Worst/funniest gigs?

we all fanatise about huge audiences wowing at Satch-like fretburning pyrotechnics. reality's a bit different. so what are the worst or unintentionally funny gigs youve done? who admits to be bottled off the stage or playing to an audience of one man and his dog?

Ive played about 200 in my time and a fair few have sucked. worse than being bottled off is when no-one takes any notice. praps the worst was a gig for me was an early one when I used to get real bad stage fright. to calm my nerves I downed several beers and half a bottle of Jack Daniels. couldnt find my way around the fretboard for much of the time and ended up vomiting over my guitar.class!

300 years ago (~1986) when I was in high school we played our second or third gig, at a church jumble sale ! The audience consisted of about 200 old lady’s their and the local vicker......we weren't asked to come back ! We quickly surmised we were not playing to an optimal audience (we were total Heavy Metal wonabees) this was not going to be a good gig ! Ho-Hum

Hmmm... I got so many bad show experiences. I have had a tomatoe thrown at me once but it was a group of friends being stupid. I've jumped in the air during one show and completely missed the stage (the stage was small ;)), so I fell right on my arse. Although I didn't miss a note, very proud of that. I have it on video too. Number 2, once I got drunk before a show got up on stage and played a completely different song from the band. That's a classic. Probably the worst show playing in front of a crowd was a battle of the bands I once played. Needless to say every band brought there group of friends, and well I don't have any friends. Just kidding, but the show was so far away from home nobody but the band and a few groupies could make it. Needless to say we had no support, so we played to bunch of people standing in the back with their friends. Our singer told them to F#$k off, and we left the stage. Total Rock and Roll style. But yeah thats a few tales from my dark side.

My worst gig was with a Metallica cover band (the set was exclusively metallica) , the bassist was great , the rhythm guitarist (who was also doing the vocals) was good at guitar , but his vocaling wasn't pretty impressive... Anyway , the drummer absolutely su*ked !! He was still a beginner (not good for a beginner anyway) ... I don't remember that we finished any song without stopping in the middle waiting for the drummer to get back in time or to adjust his bass drum !!! Not to mention the way he played the double bass part from the song "One" which was making everybody laugh.

Anyway , to save my reputition from a disaster , I decided to show off at the middle of the gig by playing some solos with the guitar over my head and some shred improvisations between songs , so I got a nice reaction from the crowd ... I was a bit selfish , but I had to !

Originally posted by Dr_simon
300 years ago (~1986) ...

Hmmm... would you believe the fall of 1970?...

The second gig I ever played was the Fall Fair at the small town I grew up in. At night, of course... Outdoors, don'cha know... in the *&#%'n rain!!! :rolleyes:

This wasn't some high-dollar extravaganza. We were on a bare wooden platform without any sort of a canopy. The stage got seriously slippery in the wet, and the only one who didn't flirt with death by electrocution was the drummer.

The climax of the evening was when I did a big 'Pete Townsend' windmill, lost my footing, and did the splits into a puddle. :eek:

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Lordathestrings
would you believe the fall of 1970?...
QUOTE]

Dude, that's the year I was born !

LOL

Nice one !

My absolutely worst gig was in Berkeley California at a dive called "The Starry Plough". We were a Heavy Metal band playing to a "Berkely" crowd. The soundperson was horrible..pluss on top of that we were asked to be turned down. Further that with the neighbors who lived upstairs (accrossed the street)complained about the noise even after were were turned down and called the cops. After only 30 mins. of playing we were asked not to play anymore because of the complaints of the noise.

Heavy Metal cencorship in "Berkeley"

Anyone who is familiar with "Berkeley" California will understand that situation better.

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
[QUOTE]...Hmmm... would you believe the fall of 1970?...

That's around the same time they invented fire,right?

Originally posted by kingdavid

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
[QUOTE]...Hmmm... would you believe the fall of 1970?...

That's around the same time they invented fire,right?

Naw, fire was in fairly wide use by then, but Neil Armstrong was the only fella known for moon-walking. That Michael Jackson kid was just barely a teen-ager yet!

I remember going out to Washington Missouri to play BIg Johnsons DOck House and the place was split with the bar in the front then a wall and then a back room with the band...well the most people we ever played for there was like 9 and fro the first half of the gig every time we would play to the walls. It was terrible.


I also remember playing a local suburb/comunity/small towny thing in a park where all the rides and stuff for the kids were up in the park and we (in the beer garden) on the tennis courts and while there were people there...none of them were down with us. so we played just to vendors in near 100 degree weather on aa asphault tennis court on a trailor...shudder.
then we played another out door gig that night.

We went out to Kansas City to play a rib fest outside of Kemper Arena. and on the way there, our keyboard player who drives the trailors SUV engine blew up. so we are at a Uhaul in bumf**K Missouri and they are all out of uhauls. So they had to call around and finally they found one...about an hour back toward St. Louis. So we get there and walk into the office only to see its the guys living room with a counter in it. He looks up at us from his recliner and big screen like we are total Arseholes for walking into his house...which i guess we kinda were. So we get there, luckily we had built in extra time to relax when we got there...so we had to hurry to set up and go. And we won for best party at the show :-)

[Edited by jealousblues on 01-03-2004 at 12:22 AM]

They got a bumf**K in Missouri? Jeez, I grew up (and spent most of my professional musician life) in bumf**K Ontario! Who knew? LOL :D

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by kingdavid

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Lordathestrings

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
...Hmmm... would you believe the fall of 1970?...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's around the same time they invented fire,right?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Naw, fire was in fairly wide use by then, but Neil Armstrong was the only fella known for moon-walking. That Michael Jackson kid was just barely a teen-ager yet!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...bet he already knows how to moon walk

I only have played 1 gig so far :P
2 weeks ago, I made meself a small "band".

I found some1 willing to learn bass so in 6 weeks I thought him his bass lines.
The drummer wos okay, and the singer realy awesome!

The bassist ****ed up everything you can, luckely he didnt played when there was a silence haha :)

The audience loved the songs we played and all started to clap and stuff, but it didnt made me feel good at all accualy... The show still makes me cry :(

I played acoustic, there was no monitoring for us, I barely heared myself playing. I played songs pure on chords instead of picking because I couldnt hear myself playing. I told the audio guys 10 times LOUDER I CANT HEAR MYSELF but all he did was putting the volume even more down!!!
It was so bad, All the strings I fingerpicked buzzed @ the fretboard :(

So that was bad.
As for the show people loved it and it was fun to get some on-stage experience.

I will never ever put a mic in my acoustic to get sound, the sound guys dont know what to do. Next times I will only play on me marshall :)

metal_carnage

as long as the people loved it man, i think you're safe. congrats in your first gig!

Your probably right about that, thanks :)

Im already planning my second performace next June @ Schools open podium. Real popular, almost the whole school goes out to see some very different shows on 1 night.
Im goin to play something more difficult this time, involving classical tunes and unplugged playing I hope :)

cool! rock on man. hope u do well.