We were just feeling the love!!

[jeremy c]

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to you band mate!

 

My missing bandmate story:

 

We were setting up for a gig (a wedding at a country club). It was getting closer and closer to 9 pm and our drummer (who had the PA system with him) was not there.

 

At five of 9, he called using his "one phone call.". Yes, he had been arrested. He had a faulty tail-light, was stopped on a DWB, and hauled in for unpaid parking tickets.

 

It was a five piece band. I called my wife and asked her to start going through my book and calling drummers.

 

The singer went to get another PA system from our studio. The keyboardist and the guitarist and I started playing, using the drum machine built into the keyboard. We plugged our mikes directly into our amps so we were able to get some vocals happening.

 

Amazingly enough, my wife scared up a drummer (whose last name started with O, that's how far she got into the book...she probably called 100 people.) He lived nearby and showed up wearing a tuxedo. The singer showed up with the PA and by the second set we were a full band again.

 

No one in the crowd noticed anything. At the end I started saying something to the bride about getting off to a rough start (I was going to lower our fee) but when I realized she didn't know what I was talking about, I changed the subject and accepted the check as written.

 

And then after the gig we went to the local jail to try to bail out our drummer, but they said we couldn't get him out until morning.

[Nicklab]

I actually wound up being the fill-in guy due to a player going down. I was hanging at a bar where a friend of mine was playing. He would split the night with this three piece classic rock band, and they would trade off sets. The bass player from the trio takes off, and suddenly nobody can find him. Finally, they get him on the phone. It seems he's come down with some kind of stomach flu. So what happens? I got drafted to play the rest of the gig, playing this guy's bass and working through half of the classic rock tunes I know. Who knew I'd actually go out to have a good time and wind up making money?!

[73 P Bass]

Unfortunately, once it was me. I got a stomach virus the morning of an afternoon gig. But it was a semi-acoustic trio (guitar, bass, percussion), so they went on without bass and background vocals.

It was better than me playing with a bucket.

[LizzyD]

I subbed for a bassist friend who injured his wrist while moving a piano, sprained I think. I had about a week to prepare though, and it was a somewhat "loose" acoustic coffee house gig with a number of guitar/vocal duets where the rhythm section sat out. The bassist was there and sat in on one song anyway, since he could sort of play but couldn't handle the 2 hour show.

 

And that's my boring contribution to the thread! Never had anyone not show at a gig without plenty of notice. Rehearsals, on the other hand....many times.

[Tom Capasso]

I don't have a good story for this - I haven't been on either side of the issue. Like Lizzy implied, there are lots of rehearsal stories in our experience.

 

Mine was a rehearsal that we got through, but just barely. We have a set of fraternal twins that were driving to the keyboardist's house. It was the first time we'd ever been there. Sure enough, as these two guys are driving one behind the other, the back guy looked aside to check the road and didn't see that his brother had stopped. Some damage to the front car, none to the back. Lots of emotional damage though. It's tough to have fun playing when the phrase "I hate my brother" keeps coming up....

 

Bob - my best wishes for Tom's recovery.

 

Tom

[abaguer]

Playing a cajun gig in Stanhope House in NJ. Horn section and rhythm section are there; leader and accordion player aren't. Hit time comes and goes. We get a call saying both of them were pulled over. Leader didn't have driver's license. Police pulled them out of car, made them unload all equipment; frisked them etc. They finally show up, leader goes into a rant about Jersey police before first song starts. We hit an hour late. We get asked back.

[RalphM]

This one should be titled "Is there a bass player in the house?".

 

Went to an open mic night a few years ago and saw this singer/guitarist get up and perform who just knocked me out. The way people were being rotated, I never got a chance to jam with this guy. The drummer they were using, it turns out, was his drummer. I mentioned how I would have loved to play with this dude and the drummer told me about a gig they were doing the next night and said he was sure if I came by I could sit in for a tune or two.

 

I showed up at their gig with my bass, ordered a drink and pulled up a chair. About halfway through their 1st set, there's this altercation on stage between the guitarist and his bassist. "F--- you!". "No, F--- you!" this went on for a minute or so and lo and behold, the bassist packs up and walks out.

 

The drummer says something to the guitarist, and he points to me and says "do you want to play bass for us?" I said yes and jumped at the chance. I finnished the gig for them.

