Gigs from Hell Stories...

[Scott Abene]

What is your most awful gig story?

 

Worst Owners?

 

Worst Crowd??

 

Worst Promoter?

 

 

 

 

So then...

 

I am copping this post idea from another site...

 

Here is my personal hell story

 

 

The most memorable show that I can think of is when I was playing at CBGBs on a Friday night in the late 1980's and the owners dog jumped up on stage and took a massive stinky {censored} whilst we were playing to a packed house...

 

mmm mmmm mmmm

[BrokenFighter]

Every Sunday when our worship leader forgets where the song goes from the second chorus and on.

[Alecto]

My gig from hell? Playing a bar where the term "red light lounge" wasn't just a metaphor. Oh yeah, and the owner was several thousand dollars in debt to the Hells Angels and that night they decided to collect.

We laugh about it now, but we were {censored}ting ourselves that night.

[guitarheo3]

only 2 people showed up to the show. and that was my mom and my dad

[aenemated]

worst in most recent memory was a tattoo convention we played back in like february.

 

they booked us (alt-country/cowpunk/whatever) and a really good rockabilly band. sounds like a good fit for a tattoo convention, yeah?

 

wrong.

 

see, the problem was ... said convention was in pomona. i get tattooed in pomona. i KNOW the tattoo culture there. it's not babes with bettie page bangs and poodle skirts or dudes with pomps and hot rods.

 

it's straight up mexo thugs with face tattoos. walking through the convention before we went on; all i heard was like eazy-e and tupac blasting from the booths. i didn't see a single person that might even remotely be interested in the music we'd be playing.

 

the rockabilly band opened for us and i'm pretty sure the only people watching them was ... my band. despite there EASILY being over 1,000 people there. no one cared. seriously. NO ONE.

 

sure enough, we played to a couple friends that showed up. as soon as we were done, they announced the winner of the day's best tattoo and yeah - it was 50 deep to the stage. it was the only reason anyone was even still there.

 

that gig was {censored}in terrible. stupid ass promoter. and i shoulda known better.

[golias]

Here is my personal hell story The most memorable show that I can think of is when I was playing at CBGBs on a Friday night in the late 1980's...

Stop right there.

You got booked for a Friday night gig at CBGBs in the late 80s, and you're complaining???


I don't care if the dog {censored} IN YOUR MOUTH in the middle of that gig. I'd murder a blood relative for a chance to play a booking like that. There are millions of pretty skilled musicians all over America who would love to have had that chance. If that's your idea of a "hell story", then you've never had any real problems in your life.

[Jeff1979]

Getting so pissed i could only just about stand let alone play my way through our set, our biggest gig to date back then in front of about 150-200 people, our singer threatend to knock me out right there on stage after the second song, didnt help that he was a hard bastard either...

Happy days...

I learnt a good lesson that night

[*BLEEP*]

Playing at a bar years ago that had a {censored}ing cheap owner. They had intermittent power problems with their power centre every 10 to 20 minutes. The stage's power breakers were apparently weak from years of overloading. They had a person standing by to reset the breaker as soon as it tripped.

[Surrealistic]

My worst was my first ever paid gig.

Firstly a bit of background:

a) We were basically a bunch of schoolkids who had no business being in front of any kind of crowd with the limited ability we'd acquired up to that point.

b) We played almost entirely our own material which was a kind of proto-punk mixed with "avant-garde soundscapes" (as we liked to call the horrendous racket we made).

Through one of band's family members we'd signed up with an agent - a well known one who worked with the likes of Deep Purple - and he got us our first paying gig at a Working Men's Club. For the uninitiated, the sorts of bands that typically played these places tended to play songs that Gran could sing along with in between rounds of Bingo. In other words it was definitely no CBGBs

We were set up to fail anyway but to make matters worse our drummer couldn't make it (he was ill I think but it was a long time ago and I'm not sure) so we asked a friend to sit in. He'd never practiced with us so didn't know any of the material and despite his assurance that he could play drums, he confessed later that he had only once in his life sat behind a drumkit.

I won't go into details - I'll save those for my autobiography - but the audience and our band were a match made in hell.

Suffice to say that the looks on the faces of the crowd were almost worth the humiliation of being asked at our break to take half the money we'd been promised and told to "please go now".

[Faber]

My covers band played a christmas function and a heavy industry company a couple of years ago. Lots of smiths, truckers etc. There was one room for music and dancing and another with bar and food. We never saw but a couple of the secretaries in the room we played in. All the labour guys wanted was to talk and drink, so why they booked us is beyond me.

We did a fair bit of jamming though and that was kinda fun

[Ultrastick]

Our bandleader got us a gig way back in the woods. Not only did we have to drive a long ways on paved roads, the dirt driveway was about 3 miles long. I was wondering what kind of a dance place could be way back here.

After a while we drive into a clearing. Sure enough, there's a great big building where we'll play.

