Your most embarrassing gig story!

[tucktronix]

Originally posted by wheresgrant3 This actually is indirectly gig related... A few years ago we were setting up at a local bar when the Mighty Taco burritos I ate for dinner was having a fistfight with the Reuben sandwich I ate for breakfest (don't ask) somehwere near my lower intestinal line. I'm sure you've had those moments... Cramping and bouts of gas, were replaced with more cramping, loud gastric noises and lots of butt clenching. My face became very pale and flushed. I needed to unload and fast. The problem was this bar was very small and the bathroom was unisex. I'm sure whatever I would leave would have the same effect afterward on the crowd no matter how many times I sprayed air freshener. I needed to find someplace quiet and secluded. I did a quick mental inventory and remembered that there was a Marriott Courtyard about 5 miles outside of town. Perfect, I LOVE hotel lobby bathrooms. They are always clean and always empty. So I waddle to my car, and drive the 8 minutes out to the hotel. When I arrive, I do as I always do when I use hotel bathrooms (believe me I use them alot), walk briskfully and cheerfully through the lobby and smile at the desk clerk, like I am staying there. This time there was a problem... I knew the desk girl! In fact, not only did I know her.... but she followed the band!!! She was also frigging hot! her name was Kristen. I tried to walk past without being seen. As soon as I walked in she looked up. She was like "Hey, .... what are you doing here. Don't you have a gig tonight?" I immediately changed the subject. "I didn't know that you worked here. When did you start working here?" So she explained her job and how long she had been there. We made small talk for a bit. Meanwhile a rotten taco was trying to punch a hole out of my ass. Then there was an awkward silence... and I answered her question "Yeah, um, I have a gig at XXXX bar. I just stopped by to, um, see a friend who is staying here from out of town. Do you know where room 120 is?" She looked at me funny and said " We don't have a room 120... are you sure it's 120? What's their last name." I blurted "Coleman.!!!!"... That was my roomates last name... "but it might be under his girlfriend's. Um, he said it was two doors down from the bathroom". "111?" I nodded, "That's right there down to the left." I thanked her and headed straight for the bathroom. As soon as my pants hit the floor even before my ass hit the seat an avalanche of semi digested food poured out. It was never ending. I was in heaven. After I had eliminated every last item from my colon, I cleaned up, washed my face and headed back toward the front desk. There she was, still standing at the desk, training a co-worker. "So hey, um, since you are working tonight, maybe I'll see you at next week's show?" "Yeah, maybe. Did you find your friends?" I told her... "nope, they must already be at the bar. " I said goodbye and left. Mission accomplished Flash forward three years to last Saturday night. She has a boyfriend now and lives in another state. She's was visiting her parents and she made it out to see our show. She's talking with our drummer... and I pass by. I'm like "Hey... what's up! Where have you been?" She explains her new life story, and I bring up to our drummer... "You know a few years back I stopped at the Marriott before a gig and guess who was working behind the desk" And she finished... "Oh, my God! I remember that.... you came in, said you were looking for friends, took a big dump in our bathroom! and then left" That was the end of the conversation. There wasn't anything left to say at that point.

 

LMAO:D

 

Damn, Grant! Talk about embarrasking:D

[tucktronix]

Well this is probably more of a scary experience than embarassing...

 

I was playing a gig with my blues band in this small club. It was the 2nd set. I was getting heavily into my solo in one tune when, out of nowhere, my right forearm started cramping up and the fingers of my right hand went into my palm. I stopped right in the middle of my solo and began to clench my right arm. The club owner was terrified, asking "Are you okay?!" Luckily, my wife(who happens to a state-certified EMT) was right next to me, as she applied an ice pack, alternating with a heat pad. The band kept playing through all of this. I had decided not to play on the next tune to allow the heat pack to work on my arm. During the part of my solo, I reached for the keyboard and played the solo. The audience went nuts.

[CrashStitches]

Got a pair.

 

1. I was playing in this crusty punk/metal band, and we did a Texas tour. We played in Corpus Christi, and when we got to the venue, we noticed that nobody was there. Well, I guess the band that set the show up wound up cancelling it w/o telling us, and the bartender was pissed as hell. He said we could p[lay anyways, and tried to get some friends down there to watch us, and even gave us free beer. Well, the bartender eventually got a few buddies and some chicks down there to watch us, but our singer got in a fit of depression at the last minute and decided not to do the show. So we told him to {censored} off and played w/o him. It was so awkward and embarrassing.

 

2. Actually happened a couple days ago. We played one of those lame local "Battle of the Bands!" things, and we were in the 2nd round. Well, I reminded our 2nd guitarist to bring the extra guitar and restring his guitar, but he managed to forget to do both of them. Well, as luck would have it, during the first song, our drummer punched a hole in his snare head. During the 2nd song, sure enough, our guitarist breaks a string. Well, one of the dudes from another band lets us use his. That was cool, but the guy tunes way down, and we tune in E standard. So Craig tunes the guitar up, and we attrempt to finish our set. Halfway through the next song...SNAP!...there goes the guy's D string. We just apologized for wastin their time and got off the stage. Funny enough, we still got a pretty good score, and almost advanced despite the equipment failures. Everything just decided to hit us at once. Oh well, the next night we played a huge metal show and destroyed, so it was all good.