Didn't get paid and over the course of the evening realized what a 'prick' the guiatrist was and why he had so much trouble keeping side men!

 

The cat could really play and the music we made was schweet but his 'personality' was another thing entirely!

[zachg]

Originally posted by Tom Capasso:

It's tough to have fun playing when the phrase "I hate my brother" keeps coming up....

 

Tom

sorry, it sounds so funny the way you put it

 

hope he gets better soon!

[g.]

A fatal head-on in a canyon - the only way up to a gig - blocked traffic for an hour and a half. It took a long time to clean up the car-nage. Everybody was late save for the one guitarist who would often show up two hours early because he didn't get along with his wife. I feel the patrons at the Deerlick Saloon were probably treated to one of his Distorted Barrechord Concerts before we all showed up to rescue them.

[jeremy c]

Once it was me.

 

The gig was pretty big-time, too.

 

A Jewish organization was giving Bill Graham one of those "Man of the Year" awards....the kind that goes to someone who has donated the most money to the organization that year. (Yes, Mr. Graham was a true mensch.)

 

They asked him who they should have as a band and he said, "You are a Jewish organization, you should have a Jewish band" and then he recommended a band that I was playing with. They also hired Jackson Browne.

 

We went to the hotel where there was super duper extra added security because the secretaries of state of both the U.S. and Japan were staying there. The soundcheck went fine. Bill came up to us and said hi. Jackson snubbed us.

 

Then I started getting feverish, having chills, throwing up, and gradually I became virtually incoherent. Hotel security actually threatened to drag me away because I was lying on the floor moaning and I couldn't get up.

 

My wife came and got me and brought a friend to get my car. I left all my gear on stage and the keyboard player covered the bass parts.

 

Someone else brought my stuff home and I missed the whole gig.

[zachg]

that sucks! - you didn't get to meet jackson browne!!!!

[...]

Originally posted by LizzyD:

I subbed for a bassist friend who injured his wrist while moving a piano, sprained I think. I had about a week to prepare though, and it was a somewhat "loose" acoustic coffee house gig with a number of guitar/vocal duets where the rhythm section sat out. The bassist was there and sat in on one song anyway, since he could sort of play but couldn't handle the 2 hour show.

 

And that's my boring contribution to the thread! Never had anyone not show at a gig without plenty of notice. Rehearsals, on the other hand....many times.

heh.. and you're now "the list" for when I need a sub for the 80's band.

 

I've never had a no-show for a gig I was doing, though I recently did a gig where: "You guys need to play long tonight, isn't making it tonight." "Why?" "Their drummer is in the hospital, he fell off a roof and broke his leg" I laughed and was reminded of Cotton falling into the window and breaking his wrist.

[moot]

In keeping with the spirit here of losing a player - I lost one of my GK heads Saturday. As we were setting up I decided to do my bass rig first for a change (rather than the PA) and when I switched on my head it went "Fzzzztt!".

 

After making roughly the same noise in my pants, I replaced the fuse and it immediately blew again. This time with a nice cooked capacitor smell. My spare head was (of course) 30 miles away so rather than freak anyone out I used one of the amps in the PA head.

 

Our Carvin has 3 seperate 330 watt amps. Left, Right and Monitor. I quietly used Right for mains, Left for monitors and the Monitor amp for me. After a little panning and tweaking I isolated the monitor amp and it sounded GREAT!

 

At the end of the night I told the guitar player jokingly "I am never bringing a head again!" and in typical guitar player fashion he was of the opinion that the vocals had suffered because of it. What a maroooon!

 

I am now shopping for a power amp.

[g.]

Also make sure you have no GROUNDING problems if connecting a head's or preamp's DI to a PA. Too great a difference in grounding potential expressed in volts and you will not only get bad noise added to the sound - you will burn components.

[rotosound45]

I once played with a great slide-guitarist who, incidentally was taking anti-alcohol pills (?). Props to him for trying to better himself, but one night it got the best of him.

 

Before a gig one Saturday night, (which was his favorite time for a shot or two) he tried to sneak one past his medication. If anyone knows anything about this medication {like the name, maybe?), you know alcohol makes you wish you were dead.

 

Needless to say, he didn't make it. The show didn't go on, either. He spent the night at the hospital, and took a week to re-evaluate his personal progress, only to blame temptation caused by being in the band. So sad.