The Worst Gig.

[Innocent Bystander]

Guardian: Musician's Worst Gigs.


There was the one where I couldn't hear what was coming through the amp - I couldn't hear what I was playing - and just froze in stage-fright. Someone had to fill in for me. There was the one where the audience was one old lady and a dog, who didn't stay for the ten minute spot I was doing. But, no, I haven't had a golden shower on stage yet. Not yet, anyway.

[Byll]

We are an American Celtic folk band. We play a whole lot of different venues, including winery concerts. A few years ago, we were contracted for a 3 hour/3 set concert at a winery, beginning at 6:30 in the evening. Our set up was in a large gazebo, at the bottom of what was at that time, a dust bowl. We were in the middle of a heat wave in August. Tech set up (2 hour operation) was scheduled for late afternoon. The humidity was a living thing. We had played there before, with fine results, and we began our set up.

The venue charged admission by car load - $10 per car. They also made money selling wine. The cars began arriving, and we soon realized we had to augment our sound set up. We had brought extra front-of-hall speakers with us, so we began the task of daisy-chaining the speakers to our already existing FOH set up. We powered down all the electronics, set up the new speakers - facing distant audience areas - and began to wire.

It had been a hot, sticky, uncomfortable set up to this point. We are not a big enough band to afford roadies, so our engineer and the band members always do set up and tear down... I remember that the left channel speakers were completely wired, and I saw our engineer head for the far right speaker, with a 1/4 inch cable plug in one hand, dragging the cable behind him, which was already daisy-changed to an existing right channel speaker. The crowd was getting very large - and it was less than 15 minutes before concert time. There were thunder storms in the area, and we were watching the sky very carefully.

I saw our engineer reach with the end of the cable, to attach the remaining speaker to the circuit. He had the cable in his hand, as the speaker was high enough that he could not quite hold the metal plug. The plug got near the jack. At that moment, no one quite knows what happened. We tried to piece it together, later. There was a very loud sound - like a small caliber gunshot, on steroids. Our engineer was thrown to the ground, and there was a distinct smell of ozone, everywhere. The crowd got totally quiet. It was now 10 minutes before concert time. Our engineer was unhurt...

Our worst fears were proven out... Even with new fuses in place (never play live without fuses...), our entire sound system was toast. We had nothing Nada. Zilch. I have had times in my life when I have known paralyzing fear. Normally, training kicks in, and one can partially overcome the effects of that fear. However, in this instant, I simply did not know what to do. Even writing about it, brings back the feeling. We were soaked with sweat, and things looked bleak.

Audience members were coming toward us in droves. They knew something was very wrong. They were very understanding, and quite a number asked if they could help. For whatever reason, our acoustic guitar player had extra equipment in his old, battered station wagon. The extra gear was comprised of a small, floor standing Marshall 50 watt acoustic amplifier - 2 channels - of very high quality. He also had an ancient 6 channel Peavey powered mixer head of 150 watts. We hooked up a mic to the little Marshall, asked for quiet, and told the crowd that we would be a little late.

We culled our stage set up to 8 microphones. We connected them to the Peavey and the Marshall amps, the best we could. For whatever reason, the large system speakers were not hurt - only the electronics. We asked the audience to move from their comfortable areas - some far away from us, to up close - very close - and with the help of some coaxing by helpful audience members, they did. We were essentially surrounded by humanity.

What looked to be a disaster, proved to be a very satisfying and fun concert for all. We played all 3 sets, and beyond. People stayed close, and we played through marginal gear that was not built for the purpose, but all ended well. There was lots of dancing in close quarters that night, and people got to know each other to a level that would not have been possible, in any other circumstance. And we learned later, lots and lots of wine was sold.

Cause of our challenge? Suspected ground lightening... Scary stuff...

And yes, we have had other bad situations over the years, and yes, they did not always turn out so well. Such is life.

Best to all.
Byll

[Innocent Bystander]

Good story, Byll. Thanks for sharing that.

[Nanohedron]

Not really my worst gig, but to date probably the most memorable for taking lemons and making lemonade:

I have played at the local RenFest for a particular school of Irish dancers during Celtic Week, or whatever it's styled, for few years, now; I think this might be year #7 coming up. Anyway, it's great because I still get to wear street clothes. My gig has always been the only one that is live music for any Irish dance group during this event; the rest of the dance groups use recorded tracks. Well, for some reason, two years ago someone at the Fair decided unannounced that we didn't need a mike stand any more or something like that (yet there was, as ever, a mike), and when I made polite inquiries, although there was no question that the Fair would have stands lying around, the help weren't in the least interested in rectifying the situation, and while they didn't say it in so many words, the sentiment communicated was one blithely suggesting that I could go [huzzah] myself. To a fluteplayer needing to play thru a sound system, this was entirely problematic, as I'm sure you will understand.

Enter the dancers' families to the rescue. First volunteer to hold the mike was a cute little six- or seven-year-old girl who stood wobbily on tiptoe and gamely endured her arm's fatigue for my sake (kids and puppies - you can't lose with those, and unpaid child labor? So much the better, especially when you want to shame the Fair's facilitators); after that her dad took over holding the mike for me, and then one of the moms, and so on. Yeoman service, and this was our modus operandi during all our spots for the entire two days. Sympathy factor and shtick taken together, the show went over pretty well with the audience (and the RenFest Monolith surely lost some esteem in popular opinion), especially when I introduced my "mike stands". Never did that before.

Same thing happened the following year, but after the first round was over and I'd come back from my wanderings, murder in my heart, why, lo and behold: a mike stand.

