1. I fell off the stage and took my amp with me.

2.I went to jump up on the stage and didn't quite has the distance.LOL KaaaaaaaaaaaBoooooooooom!

3.I was playing this gig in VA. and they had the curtains drawn before we started.It was a dinner crowd of older people.I walked up to the mic before we started to check it and huge sparks fly out everywhere.I got shocked really bad and started cursing.I think I said every word in the book.The bad part was that it went over the mic.

If it ain't broke,fix it anyways.

[This message was edited by ToneQuest on July 25, 2003 at 09:28 AM.]

I was in a hair band when I was younger, and in following hair band coolness protocol, during a solo, I jacked one of my feet (covered in snakeskin boot of course ) atop the floor monitor to properly ensure rock solo posturing. I've seen this done on MTV a thousand times. they must have had different monitors. This thing tilted back onto it's next straight edge (pointing the speaker straight up) and I came tumbling after. Fortunately I didn't fall all the way down but in retrospect it probably would have been less embarrassing to fall then to stumble for what seemed like 20 minutes trying to prevent a fall.

______________________________
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams

We played in a tent. It was a festival so we set up whilst the punters were waiting.The 2ft high stage had a 4ft high tube type barrier. I needed to go backstage so I ducked through it. Coming back the distances were all changed so I clambered over and slipped with a leg either side. Pro that I am (hah) I carried on ignoring the blinding pain eminating from my testicles.

BTW ever played football AKA soccer and saved a goal with your goolies? I'd rather be a goal down.

Hair band back in about 88. We were doing a "battle of the bands" and were kicking ass, our last song I'm all pumped and decide to do the Cinderella "around the neck" guitar throw/spin. Guitar strap let go (those little standard washers on Schaller strap locks are smaller than strap holes) and my Baretta goes crashing into the drum riser. The neck could be rocked in the pocket after that, and it wouldn't hold tune. It had to be epoxied and redrilled/mounted. At least it didn't snap!

"Poor soul, he was just too high strung... I'm afraid the strain was more than he could bear."

Hair band, guess the decade... Playing for our
biggest crowd. About halfway through Van Halens
Cathedral my volume knob froze up, near the off
position. While desperatly twisting it trying to
get some sound out of the guitar i broke the pot.
Soooo, the rest of the show i sounded like i had a bad cord.
Oh, the singer/2nd guitar smoked "something"
in the backseat of someones car before the show.
He giggled like a school girl the whole time.
That was actually kind of funny..

Wasn't quite me, but also long ago, in a drink, drink, drink party band I made a gesture like I was gonna push the bass player. He started to laugh as he backed up - Backed up, stumbled a step, fell into the drums, which fell apart, cymbals and all, all over the place. Band stops, crowd goes silent and he's lying there laughing out loud in a midst of drums and still trying to play. Of course the drinkers we were, we hardly remembered a thing of it the next day. Funny thing is that this band was a top crowd pleaser in the day and was constantly booked as well as rebooked at that place and is still going to this day somewhat.

I've listed a few of mine here before, geez, I'd be hard pressed to name a gig where there WASN'T an embarrassing moment... Here's one -

Corporate gig at a convention center, early 90's, crowd of about 1500. A Hawaiian dance troupe opened up the show, and the crowd just ate it up. Before we played a single note, our band leader announced, "Well, we certainly enjoyed that performance by Don Ho - or was that his brother BUTT???"... Dead silence. Cringe.

My monitor was not working that night, and the stage was a bit dark. I checked our song list and grabbed one of my harmonicas preparing for the next song. In the middle of the song the band leader yells at me: "We're in the Key of A" and I said that I knew that. I quickly checked my harmonica (typically I would use a D harmonica for playing Cross Harp in A) and it was the wrong key After that I always double checked, and I also did not have monitor problems 99% of the time.

Had a similar one to ToneQuest's one...


I was getting on stage solo playing an 8finger tapping instrumental song (no other musician)for a contest.

I was to come from deep center stage and get to the front spot while playing the intro as teh fog machine gets crazy easy enough right?

Not really I counted the stairs wrong before the show to that platform in the back section

So off flying I went down these stairs... and thank god there was fog hiding my bad fall I kept on playing and in the end it kinda looked cool

Well I got to be a semi-finalist for that contest so I guess it went well from the crowd's perspective, but everyone side stage and backstage knew what happened

Confessed Pickaholic!

