How to get over a bad gig?

J. Dan · October 8, 2019

In many cases, the band dynamic and overall band confidence and success dictate how to handle it in the moment. I mean Paul McCartney is pretty well established and if he screws up, it's not like people will stop listening. It's an anomaly that can be laughed off. If it's your first gig with a band and they aren't sure about you yet and you're trying to prove yourself, it's a whole different ball game.

Most folks on here say, as a band, if you screw up, don't draw attention to it. I was in a band that did the exact opposite. We were very successful and all good musicians, so there was no need to prove anything to anybody, including the crowd. Besides that, we played so frequently (mostly the same songs over and over) that we had to keep things lively and fun. So when somebody would mess something up, the rest of the band would look at them and give them the thumbs down and we'd all laugh. Most of the time the crowd probably didn't even know why, they just saw us up there ribbing each other and having fun. Sound guys knew us and saw us do that sort of stuff onstage all the time, one night we got amvery short little bleep of feedback and the whole band gave the sound guy the thumbs down. He laughed and all was good.

We actually sometimes TRIED to screw each other up....like a challenge. I'd be starting a song with a piano part, and the drummer would throw an empty water bottle just right to bounce it around in my keys. One time he landed it perfectly and I had to swat it off while playing, but didn't hit a wrong note....I won! We of course both chuckled. I would also do the same to him, trying to land empty water bottles on his snare. This all worked because despite the tomfoolery, we pulled off great shows.

I've also been on the other side of it where you feel like the slightest mistake will make everybody uncomfortable and possibly be your last. That sucks.

Kevin Sage · October 8, 2019

Best way to forget a bad gig is to focus on and play the next one. Move on and let it go.

Mr. Nightime · October 8, 2019

Trying to mess someone up can actually be fun sometimes.

I was playing in Nome Alaska. I was singing Loggins and Messina's "Your Mama Don't Dance". We were in the bridge, and the bass player would do the Line, "Outta the car, long hair".

This one time, instead, he said "Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat"

I totally lost it, laughing so hard i was crying. Took a few measures for me to get it together enough to finish the song.

El Lobo · October 8, 2019

Most folks on here say, as a band, if you screw up, don't draw attention to it. I was in a band that did the exact opposite. We were very successful and all good musicians, so there was no need to prove anything to anybody, including the crowd. Besides that, we played so frequently (mostly the same songs over and over) that we had to keep things lively and fun. So when somebody would mess something up, the rest of the band would look at them and give them the thumbs down and we'd all laugh. Most of the time the crowd probably didn't even know why, they just saw us up there ribbing each other and having fun. Sound guys knew us and saw us do that sort of stuff onstage all the time, one night we got amvery short little bleep of feedback and the whole band gave the sound guy the thumbs down. He laughed and all was good.

We actually sometimes TRIED to screw each other up....like a challenge. I'd be starting a song with a piano part, and the drummer would throw an empty water bottle just right to bounce it around in my keys. One time he landed it perfectly and I had to swat it off while playing, but didn't hit a wrong note....I won! We of course both chuckled. I would also do the same to him, trying to land empty water bottles on his snare. This all worked because despite the tomfoolery, we pulled off great shows.

This reminds me of a 4-nights-a-week gig my band had, a long time ago in a land far, far away. We did that stand for many months, but when you're doing a stand like that, you start to do things to crack each other up and keep yourself into entertaining yourself and the band ... and the audience in the bargain. We would make mistakes on purpose to try to get someone in the band to lose it. Some of the gags became part of the routines. One time we had the drummer start a drum solo, then we slowly took his kit apart and placed drums, cymbals, etc. all over the club. He had to keep drumming while he walked all over the club and reassembled his kit. When he finished, there was huge applause. (Also, he was a very good drummer.) Of course we kept that drum solo routine. People actually asked for it. The things you do when you're bored as a band and have to keep yourself interested.

MotiDave · October 9, 2019

Lol - Trying to make each other screw up is kinda fucked up. I"d be annoyed by shit like that, I"d definitely be plotting live stage revenge.

I don"t sweat an occasional slip - crowd almost never knows and usually not more than one in the band knows. I don"t make that many slips, i make a lot more sweet music so the balance of chi is firmly on the side of love.

