So, as I've said before, I play guitar in a punk rock band called "The McFlys" (if any of you like the ramones or misfits check us out), and let me tell you, we've played some pretty crappy shows in our 3 years plus of playing together.
Last night however may have been a new level of glitches during a single set.
First off, it's an outdoor show, so I'm already aware that things are not going to go smoothly. After about 5 hours of standing in 85 degree sunlight listening to horrible renditions of pink floyd songs it's time for us to set up.
Scare number 1) we are using a house drum set... we all know how great those things are.
Overlooking that though, we set stuff up, out drummer moves the drums around.
Scare number 2) one of our singers instrument cables is dead, no big deal, I always bring a couple extras just in case.
Everything is ready to go, the sun just went down, we start it off, going pretty decent, other than having to stop at the end of every song to push the bass drum back to the drummer.
Scare number 3) by the second song i start to notice that my G-String just won't stay tight enough and keeps going out of tune, I compensate by playing power chords with just my index and ring finger leaving out the G-string in most instances.
Major Problem #1) half way through the third song, the guitars and vocals come to a sudden stop, bass and drums continue..... we've blown our first breaker (that's right, our first). Five minutes later we have power again, let's see what else can happen, at least it gave me time to tune and stretch the g-string a bit.
Major Problem #2) we make it through a song and a half, so mid fifth song, breaker number 2 desides it's had enough of our guitars and vocals. Five more minutes, and we are ready to go again, this time the brilliant minds of sound guys decided to not put both half stacks and all the pre amps for the PA on the same plug.
By this time, i'm thinking, what else can possibly go wrong, we only have 10 or so more songs to go, hopefully we can make it to the end and everything will be fine.
Then comes the seventh song.
Major Problem #3) our seventh song in our set list is one of my favorites to play, and a lot of our close friends love it too, so i usually encourage them to come on stage and join us for the chorus. The chorus is coming up so I'm waving every single person i see singing along onto the stage, as my friend jumps onto the stage....... All power has had enough with us, lights, amps, PA, every single thing is dead....
A couple minutes later and we get everything back up and running, so we go through the song, without a hitch this time.
Major Problem #4) at this point, it really sounds like i'm making stuff up, i swear i'm not. next song; our singer (who also plays guitar) is a pretty active guy, in fact we all are, it's entertainment after all. we all purchased strap locks some time ago to keep our straps on guitar. well, Tommy (the singer) finds out the hard way, strap locks don't keep your guitar on if the screw pulls right out..... we make it through the song anyway, one guitar short. after the song, a screwdriver, and some duct tape later every thing is taken care of.
A couple songs later, and a new problem arises, i wouldn't call it a major problem, after all we manage to play through it all, and we keep all amps and vocals.... but lights start going out left and right. First the main stage lights, so we're playing in multi colored lights that only shine in certain spots, then those go out too, then the stage ones come back on then they are gone again, anyway, all said in done, we got a very interesting light show for the remainder of our set.

Somehow though, people loved us!
And, at least we didn't get the drunk lady one stage that was grinding against the bands that came not to far behind ourselves.

Anyway, after that landmark in technical difficulties, i started wondering, there's got to be some stories from the people on here, lets share them, what's your best?

http://about.me/nicholaus.lee

The UK Subs are an amazing band Dan! That's awesome that you played with them back in those days. Sounds like an interesting time to say the least. Although, in that music scene at that time, from what i hear almost every show was pretty interesting.

http://about.me/nicholaus.lee

Back in the late '70s while playing in a top-40 band, I came back on stage after a break to tune my guitar. The stage was dark and I couldn't see much except my strobe-o-tuner. For some reason my guitar wouldn't tune......I discovered the head had broken off behind the nut. I ultimately discovered that our bass player had accidently knocked my guitar off it's stand, and not knowing the neck broke...placed it back on its stand. I sent the guitar back to Gibson and they replaced the neck. I still have that '68 Les Paul Custom. It was a long night though and for years I refused to use a guitar stand........ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

Hey, my youngest (16yr) did a stint in the pit for Seussical earlier this year over this side of the pond (he plays - flute, clarinet, sax & oboe), he also complained/s of the noise level in the pit with 20 or 30 instruments blazing away in a confined space, plus the fact they can only see what is going on through Tv monitors as the pit is under the stage.

On stage experiences are just that, experiences, the good the bad and the ugly, it makes for some "interesting" times, so far I've never had a need for the chicken wire fence, although we've thought about it.

We try to keep the setup simple if for no other reason than the logic of the less parts there are, the less there is to go wrong.