[Doug_Tipple]

I enjoyed your story, Byll. Your's too, Nano.

[Byll]

Heh. Heh. I remember a Christmas party, where the band was promised the same meal as the revelers - a true feast. Seems as if the message did not get through to the venue, which was a country club. We ended up in the women's locker room - eating on the benches on which the ladies normally changed clothes. They gave us cold chicken sandwiches on cold, damp white bread, and bottles of water.

Ah yes... Memories.
Cheers.
Byll

[MTGuru]

I'm not sure if this was the worst gig or the best. St. Patrick's Day dinner party at a country club / golf course. Supposed to be a 3 hour gig. We set up the PA, played a sound check, everything was great. By the time our official start rolled around, the audience was already well into enjoying their beverages. I think we played one set. Then the host came over to us and asked if he could use one of our microphones to make a few announcements. Why sure, sez we.

So he takes the mike and proceeds to give a drunken speech for 10 or 15 minutes. Then he passes it to another club member to give another drunken speech. Who passes it to another club member to ... You get the idea.

At some point me and the boys just leave the stage, grab some food, go outside, walk around the grounds, tell stories, play some session tunes outside on the lawn. Returned to the stage to find the latest drunken speaker in the lineup in full verbal flight, and attempting to sing karaoke without accompaniment.

Around 2 hours and 50 minutes into the gig, the host again takes the mike and announces: "And now for some music from our wonderful band!" We played one set for the part of the audience who weren't by then passed out at their tables, then packed up and left. On the way out, the host hands us a payment check for the full amount. "That was great!", sez he. "Come back any time."

Oh ... And while we were out wandering, one of the audience thought it would be great fun to come on stage and retune my electric bass to some random tuning. So that last set we played - I had no time to retune - featured an aleatoric bass line worthy of Frank Zappa. I think they all especially enjoyed that.

[Nanohedron]

I appreciate your dilemma.

[Seonachan]

I can't match the previous stories, but many years ago my band (Boston-based) was playing a few gigs in Nova Scotia, and at some point on the road I'm reading Celtic Heritage or one of those magazines that covered the Nova Scotia music and cultural scene. I see a section in there with news from the Boston area (where there's a large ex-pat Maritimer community), in which is it announced that our band will be playing a gig there in a couple of weeks - but instead of giving the name of our band, they called us "[My Name {misspelled}] and Friends". First we'd heard of it.

Ok then, we get back home and go to the gig (which consisted of playing a few short sets during the headlining fiddler player's breaks), where the organizer explains that we are expected to play waltzes so the dancers can have a bit of a breather between the square sets. Oh. We don't play any waltzes. Too late for anyone to do anything about anything, we plow through our usual set - a mix of songs in Gaelic and English. We're just not on, a situation made much worse by the lack of a working monitor. All out of synch and no energy. I suppose the only upside was that our on-stage troubles distracted us from what was no doubt a confused and annoyed audience.

Shortly after that we had an even more disastrous recording session, and then split up. It occurs to me now that since that time, I haven't pursued music seriously or performed in public, with one or two exceptions. Not to imply any direct cause and effect - just noting the unfortunate last chapter of my brief journey in the music world.

[Feadoggie]

Good story Byll. Mount Hope?

I guess my youth was mis-spent. I payed my dues playing a lot of venues where the the band is set-up in a wire cage. Let's just say that more than a few jobs came to a conclusion with us running out the back door, equipment in hand as the local constabulary arrived to get things under control.

My favorite story though comes from a gig in college. Playing folk rock at the time we played all the local coffee houses and colleges and universities. We arrived one evening at a local women's college with our instruments and discovered there was no sound system at all. Someone at the venue figured acoustic music didn't need to be amplified. The venue, a big gymnasium, was filling to capacity and the assembled musicians were antsy as could be, some ready to bail. So, like in Byll's story, I had two mics and a guitar amplifier in the trunk of my car - Magnatone M10 custom, two channels, maybe thirty watts. I dug around beneath the gym stage and found a single mic input to a a house speaker system - think principal addressing an assembly of students - a 15 watt Bogen but not working. I managed to get the two mics jury rigged to my amp and patched the house speakers to the external speaker outputs using safety pins. It worked but was of course not shielded completely. So periodically, as we played, a radio broadcast would interrupt the performance - good as comedic pedal point and not unlike that Simon and Garfunkle 7 o'clock news recording. But somehow we got through it famously. The lack of volume had the effect of keeping the audience quieter than usual which resulted in a rather intimate atmosphere.

As an aside, besides my group, the other players that evening were Michael Bacon and Larry Gold then known as "Good News". They probably have better "worst gig stories" - like Isle of Wight. I think they are still out there making music somewhere.

Feadoggie

[Byll]

Hi, Feadoggie. I have missed you at some of the festivals, of late. No, our ground lightning adventure did not occur at Mt. Hope. It was at a winery in Gap, PA. We have played there since, with no challenges. Last summer had some 'heat waves' much like the present, and we were scheduled to play that particular winery, during some weeks when things were really unbearable. The weekend before our scheduled performance, there were violent thunderstorms, extreme heat, and things did not go well at all for the winery's scheduled band, that night. On our concert day, there was little humidity, and the heat was not an issue. We enjoyed our time at the winery very much, and the audience was very appreciative...

Concerning your mis-spent youth... I am finding that more and more venues have some sort of professional security in evidence. Sign of the times, I suppose. With our needed set-up and tear-down time, running out the back door would be rather difficult...

Hope all is well.
Byll

[Innocent Bystander]

I have been away for the weekend and came back to this. I enjoyed your stories more than the ones in the paper.