What cracks me up is i know I"m not really that good because i know what really good is. I know I"m not as good as most of you. but people think i"m a fantastic phenomenal keyboardist. Most bands think i"m fabulous and i"m always asked to join new bands. I just got drafted into a No Doubt project, not sure i even want that. In general I just shrug, and say naw i just play rock. I don"t care i"m Not as good as you as i don"t have the time to become you. I"m having a blast and rocking out on weekends. Meanwhile my family enjoys a luxurious 6 figure lifestyle and tolerates my rock illusions lol.

Im sure OP is already over it, right? Just go play, have fun, don"t demand absolute perfection - just be good like you are and deliver a solid professional performance, and you"re fine.

CowboyNQ · October 9, 2019

I'd be starting a song with a piano part, and the drummer would throw an empty water bottle just right to bounce it around in my keys.

You're a much nicer guy than me Dan. I wonder how that drummer would go with his sticks shoved up his arsenal of equipment.

CaptainUnderpant · October 9, 2019

My voice coach paid me a compliment, that at first I thought was a back handed compliment and was reluctant to embrace.

She said "You have this great ability to smile even when you screw up". I was like "Thanks???".

Then I realized that this truly was a compliment. Make the audience feel comfortable no mater what. Because we are going to screw up.

fjzingo · October 9, 2019

Have a look at Phil Collins face when he makes a mistake at live aid, always a good laugh. Next gig......

Bosendorphen · October 9, 2019

This thread takes me back to a gig I played with my band at a local college in April 1979. I was a week away from turning 21 so not the most mature.

We had been playing Jeff Beck/Jan Hammer's "Blue Wind" and I didn't have a Minimoog but rather a MiniKorg! No pitch bend wheel on that so I'd manipulate the pitch slider and try to get it back to the center (no center detent).

Well, our next song was Kansas' "He Knew" and I hadn't gotten the pitch slider back quite far enough - probably about 50 cents off and my synth riff at the beginning sounded HORRIBLY out of tune. I quickly corrected but was mortified!!! Depressed for a week or so but the audience barely noticed. Ah, youth!

jones-y · October 9, 2019

Im sure OP is already over it, right? Just go play, have fun, don"t demand absolute perfection - just be good like you are and deliver a solid professional performance, and you"re fine.

Yeah, I'm pretty much over it. thanks in no small part to you all. So big thanks to everybody who contributed!

marino · October 9, 2019

I can't resist adding my bit. I could write a book, or two.... and if nothing else, it's therapeutic...

Here are a few episodes:

- Tokyo 1987. We played a long tenure in a huge club with a real, big stage. One day the stage manager decided to change the position of the stage monitors, without consulting anyone else. My (big) monitor was placed underneath the grand piano, shooting directly at me at a piercing volume. To make things worse, from my monitor I could *only* hear my keyboards, and nothing else. We played a song... and of course, the rest of the band had agreed on a different order of the various sections than the one we had reharsed, and they forgot to notify me of the change. So I was reading my chart and playing the whole song all the way thru, while the band was playing a different structure. I simply could not hear them. When I looked up toward the end, the singer was looking at me like she was about to have an heart attack. It was a total and irreparable train wreck.

- I screw up at a *classical* concert. 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 warming 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 embarrassed in front of a classical audience!

- I don't think I have ever related this before; it goes back to when I was very young - maybe '83 or '84. A jazz pianist friend called, saying, "I'm supposed to sub for another pianist tonight, but I have a problem. Could you go?" It was a club gig with a very well known female singer, with a voice-piano-bass lineup, so very exposed. No reharsals. I hesitated to say yes, but then I took the gig, hoping for some flexibility in the song list.

That day I had to reharse with a different band for an upcoming tour, then I drove for two hours to get to the club: I was quite tired. When I got there, the singer still had to arrive. The bass player gave me the sheet music from the regular pianist, and it was very clear to me that the pianist wrote it as a sketch for himself, as it was a mess. And as it happened, I didn't know any one of the songs. None of the sheets had the melody, just the changes. There were scribbled intros, transitions and endings, quite hard to read. The bassist explained some stuctural things to me, like here we repeat the bridge, here you take a solo then you play this interlude, etc. I was hardly receptive!

Ok, one of the songs I did know: It was Coltrane's "Giant Steps"... transposed a tritone apart! And no written melody on that, too!

The singer arrived an hour late, just in time to check the sound for 5 minutes. With no time to even run through the songs, asking for changes in the list was pointless. So I tried to remember the bassist's indications, and just played it. She clearly expected to hear the arrangements she was used to...

But I screwed up not once, not twice, but three times. First time I played the wrong structure, and then I got lost trying to get back in; then I missed a written part entirely; and then I did something else, can't remember.

