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The Nightmare Gig
Posted on 5/28/16 at 12:51 am
Posted on 5/28/16 at 12:51 am
Thought it would be fun to hear some "nightmare" gig stories from the pickers/players on this board.
Back in the early 90's, the band I was working with was playing a weekend gig at the Ramada in Alexandria. We had an old Ford van that we used to haul PA and gear that my old man had abandoned. Anyway, we get up Sunday morning to drive home and come to a license check in Ball. No problem, I've got my license, insurance and title. We roll up and the officer takes one look in the van, sees the music gear and asks us to pull over on the shoulder.
10 minutes later I'm being cuffed and put in the back of a cruiser. Turns out "someone" had swapped the license plates on the van with another vehicle. The cops thought the van was stolen and away we went. I spent a couple of hours in jail before it was cleared up and wound up losing all the money I'd made that weekend. Gotta love it.
Back in the early 90's, the band I was working with was playing a weekend gig at the Ramada in Alexandria. We had an old Ford van that we used to haul PA and gear that my old man had abandoned. Anyway, we get up Sunday morning to drive home and come to a license check in Ball. No problem, I've got my license, insurance and title. We roll up and the officer takes one look in the van, sees the music gear and asks us to pull over on the shoulder.
10 minutes later I'm being cuffed and put in the back of a cruiser. Turns out "someone" had swapped the license plates on the van with another vehicle. The cops thought the van was stolen and away we went. I spent a couple of hours in jail before it was cleared up and wound up losing all the money I'd made that weekend. Gotta love it.
6
Posted on 5/28/16 at 7:11 am to geauxbrown
This isn't a nightmare story, it's actually kinda funny.
About two years ago I was playing in a local bar. I was introducing a song I wrote called The Hard 9 Blues, when some lady yelled out "Is this a dick song?"
To which I replied, "No, it's not. If it was a dick song I'd have entitled it The Hard 10 Blues."
Bada-Bing. I think I got more applause for that remark than I did for the song.
About two years ago I was playing in a local bar. I was introducing a song I wrote called The Hard 9 Blues, when some lady yelled out "Is this a dick song?"
To which I replied, "No, it's not. If it was a dick song I'd have entitled it The Hard 10 Blues."
Bada-Bing. I think I got more applause for that remark than I did for the song.
Posted on 5/28/16 at 8:28 am to Mars duMorgue
quote:
when some lady yelled out "Is this a dick song?"
Posted on 5/28/16 at 9:14 am to geauxbrown
Back in around 2003 2004ish my band was on tour, and we had a show in Brooklyn, New York...we were driving over the Brooklyn bridge, and one of the guys was videotaping the city while crossing the bridge.. As we were nearing the end of the bridge there were 2 guys in the road pointing M16s at us.. They had us pull to the side of the road, one walked to the drivers side, the other to the passenger side with guns pointed at our heads... They started questioning is as to why we were videotaping while crossing the bridge (apparently you can't do that after 911, and we didn't see the sign prohibiting it)...after about 10-15 min of questioning us they made us delete all the footage we recorded and let us go..
Posted on 5/28/16 at 10:29 am to geauxbrown
I've had a few nightmare gigs over the years, but the one I remember most vividly is the time my band played a festival-style show with several other bands at some dumpy, now-defunct, club in New Orleans (I don't even remember the name). The club mandated that all drummers had to use the club kit, with the one allowance being that we could use our own snare and cymbals. This made me nervous, as I'd seen other "club kits" before.
When we arrived at the club and loaded in, my fears were confirmed when I saw the kit. It was in horrible shape; e.g. hardware clamps that were stripped out (the rack-tom literally swung back and forth on its stand while I played), one broken kick-drum spur (which caused the kick drum to sit at an angle), and a floor-tom with a few missing tension rods (making it impossible to tune).
Basically, I was reduced to playing simple kick/snare/hi-hat patterns throughout our set for fear of the rack-tom or floor-tom breaking if I played either of them too much. Between the crumbling drum kit and my bandmates busting my balls about it the entire time, that was one miserable gig.
When we arrived at the club and loaded in, my fears were confirmed when I saw the kit. It was in horrible shape; e.g. hardware clamps that were stripped out (the rack-tom literally swung back and forth on its stand while I played), one broken kick-drum spur (which caused the kick drum to sit at an angle), and a floor-tom with a few missing tension rods (making it impossible to tune).
Basically, I was reduced to playing simple kick/snare/hi-hat patterns throughout our set for fear of the rack-tom or floor-tom breaking if I played either of them too much. Between the crumbling drum kit and my bandmates busting my balls about it the entire time, that was one miserable gig.
Posted on 5/28/16 at 10:40 am to Oswald
quote:
some dumpy, now-defunct, club in New Orleans
The kind of place where even the cops are afraid to go inside?
Been there, done that.
And why is it places like that make you use their shitty drum kits? I could never figure that one out. Our drummer won't play places like that, which I respect–although it cuts our number of gigs by about 50%!
Posted on 5/28/16 at 10:52 am to geauxbrown
We played a fundraiser in one the hotels in NOLA. Maybe the Sheraton? Don't remember. The service elevator was busted so we had to hump two trailers full of equipment up like 3 different elevators. The Middle elevator couldn't fit more than one or two pieces of equipment at a time.
It was like a 5 hour setup and a 3 hour teardown. I've never been so exhausted after a gig. They did feed us filet though.