Playing in a biker bar in Okinawa with a typhoon bearing down on us, our singer was one of these people others just had to buy him a drink. Unfortunately would never know he was drunk until he told you. We start out this tune first song of the last set, and when the vocals were supposed to start there was absolutly nothing. So we carry the intro around again thinking he had missed his cue and again nothing, as we carry the intro around for the third time he's talking to me like we are discussing the weather, "you know man, I can't remember one word in this song, can you help me out?" suddenly I couldn't remeber any of the words either. We stopped the song and moved on to the next song in the set, he couldn't remember any of that tune either. Finally the bass player stepped up and started singing. Shortly after the typhoon ran us out and had us pinned down on base for the next couple of days. At practice I'm still carrying this anger and embarassment from days ago and ask what the hell happened. He just grins and says, "drunk, man that happens to me everytime I drink to much" I had to laugh at that point.

Serving Proudly, Playing Loudly!

I was probably 8 or 9 at the time, and I was to play a song for church (I'm such a sinner). I got up to play what I thought was the piano (left side of the church) and only after looking down I discovered it was the organ (right side of the church). As for my professional guitar playing carrer (snicker) I've never really had a bad moment aside from forgetting lyrics (that's where a guitar solo comes in handy), I've always left that up to the bar patrons to do that for me.

-Lefty
http://www.leftyshouseoftone.com

My worst was my first gig, in the high school gym for a benefit show. What a bunch of stoner hacks we were! Where to begin....first mistake was borrowing a friend's rig, a Marshall 1/2 stack and huge Boss pedalboard - I played a Twin with 2 pedals. Second mistake was lending my Strat to another friend so he could use the whammy bar on a Hendrix tune in his set, right before us. Third mistake, my psycho girlfriend had gotten into a big fight with her ex and drank a whole bottle of Jagermeister and passed out on the gym floor....

OK, so I drag her out in front of everyone, race her back home and into bed, race back....I get there just in time for us to play, people are standing around waiting for me....so I grab my axe and quickly try to figure out how to set the amp and the 8 pedals! Of course I planned to have time, didn't plan on a psycho GF....OK, set everything up, strum a chord - my buddy must've done the Star Spangled Banner on my Strat b/c not a single string was in tune. Shit, where's the tuner, no tuner, 8 Boss pedals and no tuner! Ever try tuning by ear through a Marshall when 200 people are staring at you? OK, close enough, we start to play, the "singer" forgets the words and starts improvising, mumbling some Jim Morrison-style poetry into the mic........

I'll never forget the look on our principal's face as we packed up, and it took me a few years to get over that one and get back up on stage!

So funky I can smell it!

Every time I ever walked out in front of a crowd. Every one.

It gets better once a show gets going and I sort of forget there's a show... then I'm just playing. But stepping out in front of people, I always feel like a fraud. The band tells me I'm paranoid, but I'm convinced I always play the first song of any set terribly.

(um... should I be posting this?)

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and we are the dreamers of the dreams

What I remember ... there might have been others ... my first paid gig, in the big city .. got a Marshall 50W a day before, diming the sucker and it was on fire when in the middel of the 3 set, I was 16.

i wont mention names .this band i know that plays mostly country were giging one night. they had two guitar players one guy (lets call him mitch and the other lets call him dave) well mitch had a habit of grabing everybody elses beer thinking it was his and this guy dave(older man) liked to chew/ rub snuff well mitch went over to talk to dave about something(half drunk) mitch picked up his beer while talking and took a big drink and then puked bad! the wrong can again dave had been spitting that snuff juice in a beer can all night bet that broke the habit!

I had one Saturday night.At an outdoor show in Parnell,Iowa coming out of a solo I started to sing and sucked a bug in which made me cough it up right in to the microphone.That was bad.

KEEP ROCKIN'

quote:

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Originally posted by michael:
i wont mention names .this band i know that plays mostly country were giging one night. they had two guitar players one guy (lets call him mitch and the other lets call him dave) well mitch had a habit of grabing everybody elses beer thinking it was his and this guy dave(older man) liked to chew/ rub snuff well mitch went over to talk to dave about something(half drunk) mitch picked up his beer while talking and took a big drink and then puked bad! the wrong can again dave had been spitting that snuff juice in a beer can all night bet that broke the habit!

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Hmmm.I used to live in Lower DE.I wonder who that could be? LOL

If it ain't broke,fix it anyways.