In hindsight, it's easy to say that given the situation, it wasn't entirely my fault; but in the drama of the moment, I felt awful. Awful. I tried to refuse my money (they laughed at me), and while driving back home, I was thinking about quitting music. "I'm not good enough"! Some strange psychological mechanism had overturned all the blame on me. I was crushed. I had screwed up in front of an audience, playing with a very respected singer, and of course they didn't know the premises... they only heard my mistakes!

Of course, it was nothing. It was a small club in some remote place, and the audience was composed of just a few occasional customers. But for the first time, I had had a very clear picture of my limits, and it was hard to accept it. It took me *weeks* to recover, and retrieve some self-esteem. Can you believe that?!

I went on with music (of course...) and tried to be ready for everything.... some of my musician friends started calling me "Mission Impossible".

Oh, and that "Giant Steps" in F went rather well, btw.

Sospiri · October 10, 2019

I was keyboard player in a quartet, resident in a large British hotel way back in the 1960s, and periodically, including Christmas, they would bring in cabaret acts - singers, comedians, etc - who would rarely bring their own accompanist and even more rarely arrive early in the afternoon to allow a run through. Lita Roza ("How much is that doggie in the window?" and ex-Ted Heath singer) arrived about 7:30pm, just as we were about to start playing for dancing, and headed for the bar complete with her tiny dog and a bulky minder.

She was due to go at at 11.00pm. Also staying amongst the guests were a couple of pranksters, who'd been banned in the past, but obviously the ban had been lifted - they had money! At about 10:15pm we were advised by the management that she had been drinking steadily and they wanted her to go on early at 10.30pm, while she could still stand. In due course the bandleader announced her and we played her opening introduction. She manged to get to the bandstand, but opted to perform from the ballroom floor and was handed a microphone and she started to sing. My eyes were focussed on her rather scrawly dots.

Meanwhile, the pranksters, who had been sitting on the edge of the ballroom floor right opposite her, got down on their hands and knees and started to crawl slowly across the ballroom flor towards her. These guys and their pranks were well known to regular members of the audience and they didn't know whether to laugh or keep straight faces. The management went into panic mode as they could hardly walk across the floor and create a fracas in the middle of her first song. So the pranksters were left to see what would happen next. They continued to crawl towards her, and both audience and my fellow band members were sniggering. They got right up to her and were looking into her face, but she seemed completely oblivious to it all. Everyone was glad when she reached the end of her first number, audience members could applaud, and all could laugh out loud. At that point the pranksters "surrendered" and managment whicked them away, never to be seen again. Apart from a few duff notes, Lita managed to complete her performance and no doubt was taken swiftly back to her abode. Perhaps you should never arrive early for a gig where there's a bar!

Al Quinn · October 10, 2019

I think my worst experience was playing my first wedding gig. It was around 1980. The bandleader was desperate for a keyboard player and misrepresented the gig to me. I told him I would not have his repertoire memorized on such short notice but if I could read the music I"d be fine. He said sure I could read the music. It was just me, a drummer, and the bandleader who sang and played sax. The gig starts and it"s an endless medley of songs, often just one chorus of each, with no set list. Both of my hands were busy so it was not possible to get the music out for each song. I ended up playing mostly by ear but that only worked for the songs I was familiar with and even then it was hit or miss. I wanted to run! Then a keyboard player, who finished up his wedding gig in another room, stopped by. He saw that I was distraught and not up to the task, so he asked if I wanted him to play a few tunes. Well he was a great player and played the rest of the gig. I offered to give him my pay but he wouldn"t take it. We"ve been friends ever since and talked about this brutal experience just a few months ago for the first time in decades. Truth is the only way to play the gig was to have the repertoire memorized. As it turned out I memorized the repertoire and played with this bandleader for a couple of years.

SteveO42 · October 10, 2019

I think my worst experience was playing my first wedding gig. It was around 1980. The bandleader was desperate for a keyboard player and misrepresented the gig to me. I told him I would not have his repertoire memorized on such short notice but if I could read the music I"d be fine. He said sure I could read the music. It was just me, a drummer, and the bandleader who sang and played sax. The gig starts and it"s an endless medley of songs, often just one chorus of each, with no set list. Both of my hands were busy so it was not possible to get the music out for each song. I ended up playing mostly by ear but that only worked for the songs I was familiar with and even then it was hit or miss. I wanted to run! Then a keyboard player, who finished up his wedding gig in another room, stopped by. He saw that I was distraught and not up to the task, so he asked if I wanted him to play a few tunes. Well he was a great player and played the rest of the gig. I offered to give him my pay but he wouldn"t take it. We"ve been friends ever since and talked about this brutal experience just a few months ago for the first time in decades. Truth is the only way to play the gig was to have the repertoire memorized. As it turned out I memorized the repertoire and played with this bandleader for a couple of years.