It was like a 5 hour setup and a 3 hour teardown. I've never been so exhausted after a gig. They did feed us filet though.
Posted on 5/28/16 at 12:34 pm to geauxbrown
We needed to fill a slot and make money on tour one time, got put in a mexican restaurant in Wilson, NC/........
With another band.
With another band.
Posted on 5/28/16 at 12:57 pm to heatom2
That reminds me of a place in Houston I played at a few times; a club with a DJ on the ground floor and live music on the 2nd floor. The building was ancient, and the only way for the band to load in was up a long, narrow and steep flight of stairs.
My back was so sore by the time we loaded out that I decided I wasn't humping my drum hardware case down those steps. I just pushed it to the top of the stairwell and let it slide down by itself. It picked up enough momentum to bust open the door at the bottom of the steps and slide halfway across the sidewalk...
My back was so sore by the time we loaded out that I decided I wasn't humping my drum hardware case down those steps. I just pushed it to the top of the stairwell and let it slide down by itself. It picked up enough momentum to bust open the door at the bottom of the steps and slide halfway across the sidewalk...
Posted on 5/28/16 at 1:15 pm to geauxbrown
A long time ago,along with some friends, we had this great idea.: We have this wide open land,with a huge arse dirt pit in the middle. The banks around it are 10 feet tall,the bottom area is about 10 acres,and pretty much flat as a pancake.Acres and acres of parking all around it.
Lets build a stage here,invite every musician that we know,to come and play. Put up flyers,put out posters,advertise the hell out of it. 3bucks admission to come in any entrance. They came by the thousands.
Well, the guy whose family actually owned the place,he is a great musician,but he and his band considered themselves to be the "New Pink Floyd",so they were going to be the closing act.That's fair,right?
When it is time for them to do their thing,their best guitar player is having some problems,and late showing up.
This supposed to be the grand finale of everything crowd is waiting and getting restless.It is decided that I will walk out there,and just play some stuff on guitar and sing,because I am the only one of us that ever did anything like that.
I walked out there with my guitar,not really with any plan, I said a few words to the crowd,apologized for the delay,then I started playing the first song I ever learned..Simple Man.
It was a good thing that the crowd was all fricked up,because they loved it,and I know it wasn't good.After that, I did Hank Williams stuff,Neil young,whatever I felt like doing,and the crowd ate it up. That is the closest that I have ever felt,to being a star.
Well,the prodigal guitar player finally arrives,and they are ready to wrap it all up and take the world by storm.
When they start playing,people actually start leaving. I had a lot of good friends mad at me.
Lets build a stage here,invite every musician that we know,to come and play. Put up flyers,put out posters,advertise the hell out of it. 3bucks admission to come in any entrance. They came by the thousands.
Well, the guy whose family actually owned the place,he is a great musician,but he and his band considered themselves to be the "New Pink Floyd",so they were going to be the closing act.That's fair,right?
When it is time for them to do their thing,their best guitar player is having some problems,and late showing up.
This supposed to be the grand finale of everything crowd is waiting and getting restless.It is decided that I will walk out there,and just play some stuff on guitar and sing,because I am the only one of us that ever did anything like that.
I walked out there with my guitar,not really with any plan, I said a few words to the crowd,apologized for the delay,then I started playing the first song I ever learned..Simple Man.
It was a good thing that the crowd was all fricked up,because they loved it,and I know it wasn't good.After that, I did Hank Williams stuff,Neil young,whatever I felt like doing,and the crowd ate it up. That is the closest that I have ever felt,to being a star.
Well,the prodigal guitar player finally arrives,and they are ready to wrap it all up and take the world by storm.
When they start playing,people actually start leaving. I had a lot of good friends mad at me.
Posted on 5/28/16 at 1:23 pm to geauxbrown
Not really a nightmare gig, first set went really well but I was tanked by the second set. The second set was hit or miss. Anyways, the last song was an original with some decent finger work throughout. Attempted it 3 times before I apparently threw my guitar down and then tried to give away all of my harmonicas.
Posted on 5/28/16 at 9:35 pm to MontanaMax
Any of you ever had a band mate too trashed to play?
Posted on 5/28/16 at 10:04 pm to Marco Esquandolas
quote:
Any of you ever had a band mate too trashed to play?
We had a set that went pretty well, but got greedy and dug deep into our song bank and pulled one out we had nailed 6 months prior and not revisited since to end it as a game time decision. One guitarist turned his volume totally off and faked it. The other guitarist knew what he was doing, and it could have sounded decent as a power trio. I was the perfect amount of sauced to not care about losing my voice for the next 3 or so days, and it was either Cold Hard Bitch by Jet or something with a similar yelling quality needed. It's not something I could totally nail. But it's one that people could usually say, "well, he tried pretty hard and didn't suck the most" - a quality the chicks never seemed to dig as much as I'd hoped they would. Our drummer was the weak link that night, though. Somewhere about a verse in and being really into it (as in lost to the world outside of me), I notice everyone looking around and that I was the only one still playing/singing. The drummer had thrown his sticks down and walked of stage.
I was the last to turn off my amp and just walk off stage. If I had a tail, it would have been tucked firmly between my legs.
Fortunately the group who followed was drunk and fell flat for the whole set, so no one seemed to bring up our snafu.
Posted on 5/28/16 at 11:48 pm to Hopeful Doc
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