[pink floyd cramer]

Several years ago, my younger, rowdier, less-sensitive self was playing at a packed roadhouse honkytonk when on the last set, the bass player ran off the stage and started jamming in front of a girl he was trying to impress. They had just announced last call and I bent down and told the drummer that Mark (the bass player) must have thought it they meant last call for (crude word for female anatomy, begins with "P"). Unfortunately, I had forgotten about the mic on his snare, which picked it up. (Crude word for female anatomy, begins with "P") blasted through the PA, the crowd, and reverberated against the back wall of the club like someone yelling into a canyon in a Warner Bro's cartoon. I was somewhat embarassed but the drummer thought it was pretty funny. Strangely enough, I was not able to get a date that night.

[Hollow body]

I can't use any names here, but a few years ago we were hired, much against my better judgement, to play a wedding for for the sister of a bigass hiphop star whose father I knew through work. The wedding needed to be in my little town, for reasons that I won't go into, instead of New York, where everyone was from. Now, we're a decent cover band, sort of a local legend (together 20+ years), but we're nothing special, and definitely not hip.

 

So. We're doing our little dog and pony show for the New York white rapper set, and their very sophistocated parents -- we're playing for Manhattan socialites who are up country for a campy little outing.

 

You can imagine the indignity we suffered before we were mercifully let go two hours early. Maybe the worst part was that as we were breaking down, our drummer (who's a little, um, oblivious), starts thanking the crowd and wishing the marrieds well in his DJ voice. Oh Lord, get me out of here NOW.

 

Good part was we made $1600 cash.

[Hollow body]

Ha. You think of one, the floodgates open.

 

We were playing a welcome home party for a guy who'd been serving time for some white collar crime. Given that it was a party, it never occurred to us that the guy had been traumatized in prison, and that everyone was very sensitive about it. So of course we start the night with Jailhouse Rock.

 

Hoo boy....

[Lee Knight]

Doing a Pete Townsend jump off of the high drum riser down to the stage... the portable stage with folding legs... that weren't in the locked position.

 

The whole stage folds up. Down comes my huge bass stack, the guitar players rig, and most of the drumset. We still finish the song on our backs while the drummer's pounding on what's left of his kit.

 

The crowd gave a huge round of applause. The other 2 guys in our trio weren't so into it as the crowd, however. John looked over at me from his "on ass position", shakes his head at me and with his eyes says wordlessly, WTF rockstar, knock off Pete moves and play the bass!"

 

Opps.

[DonaldDemon]

My band was playing this mock Battle of the Bands set up at my college by MTV for the show "Made." This band Sly Caps wanted to be rock stars or some {censored}. Anyway, I figured we should rock the {censored} out of it since MTV hounds will see this so we practiced our asses of for our 15 minutes of fame.

Well right as the announcer was saying our name and introducing us he swung his arm out and knocked all 3 bottom strings way out of tune as my bass playerkicked off the song. I knew he hit my guitar but didn't know he hit the tuners so I began to play the most horrible out of tune junk riff I have ever heard. I had to play the whole song that way and never got the chance to tune it right when it ended because everything was timed. I think all 1,000+ people looked at us like we were the worst {censored} they have ever seen. Needless to say, they didn't air that part onthe show. That's basically how my luck goes though

[Badside]

Originally posted by Hollow body We were playing a welcome home party for a guy who'd been serving time for some white collar crime. Given that it was a party, it never occurred to us that the guy had been traumatized in prison, and that everyone was very sensitive about it. So of course we start the night with Jailhouse Rock.

 

Hahaha, idiot!

Do you play "Love Stinks" during wedding gigs too?

 

I remember one, not as funny, but very embarrassing. We wanted to add Video Killed... to our set list for a gig the same week. The singer wasn't able to learn the words in time. So since I already knew them, it was decided I would sing this song (I usually do back vocals only, and scarcely, I'm not exactly a singer). Every went good at rehearsal.

 

So the song starts and everything's good, then halfway through it, my voice just locks! It's like no matter what I do I can't go any further that a note that is not even in the same scale. I guess this is like getting in a crash a few meters from the finish line in a car race. I sounded like pure {censored} in front of a packed house (a big one at that). After realizing it wouldn't work I simply stopped singing, which didn't improve matters.

 

We now play it in C instead of D and I haven't had a problem singing it ever since

[Cap]

My band was playing at an outdoor dance in a park and all was going well until about 1/2 way thru the last set when I just couldn't play anymore.

The rest of the band played the last half of the set while I sat it out

I was so wasted that I couldn't even help tear down and load.