Back the 70's, 80's.90's we used to call that "A Screamer"... That's where the agent misrepresents a band for whatever reason. So at the showcase the bride contracts one band but at the event the members are not all the same for whatever reason, illness, lack of people etc... I used to do screamers as a hired gun all the time.. As for the OP, I agree with the others, get back on the horse and play another gig... Worst for me was when I was playing in a Melissa Etheridge, Meatloaf, etc cover band and I had the piano intro to "I Would Do Anything for Love" sequenced into my keyboard so I could also do FX pads at the same time... yea, I'm lazy... So I somehow hit the transpose button and started the tune 1/2 step too high... It really sucked when the guitar players came in... Everybody looking at each other like WTF? Of course it had to be the guitars who tuned up or had capo wrong etc... Was 1/2 way through the tune before I figured out what was wrong... And it was our opening tune!! Needless to say we never got asked back! Hahha...

LimeLyrics18 · April 8, 2023

I really appreciated reading this post after my big flop on stage last night. 2nd time up there after 18 years of silence and I just bulldozed this poor guitarists first gig in the area by starting in the wrong key and the forgetting the lyrics. Twice. So horribly embarrassing for him and me. Will likely not be able to show my face for awhile. Perhaps in another another 18 years. 😬

drawback · April 9, 2023

9 hours ago, LimeLyrics18 said:

I really appreciated reading this post after my big flop on stage last night. 2nd time up there after 18 years of silence and I just bulldozed this poor guitarists first gig in the area by starting in the wrong key and the forgetting the lyrics. Twice. So horribly embarrassing for him and me. Will likely not be able to show my face for awhile. Perhaps in another another 18 years. 😬

As a great friend and bass player once said to me, "Relax man, it's only music!"

Welcome to KC.

stoken6 · April 9, 2023

I always tell my fellow musos, students, children etc. "if you haven't messed up, you're not a proper musician".

Cheers, Mike.

MathOfInsects · April 9, 2023

I have yet, while sitting around a table with musicians, to hear a great story about how everything went perfect on a gig.

I've heard hundreds of great stories of disasters, though, almost always at the expense of the story-teller. Messing up just means you're playing enough gigs to get to the ones where you mess up.

As I always say to students, I have never once read an obituary where the cause of death was playing the wrong notes in a song. It's part of the job. How you get past it is the only real measure of our professionalism, not the thing itself.

TommyRude · April 9, 2023

some good bad gig stories here

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/aug/04/musicians-worst-gigs

EricBarker · April 9, 2023

I had a bad gig the other night. No one in the audience would probably tell you that though. It was just bookended by stress. I was running sound, which I don’t do often enough for it to click, always gotta reacquaint myself with the signal flow. Everything was feeding back during soundcheck, couldn’t trace it. Downbeat was quickly approaching. Suddenly it just worked, but by then my blood pressure was about to burst a vessel. Calmed down and played well.

Then during the breakdown, our newish drummer and fiddle player started bickering over the pay. Drummer is right, venue (dance organization) pays McDonalds wages, and really should figure out how to pay better. Fiddle player is like “we do this for fun”. I largely stayed out of it, but I’m with the drummer, I feel like I’m getting used.

I’ve played contradances for over 15 years, toured nationally, but I always come back to the same crap of spending almost 6 hours hauling gear, figuring crap out, finally playing, and then hauling out for table scraps. I was never passionate about Irish music the way my mates are.

I think I’m done after this season. Drummer probably too. Just too much work for not much takeaway. I don’t care if people think we’re the best contradance band in the state. Praise don’t pay the rent!

CEB · April 9, 2023

The man who doesn’t make mistakes is a man who doesn’t do a hell of a lot.

D. Gauss · April 9, 2023

Clearly, the OP has never seen the Rolling Stones nor the Replacements, Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin. "So many clams i feel like i'm at the beach" -Buddy Rich

TommyRude · April 10, 2023

6 hours ago, CEB said:

The man who doesn’t make mistakes is a man who doesn’t do a hell of a lot.