While we're looking around out of our car windows this big burly guy comes walking up. He's packing what looks like a .357 on one hip and a can of mace on the other. He says, "Guys, you don't have to worry tonight, I've hired two extra policemen."

My wife was with me and I was about ready to head back down the driveway. We checked inside. Sure enough, chicken wire in front of the stage. We vote and decide to stay and play. I keep wondering who the heck is going to show up for this thing, as it's so far out.

After a while people start showing up and soon it's jam packed. I keep having this odd feeling that I'm in the middle of a Stephen King novel.

Fortunately, for some reason, a number of folks brought kids that night, and I believe that held the rowdiness down. It was scary as heck to start with, but turned out fine. The crowd disappeared back into the woods and we left.

[wagdog]

Bad Power?

 

Check. (check, check, check, check, check...)

 

Wrong crowd?

 

Check.

 

Empty venue?

 

Check.

 

Chicken Wire????

 

Not yet! LOL

[jshaffer20]

Had an outside gig at a local church a few years ago. the "stage" was under a pavilion that was about 15' wide by 40' long and of course the crowd was sitting at the end of the 40' side. Not the best sound situation already....So we get set up and its pretty much time to roll because the whole thing was running behind so there wasnt time for a sound check. Our super amazing sound guy had miced the drums up with two condenser mics that were meant for vocals overhead. As soon as he turned them on it was the worst howling/screaming/hissing noise anyone had ever heard:facepalm: He kept blaming everything else but those mics. He turned off all the guitar mics and pretty much jacked the whole sound WHILE we were playing. The looks on the faces in the audience were pretty hilarious as the trainwreck insued:facepalm: Needless to say, that was his last time as our sound guy:cop:

[jshaffer20]

Here's another.....
Another outside gig, all the power running from ONE extension cord from a single outlet. I was running a Digitech processor at the time and every 10-15 seconds it would just shut off because there just wasnt enough power. It did that the whole gig, talk about fun!!!

Then there was another when an old women told us to turn down and we hadnt even plugged the guitars in yet!

[Pine Apple Slim]

I think the worse was when my old bluegrass band played a street fair in August. It was one of those "promote downtown" events the merchants put on. It was 100 deg in the shade (but there was none) and 99.99% humidity. We were hired to play from 11:00 to 1:00.Obviously the public stayed home in the AC. Our crowd consisted of maybe 6 people over the entire 2 hrs.
Shortly after that, our lead singer quit.
I'll never forget his resignation,
" Bluegrass, Ha, I'm through playing for sweaty fat women in flip flops!"

[Scott Abene]

Stop right there. You got booked for a Friday night gig at CBGBs in the late 80s, and you're complaining??? I don't care if the dog {censored} IN YOUR MOUTH in the middle of that gig. I'd murder a blood relative for a chance to play a booking like that. There are millions of pretty skilled musicians all over America who would love to have had that chance. If that's your idea of a "hell story", then you've never had any real problems in your life.

I did not actually Complain... I just listed it as Hell...

I played CB's on good nights and on Mondays at 1am to homeless people. It was a great live place for the audience but for bands it was a dump in the true sense of the word.

Many great bands came out of there but rarely did they go back once they made a name for themselves.

[dragoro]

My gig from hell? Playing a bar where the term "red light lounge" wasn't just a metaphor. Oh yeah, and the owner was several thousand dollars in debt to the Hells Angels and that night they decided to collect. We laugh about it now, but we were {censored}ting ourselves that night.

 

 

Thats freakin cool!!

[notjonahbutnoah]

Our bandleader got us a gig way back in the woods. Not only did we have to drive a long ways on paved roads, the dirt driveway was about 3 miles long. I was wondering what kind of a dance place could be way back here. After a while we drive into a clearing. Sure enough, there's a great big building where we'll play. While we're looking around out of our car windows this big burly guy comes walking up. He's packing what looks like a .357 on one hip and a can of mace on the other. He says, "Guys, you don't have to worry tonight, I've hired two extra policemen." My wife was with me and I was about ready to head back down the driveway. We checked inside. Sure enough, chicken wire in front of the stage. We vote and decide to stay and play. I keep wondering who the heck is going to show up for this thing, as it's so far out. After a while people start showing up and soon it's jam packed. I keep having this odd feeling that I'm in the middle of a Stephen King novel. Fortunately, for some reason, a number of folks brought kids that night, and I believe that held the rowdiness down. It was scary as heck to start with, but turned out fine. The crowd disappeared back into the woods and we left.

 

 

Favorite so far. What year did this happen?

[Karma1]

Back in the late 90's a band I was in had two gigs in one day - a 4th of July. The first one was an early afternoon set at a big festival near Berkeley. That went ok and then we jumped in our van and headed out to our late afternoon gig near Sacramento, about an hour and a half away.