The bass player asked me why I drank so much and I told him I only had 2 drinks

He didn't belive me so I showed him the pint of whiskey that he picked up for me before the show only about 1/2 empty

 

The way the Park was set up to get to the rest rooms from the basketball court (dance floor and stage) People had to walk right past my guitar amp with my drink sitting on top

I dont know what was put in there but I never made that mistake again.

Not to say I've never been wasted on stage since but at least I knew why

[Hollow body]

Originally posted by Hardtailed

 

Hahaha, idiot!

Do you play "Love Stinks" during wedding gigs too?

 

Haha. Not quite, though I found myself singing Springsteen's "The River" with a bride dancing in front of me:

 

I got Mary pregnant and man that was all she wrote

For my 19th birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat

We went down to the courthouse, etc etc.

[MrKnobs]

We used to use flash pots in our set. Home made flash pots, initially.

 

For some reason I thought it might be cool to rig the flash pots to launch me into the air a little, if possible. Of course I worked this out carefully at home first, rehearsed it many times.

 

Basically, I put a short length of 2x4 on top of two black powder cannons, then gradually increased the load until I had a nice compromise between nothing happening and barrel bursting/ankle breaking/shrapnel disaster.

 

With a little work, I got the cannons to give me a nice boost that lifted me a modest three feet into the air with a little help from my legs. Most importantly, I videotaped it and it looked cool. I decided to set it up on the drum riser to get a little extra height as I landed on the stage below.

 

First gig I tried it, one of the two cannons failed to fire and the other went off. I have no idea what it looked like to the audience since fortunately no one videotaped it, but to me the experience was suddenly being grabbed by the leg and spun around violently while the room was just a blur. I came down hard on my shoulders and head, and my guitar clocked me pretty good a split second later as it landed on me.

 

The roadies were holding up fingers for me to count and asking if I knew what my name was, but I didn't reply because I didn't want anyone to know who I was after that stupid stunt. Fortunately, the only thing seriously hurt was my pride.

 

Terry D.

[Lee Knight]

 

Originally posted by MrKnobs We used to use flash pots in our set. Home made flash pots, initially. Basically, I put a short length of 2x4 on top of two black powder cannons, then gradually increased the load until I had a nice compromise between nothing happening and barrel bursting/ankle breaking/shrapnel disaster. The roadies were holding up fingers for me to count and asking if I knew what my name was, but I didn't reply because I didn't want anyone to know who I was after that stupid stunt. Fortunately, the only thing seriously hurt was my pride. Terry D.

 

 

Oh man! It's a fine line between, "Dude! That's awesome" and Spinal Tap. Excellent story.

[sith32]

In my first band we played a headlining gig at a local college / biker bar. This was the first (and last) time we were asked to headline there.

 

We were stoked because we had only been playing together for about 6 months at the time. We busted our butts promoting and managed to get a decent turn out.

 

Long story short, our very drunk singer tried to jump over a stage railing onto the the dance floor, got his foot caught, and fell face first about 5 feet on the floor. This was during the first song of our first set. We actually managed to pull things somewhat together for a while, singer laughed the incident off. Things were OK until the other guitar player decided he had enough of the drunken singer. He proceeded to unplug his guitar and sit down on his side of the stage leaving me (the other guitar player) high and dry in the middle of tune he had a solo on.

 

Needless to say that band broke up a couple weeks later.....

[Jazzguru]

Great topic

 

I have three.

 

Both are way back in the 60's - playing in a rock band in the finals of the Indiana State Fair Battle of the Bands competition.

The group ahead of us was way better than we were - they sang perfect Hollies and BeachBoy harmonies over Bus Stop and Surfer Girl and Help Me Rhonda.

We knew our only chance was to out do them on showmanship so when the guitar solo part came up i ran towards the fount of the stage - however my guitar chord was not that long. It jerked me back - the chord came out - i landed on my back and slid off the stage into the audience as my Vox Super Beatle my fell over and burst into flames. The Who had nothing on us that night - and this was before they were destroying equipment.

We didn't win needless to say.

 

Second was opening for Vanilla Fudge and being booed off the stage as we were playing Kinks, Zombies and other such tunes.

 

The third one being hired to fill in for a band passing thru town - the band was Sly and the Family Stones before they hit the big time. I was so totally outclassed.

[tremendo]

 

Originally posted by MrKnobs For some reason I thought it might be cool to rig the flash pots to launch me into the air a little, if possible. Of course I worked this out carefully at home first, rehearsed it many times. First gig I tried it, one of the two cannons failed to fire and the other went off. I have no idea what it looked like to the audience since fortunately no one videotaped it, but to me the experience was suddenly being grabbed by the leg and spun around violently while the room was just a blur. I came down hard on my shoulders and head, and my guitar clocked me pretty good a split second later as it landed on me.

 

 

LOL! I've got a visual on that! That's one of the best stories I've heard.