I think you nailed it CEB! Don't do anything and you won't make any mistakes! BRILLIANT!

marino · April 10, 2023

I had missed the original thread, and now reading everyone's stories triggered memories of at least five or six episodes where I screwed up so badly that the only thing was to sink into the ground and never resurface. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell about them. I'll only say that the majority of them happened at the beginning of my musical life, making me think that maybe, the best thing to do was to give up music.

Of course I didn't, and of course these events taught me a lot about what it means to be on stage, or in a recording studio, and the kind of attitude and focus that you need to have. In other words, screwing up makes you a better musician...

Jose EB5AGV · April 10, 2023

Although not a personal experience, I was this morning watching a taped live event (it was a couple days old) of a local venue which hosts regularly some 80-90s pop/rock groups which I enjoy and use as learning tools for my playing. In this one, the keyboardist has lost the sustain pedal function just few minutes onto a two and a half hours concert...

At the beginning of his nightmare, he has tried to get it working while the band continued performing and he has also tried to play his part. This has lasted about ten minutes. Then, he has gone out of the scene for about 5 minutes. The band has covered him by having some talking with the audience. But as time passed they have continued with another song... In the middle of it, the keys player has returned, but without the pedal, and has continued all the time without it. He was clearly upset by the problem, but has managed to keep going. Kudos to him.

I guess he will learn from this to take an spare pedal next time, and will of course recover from the bad experience.

I have been suffering quite a lot all along, even knowing it was a taped event! 😥

Jose

pjd · April 10, 2023

4 hours ago, EB5AGV said:

I guess he will learn from this to take an spare pedal next time, and will of course recover from the bad experience.

Wish I had taken some spare talent to yesterday's gig. 🙃 Keep on rockin' -- pj

Stokely · April 10, 2023

The only "bad gigs" I've had in recent years were due to bad attitudes, not bad playing. We all make mistakes and sometimes gear malfunctions or life issues cause our playing to suffer. I'm not really a pro but I do try to act like one and power through.

But when you show up and your asshole bass player who owns the PA makes your life hell because *he* is getting stressed over some malfunction, that can stick with you. Thankfully our bandleader finally kicked his ass out. I got to where I dreaded gigs because you never knew when Sergeant Stress was going to be running the show. I was very close to quitting over his guff (some might say abuse), our drummer at the time *did* quit, and the bandleader finally realized it was time. He brought a lot to the table but man when the mood was wrong, it was hell...

Chummy · April 10, 2023

Always come prepared, triple check everything. That means your grasp of the keyboard parts / what to play when not only the technical set-up of sounds and programming.

Of course, mistakes can happen no matter what even if you did your 100% which is to be expected. I always tell my students a musician should strive for perfection (in one's mindset) but realize perfection can't really be achieved therefore the result being "very good but not perfect" is still great.

I echo some of the advice given before me - play as many gigs as you're able to get and grind practice at home. Your 1 bad gig as you said yourself is the expection that does NOT prove the rule. Keep playing man, talk about your feelings with your bandmates. Communication is key. Also, even for paid gigs - FUN is #1 importance.

murphybridget · December 19, 2023

On 4/10/2023 at 6:42 AM, EricBarker said:

I had a bad gig the other night. No one in the audience would probably tell you that though. It was just bookended by stress. I was running sound, which I don’t do often enough for it to click, always gotta reacquaint myself with the signal flow. Everything was feeding back during soundcheck, couldn’t trace it. Downbeat was quickly approaching. Suddenly it just worked, but by then my blood pressure was about to burst a vessel. Calmed down and played well.

Then during the breakdown, our newish drummer and fiddle player started bickering over the pay. Drummer is right, venue (dance organization) pays McDonalds wages, and really should figure out how to pay better. Fiddle player is like “we do this for fun”. I largely stayed out of it, but I’m with the drummer, I feel like I’m getting used.

I’ve played contradances for over 15 years, toured nationally, but I always come back to the same crap of spending almost 6 hours hauling gear, figuring crap out, finally playing, and then hauling out for table scraps. I was never passionate about Irish music the way my mates are.

I think I’m done after this season. Drummer probably too. Just too much work for not much takeaway. I don’t care if people think we’re the best contradance band in the state. Praise don’t pay the rent!

I'm sorry to hear about the challenges you faced at the recent gig. Soundcheck stress and internal band issues can definitely take away from the joy of playing music. It sounds like you've dedicated a significant part of your life to contradances, and the frustrations with pay and effort are understandable. Your perspective about the value of your time and effort is valid.