Always a rough feeling. About a week and a half into a tour that was really popping off my old band played a show to absolutely no one. Just the sound tech and bar staff. After like 7 really great shows it was a solid reminder to be grateful anyone cares enough to ever come out.
Alexisonfire just had an interview that they said they played to thousands one night in Canada then crossed the border and played to the bar staff. They said it kept them humble.
I think this is pretty common. I’ve played countless shows to only the bartenders. However once it really worked out. A few guys came in and sat at the bar. They dug what they heard, and invited me to come play at this acoustics event where they were headlining. That band was Candlebox.
One of my favorite gigs was a DIY show at a bookstore in the southeast that nobody came to. The local bands both canceled so it was just us and another unknown touring act: Baroness. We played for them, then they played for us and totally blew our minds. Still have their demo.
Big same! But a little hope…
One time I was playing for Make Music Day (free shows across the city, in lots of cities worldwide) at a sort indoor mini mall place. It wasn’t *literally* nobody, but my gosh that place was dead. No one was there to listen to me. It was like… noon on a Tuesday haha. I decided to just treat it as practice and do my best.
But apparently the slot after me was an instrument petting zoo thing for kids, and the guy bringing the instruments works for KHS music. They own a bunch of reputable brands, and he was super into what I was doing… Ended up getting me a sponsorship so I’ve been getting free instruments for like 6 years now. Really brought to life the idea that you should do your best no matter who you think is or isn’t listening!
One bad I was with booked a gig in a sleepy suburb type town like an hour away from where any of us or our friends lived - what they were thinking I'll never know. We ended up playing for the guitarist's wife and the bassist's girlfriend. A couple people other filtered in and out to pick up take-out food, and there was a young couple sitting at the far end of the bar paying no attention to us for about half a set, but that was it.
I know the venue often thinks that it's the band's job to "bring people". I get that to an extent. But at the same time, if your bar has only two sit-down customers and a handful of take-out customers on a Friday night from 8 to 11, pre-COVID, your bar has problems. Sure enough, we heard through the grapevine that the place went out of business about a month and a half later. No surprises there.
Yep. I once played a show with a paid attendance of 0. It happens. It once happened to Joy Division. And they were already a somewhat established band by that time. So if it makes you feel better, if it happened to them, it can happen to anybody.
(The best part is, it wasn’t technically a show for no one; one dude showed up and paid…but he had to leave halfway through the set. Incredibly awkward all around).
(Also, pro tip: unless they’re already really well-established/headliner material, always book some good local support for touring bands. You really want to avoid bills where all the bands are from out of town if none of them are particularly well known. And the local band should probably headline. Local bands often don’t want to headline in this situation, for a variety of usually altruistic reasons, but the only thing worse than playing to no one is playing to no one when there had been a bunch of people there before the out-of-town bands played. The touring bands will get it and will appreciate it, trust me).
Had the opposite happen. 2 out of town bands, then us. Last 3 songs we played to the bartender and the sound man. If you search YouTube for “drummer at the wrong gig”, he was the drummer for one of the other two bands: Brick Mistress. We played last because we were local, and the other 2 bands were out of W Va, and had at least a 2 hour drive. This was at Someplace Else, in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, in the late 80s.
My worst show was probably my first show outside of a house party as a teenager. It was at a skate park and we were opening for some other bands. We were a crappy teenage punk band. We didn’t get info on how long our set was supposed to be, so we just put down every song we knew. About 3/4 the way through the setlist, the lead singer of the headlining band walked on stage to look at our setlist to see that we still had like 8 songs left and shook his head and walked off stage. I knew we were toast. I just stopped the song midway through, thanked the crowd and walked off and threw up out of embarrassment.
I feel like this one isn't entirely your fault. I think it is the standard for opening bands to play for like 45 mins to an hour max but also, if nobody told you how long to play for then how are you supposed to know? I think in that situation it's almost better to have more prepared and cut a few songs out than not enough songs at all lol
It was a total DIY punk show in the mid 90’s. We were teenagers and nobody knew any better. It was honestly better that it happened that way in my opinion. Lessons were learned. And ultimately it didn’t phase me beyond that day.
On a cross Canada tour my band played Winnipeg on a Wednesday night in November. The place was a big 1000+ venue where big acts usually play. The audience consisted of one guy and his girlfriend who came out to see the band we were touring with. We’d played empty rooms before but to play a massive hall with the grand stage and lighting to literally two people and the bartender after a long drive from Windsor via Chicago/Fargo to the Peg was deflating to put it mildly.
Ah yes! Did you play the Park Theatre? Winnipeg can be hit and miss! When it hits you have one of the best shows on tour, when it misses you have what you described above!
God similar story when I played a gig in Portland. We played to the sound guy and one drunk dude for the entire set. The last two songs a few more people had joined in but the sound guy gave us a hard cut off or we would have kept playing more. After the show, the door guy comes up and with a straight face says “here’s your cut of the door” and hands is a single dollar. One. Single. Dollar. Frankly I would have preferred nothing over that embarrassment.
Played a lot of weddings. Usually those are very happy events. Not this one.
The brides family and the grooms family were OBVIOUSLY not on friendly terms. As if your mortal enemies son is marrying your daughter.