I have a number of "classic breaker box" stories from my tying in the heavy cables running the to the lighting dimmers.........The best one had to be the night one of our roadies suggested that he could go downstairs to the basement of the frat house we were playing in and disconnect our feeder cables......It didn't dawn on me that I had hard wired them that night into the three phase buss directly (not using our normal trico clamps). I said sure and off he went......Ten minutes later he returned shaking and holding a 1/2" allen head wrench with part of the breaker box welded to the side of it! When he went to unscrew the bus, he accidently shorted it directly to the box and ended up beating it out with a hammer! You know it's funny, the lights never did dim with all that going on in the breaker box..........ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

Surfer,

In the late 80's I was a first responder to a major riot at a Run DMC concert where numerous people were shot & stabbed. They attracted a pretty rough crowd.

I thought this was a pretty bad experience for a band.
This chick just invites herself up to sing. The band had a sense of humor about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMbkyxGkefw

We once played while a world championship game of the Dutch national soccer team was shown on big screen. No one gave a toss about us, and meanwhile 'our' team was losing bigtime so the audiemnce was getting depressed as well. how much fun

with a former band we once had some trouble with the monitors, so we signaled to the pa guy (who we couldnt see cause of the lights) .... in the break between sets we went over to him,, but didnt see him. asked the club owner, and he said "he went home for the night after soundcheck. He always does that, I mean, once the levels are set, they're set, right?"

My very first gig ever was prolly the worst though. We had organized a gig, practiced hard, and then three days before the gig found out our drummer (who we found through an ad) was abroad for work 8O. So we asked our friend, who had just bought a drumkit a week or so before but had never in his life drummed before, to fill in - did one practice a.k.a. "learn how to hit a beat on a drumkit" session and went on next day. boy, did we suck! ... as it turned out though, this was half a lifetime ago (literally for me) - I still play with this drummer in the Mono-Tones.

Rules to live by #314:
"When in Italy, if the menu says something's grilled, don't assume it is."

https://www.facebook.com/The-Malbehavers-286429584796173/

I didnt have no 240 volts going thru me, thank God, but we were playing in the rain one day, as teenagers, and I dropped to my knees to play a solo, right in a puddle of water. I lit up like a christmas tree, and could not get my fingers off the strings. The bass player looked on in awe, and the drummer just laughed, and laughed, ...and laughed.
I guess I just yanked away from the strings, and quickly threw my guitar to the stage. $^ck that!!!!

Needless to say, I have never played in the rain again!!!

I guess the only worse experience I have had on stage, was a night when all went well, but nobody showed up. Not one person!!! lmao

The Mighty Surf Lords- Sparks,Nv.
"Praise The Lords"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHTDYfy0xM8
www.myspace.com/themightysurflords
www.cdbaby.com/cd/mightysurflords

LRDrummer
And to keep this thread on topic, once I played a surf show on a weeknight and nobody showed up.

-Taylor

Once, Taylor???

Neptune Tom knows what I'm about to say -- we played a few years back in Fresno in the middle of July in 109 degree weather. As if that weren't miserable enough, the "stage" was a VERY reflective white color. It was bad enough that we were listening to pumped in reggae jams for an hour before the show and during set-up. Then the sound guy insists on running the balance through the PA board, so I'm playing a Showman at about two, which kind of defeats the purpose of bringing a ground-shaking amp. I tried to explain that with no vocals to keep up, we just needed a little extra "umph" from the PA, but he was having no part of that. So we get set up and get going, and about a song and a half in, I notice that the heat has warmed up the pickup springs in my Dano Baritone, causing them to lose tension, which means that the pickups were suddenly resting on the strings. Then, the bass amp started fading in and out on its own accord. Then, Rodd knocked over a bottle of water and it EVAPORATED before the song ended and he could pick it up....

I'm sure there's more that my heat-addled brain is forgetting. Of course, after us the Neptunes just got up there and WAILED for over an hour. Shows what happens when city boys try to get out in the sun.

~B~

SurfBandBill
Neptune Tom knows what I'm about to say -- we played a few years back in Fresno in the middle of July in 109 degree weather. As if that weren't miserable enough, the "stage" was a VERY reflective white color. It was bad enough that we were listening to pumped in reggae jams for an hour before the show and during set-up. Then the sound guy insists on running the balance through the PA board, so I'm playing a Showman at about two, which kind of defeats the purpose of bringing a ground-shaking amp. I tried to explain that with no vocals to keep up, we just needed a little extra "umph" from the PA, but he was having no part of that. So we get set up and get going, and about a song and a half in, I notice that the heat has warmed up the pickup springs in my Dano Baritone, causing them to lose tension, which means that the pickups were suddenly resting on the strings. Then, the bass amp started fading in and out on its own accord. Then, Rodd knocked over a bottle of water and it EVAPORATED before the song ended and he could pick it up....

I'm sure there's more that my heat-addled brain is forgetting. Of course, after us the Neptunes just got up there and WAILED for over an hour. Shows what happens when city boys try to get out in the sun.

~B~

Are you kidding? That was one of my best on stage experiences. I didn't have to warm up for once!

-Taylor

drummer-Lava Rats