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Have you ever forgotten a song at a gig?


Faber

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I did last saturday when I was playing with the cover band :(. I got through the intro and the first stanza, came to the chorus and t was just gone, never managed to find the way back in that song after that, it wasn't there, even as muscle memory. This is a song I've played 100-150 times at least. Freaked me the hell out as I've never had something like that happen to me before. And just to top it off I got so nervous I started he next song a half step sharp :facepalm:

 

Yeah, I had a splendid nght

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yup. twice, in over 15 years of playing live, i've completely forgotten wtf i was supposed to do. i remember both times very clearly. one was in front of almost 3,000 and i fortunately clicked and recalled it all after what was probably only 2 seconds but felt like 20 minutes ... the other was a crappy bar gig and i completely blew it to the point we just stopped even though i'd played the song a thousand times.

 

sometimes these things happen. don't sweat it.

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I once completely forgot the intro to an original song that started with just me playing. The singer introduced the song, and then turned to me, and I was in a panic. Luckily, I remembered that it started with an arpeggiated Am, so I just strummed an Am slowly, and it came back to me.

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Yes, and thank goodness it was a gig that was also the drummers birthday, so we weren't getting paid. Someone was passing out special brownies and a song we had practiced about 10 times that week was just gone...it didn't come back either. So the rest of the band played on and I stood there blushing and learing a new song in front of the crowd. No-one seemed to notice or care, but it was really strange to me that I had to relearn something that I had played just the day before and had no recollection of it at all.

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We were playing Love Song by the Cure one night. I was playing bass and at the very beginning of the song, I lost the groove. It just left me and the song fell apart. We had to stop after the first verse. It was a trainwreck. The whole band was trying to lead me, but I couldn't pull it together. I was sweating and had a death grip on the neck. Stupid fingers just wouldn't work.

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'Hotel California'. 2nd solo (Walsh). Though I've played that part hundreds of times, I totally forgot it halfway through... picked it up before the harmonized bit, though.

In fact, I lost it so completely that I had to go back to the recording to re-learn it :facepalm: The muscles knew the shapes, but I just couldn't find the right frets/ strings.

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Heh, good stories, and nice to hear I'm not the only one. Afterwards I'm not that worried about it - first time in almost 20 years of gigging I've had that happen. In the situation I was seriously out of it though.

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The first live performance I ever did - at a school charity night in front of several hundred people. We were only playing one song and I forgot the first line... cue an improvised keyboard solo while I scuttled to the back of the stage and asked the drummer what the words were!

This was a portent for every single gig I've played since. Something always goes wrong. And it's pretty much always my fault!

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I've got a pretty goo track record, actually.

 

Worst thing that ever happened was with an old band. We did covers occasionally, and decided to do Social Distortion's Don't Drag Me Down. Bass comes in before guitar and the bassist did it in the wrong key. I started on bass and had just switched to guitar, so I was still shaky about lead bits, and that song has lots of lead that I was too nervous to transpose. It just sounded like {censored}.

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Yup, happened once. We finished our set and the venue said we could do one more. I didn't want to because we always practice a set, and we hadn't played this particular song in a while. The song starts with me, I blanked, then thought I remembered it. Started it, and as the band came in I realized I was in the wrong key. Did. Not. Recover. :facepalm:

 

We don't add songs on the fly anymore

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You know it's bad when the rest of the guys all turn and look at you and you don't know why for a second.

 

 

Heh, yeah that's a moment I strive to avoid.

 

Usually I'm the asshole that's looking right at whoever {censored}ed up. Our bassist will mess up on purpose then he'll be looking right at me when I look up at him. Goofy look on his face.

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I had a problem with one of my old bands song. The chorus started on a Gmaj and sometimes I'd play a C2maj chord :lol:

 

It worked though. I was the only guitar player so the G in the bass worked and the melody worked over the C too. Which is probably why I kept doing it. I don't think anyone ever noticed.

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I had a problem with one of my old bands song. The chorus started on a Gmaj and sometimes I'd play a C2maj chord
:lol:

Then there's the whole "Remember the song, forget what key it's in" problem, which probably deserves its own thread. "What? Oh, that 'B'!"

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Sure I have. As a result I usually keep a cheat book sitting on the floor. In the band I front, which does my originals, the cheat book has lyrics. In the bands where I'm a side man and we're doing others' originals, the book contains the chord changes only. So far I haven't had a problem remembering the chord changes to my own songs, or my backing vocal parts in my side bands.

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