 

We got there just moments before we were scheduled to go on and rushed like hell to set up. It must have been 105 degrees that day and the stage was made from a converted truck trailer - all metal. It was like being in an oven up there out in the sun. Anyway, the worst part was when in the middle of a song, the plastic crate I had my effects rack sitting on buckled from the heat and sent my whole rig crashing backwards to the ground. At the end of the song, the singer kept the crowd entertained with some stage banter while I scrambled to get my rig straightened out. It was a mess, but we made it through, and were very glad when it was all over. Surprisingly, we sounded pretty good - I still have a recording of it.

[guitarman]

We were booked for a gig with another punk band called 'the Daughters of the American Revolution' except when we got to the banquet hall, we found out that 'The Daughters of the American Revolution ' weren't a punk band that we were playing with but instead, we were playing for an organization of white haired grandmas that are related to civil war soldiers and did stuff (?).

We showed up with tattered jeans and leather jackets and the slowest song we knew was 'Blister in The Sun'. Needless to say, we didn't play and they let us off the contract with pay.

Our band at the time was named 'The Minutemen'. We named ourselves after the missiles and not the patriotic civilians that were ready to fight the British in a minute's notice. I could see how we were mis-booked.

[stevenjuel]

so this dosnt compare to any of your guys stories. But back when i was about 16(it makes me feel old saying that) i was in a punk band called peg leg swantoon and the butt pirates. It was the worst thing ever, we didnt have a bassist. First "show" (i use that term lightly) was in the drummers basement. the only people that showed up was us and five of our close friends (our other guitarist put the wrong address on the flyers). needless to say it was terrible i got super drunk/high and couldnt play, the other guitarist thought he would be cool and jump up into the air at the beginning of the first song..... His guitar came crashing to the ground. it was overall terrible. we broke up the next day

[Ultrastick]

Notjonah, as best I remember it was early 90's, just before I decided I had made my contribution to live music of the world and quit.

I think the gig we had right after the one in my story was at a junkyard. Yep, sure enough, a junkyard with a junk car welded to the top of a big pole right in front. The gentle reader can readily see what a class act we were from these two gigs.

We played on the dirt in a big tin shed of sorts, with, of course, junk all around. Once again, lotsa people showed up and danced. Only downer was they kicked up so much dust we almost choked to death.

Proprietor was nice. Not only paid us, but paid us extra.

[DaveAronow]

I swung my bass like an axe

 

and cracked a dude in the head with it, from the stage.... the singer hit the same dude in the mouth with his mic stand and split his face open. He had it coming. He was a drunk that was trying to do us bodily harm, and he got the first couple shots in. He didnt get any more shots in after that. He learned what happens when you {censored} with a bunch of crazy Florida boys all hopped up on testosterone, beer and tequilla.

 

Dude came back to the club the next night with stitches from his mouth halfway down the side of his face and appologised to us.

 

Luckily I grazed his head and his shoulder took most of the hit of the blow. Could have been alot worse for him, and me if I would have killed him.

 

That was in Wichita Kansas and was almost 20 years ago.

 

The bass is still my primary bass that I play every day. Has a paint chip missing where it landed on the floor.

 

Our old guitar player has the whole thing on video tape, but he wont show anyone, because while the whole band jumped in

to the fight, he just stood there cowering like a little bitch as his brothers went to war. Yes, we were fighting other guys two, they were another band that were jellous and had been taunting us with insults as they got drunker and drunker throughout the evenening. We never even acknowleged their presence till the singer came up to the stage and kicked the bass of my micstand which caused the mic to pop me in the mouth and split my lip open. Wasnt even more than a secong went by that he was laying on his back on the floor in all kinds of pain. You can immagine the massive brawl that ensued. OPur whole band including our three hundred pound soundman, all their band with some of their friends, and all the bouncers, there werre probably about twenty people in all fighting, all though the whole thing only lasted maybe a minute or two.

 

Meanwhile, you can see our guitar player just standing there sort of in shock mumbling something into his mic the whole time. We had a falling out and I cant get the video from him if he even still has it. {censored}ing {censored}.

 

 

That was probably my worst day on stage.

 

 

Good times.

['s mel gibson]

The gig wasn't a bad gig or,...maybe it was. Nah, it was more of a learning experience but hellish none the less.

We get to the gig, something like 2,000 miles from home. I'm 19 and it's my first roadband.

The stage is a dinky little thing and we're 5 piece. Drums, keyboard/bass, sax/flute/harp, guitar(me) and a singer.

We're from the west coast with a couple of sets of 'hippie music'. This is the mid-west (Illinois) and they wan't stuff a bit more basic like CCR and Johnny Cash and we didn't do any of that stuff.

We had a new set made up in 4 days of the most simplest stuff we could find but we were sweating bullets the whole time. We kept the gig (for 2 weeks) but it was the constant rehearsals and figuring out a bunch of new songs with an immediate no-time limit, and that was nerve wracking.

That was way back in time,...

[Arr0wHead]

If that's your idea of a "hell story", then you've never had any real problems in your life.

 

 

Or he's played enough decent gigs for this one to stick out at hellish?