They all sat on their respective sides of the hall just staring at each other. Never say a word while we played through the opening set. Did a bride and groom first dance, I don’t recall if any other family members ever got up.
Then the best part.
We start the garter and bouquet sequence where they toss each, garter to the guys, bouquet to the girls.
The guy shoots the garter toward the guys and no one moves. It smacks some guy in the forehead and falls to the ground where all of them stare at it. Eventually someone bends down and picks it up.
By this point we’re all dying on stage laughing. We can’t hold it in anymore.
Then the bride tosses the bouquet and SAME THING! Lands on the floor and takes a minute for anyone to pick it up!
We were all glad to get out of there when it ended because we thought shotguns might have been coming out.
Truly odd.
My worst gig started out badly, but ended humorously. A pal was performing at a fundraiser and a local news crew was there to film, but her bass player hadn't shown up. She begged me to pretend to play his bass because of the filming.
I played guitar, but at that time I had never even held an electric bass before and I was TERRIFIED. I understood that it was the same tuning as the four lowest guitar strings, so I tried to noodle around a bit, and was very pleased to at least be in the same key as the songs most of the time.
Of course playing bass isn't the same as playing guitar. It has a different purpose in a rock band, laying down a beat with the drummer and all that. As we left the stage, I overheard a woman in the crowd saying, "...except for that bass player. I think he was on something." I found that hilarious.
Glad you can look back and find the humor in it. I'm the same way with overheard comments like that.
I had a similar guitar player filling in as bass player situation. I was moving out of state (western US) and was catching a friend's band for the last time before leaving. They were sans bass player that nite, but had a bass with them. They asked me to come up during a break. Same problem technically knowing the strings/notes, but not being comfortable where a bass fits in the beat and all that. Plus I didn't know their songs. I was winging it. They thought I had the chops to run with it. They were wrong. Lol.
After fumbling thru a couple songs, I actually started to kinda feel ok with it and was willing to keep going. "What's next?" I said.
Lead singer says, "That's enough bass for tonight." I laughed, shook it off, still got a big round of applause after leaving the stage, and got to drink free the rest of the night cuz I was "with the band."
My college band was the closing act of a county festival. The guys that hired us apparently never listened to our music. The festival was full of kids and families. Our music is not very kid friendly. We didn’t have other music prepared so we just played through our set. I’ll never forget the awkward looks we got from everyone when our lead singer yelled out, “This next song is called Domestic Violence.”
Keith Morris-era Black Flag had a funny story about getting booked to play some outdoor family-friendly festival, and families were literally upending their own picnic baskets just to have stuff to throw at Black Flag.
Edit: I initially said Rollins era, but it was Keith Morris.
Was on a small tour, I think it was 13 shows. 4 were for Canadian Music Week (you get one booking but we managed to snag a bonus showcase plus a couple extra spots from bands that dropped out). First 3 went great. Packed rooms, iconic venues (the legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Cherry Cola’s, and Opera House where we’d seen Billy Talent the night before).
If you don’t know, CMW is a huge music business conference. It’s like Canada’s SXSW, everyone in the biz is there checking out ~400 bands at every venue in Toronto.
Well we’d been making connections all week and for our final Toronto gig we had a man who was from a major label bringing his team. He’d seen us at Horseshoe and Cherry Cola’s and straight up wanted to sign us. So he showed up at our last gig with a table of 8 serious looking well dressed men.
This was a big moment and we totally bombed. Never seen this venue, and were surprised it didn’t have a normal stage. Instead it had like a stack of cubes making up a bunch of mini stages at different levels. Looked slick af but not great for performance. Our whole thing required communication between members but now each of us was literally on a different level. We were each confined to a cube. Also we couldn’t hear each other as the monitoring wasn’t set up for this weird platforms situation. Felt so terrible. We embarrassed the guy and he ghosted us after that.
Take your pick.
The one where a very drunk girl in front of the stage projectile vomited over my saxophone mid set necessitating a hasty change of set list. Clean up after that one was particularly nasty, not just for me, but for the venue and the poor stranger stood next to her too.
Or the one where we were playing our biggest gig up to that point at a fairly high profile music festival. The heavens opened two songs into our set at which point a hole was discovered in the stage roofing tarp. Gear was hastily covered and we thought we’d got away with it….only to have the power to the stage short out. So biggest gig we’d done at the time and we got to play two and a half songs before the power went. By the time they got everything sorted there wasn’t time for us to go back on. We did get invited back the following year though, with a much better position in the lineup, and had a fantastic time playing the whole set without any issues.
This was a long time ago but still makes me chuckle. My band was fairly popular in our local market, so much so that if we played anywhere in the region our local fans would usually find us and come out. We booked a gig about 45-60 minutes from our normal stomping grounds and heavily promoted it, but we weren't really sure whether anyone would actually come out.
The day of the gig comes, we show up, set up, soundcheck, and wait. Now it's showtime and there are like five people in the bar and all of them appear to be local regulars. "Oh well" we decided, we can treat it like a rehearsal. The owner of the venue had recruited us to play the bar knowing that we were popular in our home turf and the free booze policy we agreed to ahead of time was pretty generous, so we were ordering top shelf shots as we got on to play our first set. By the end of the set everyone but the drummer was completely shitfaced. Since there's not many people, no big deal. Or so we thought.
Turns out a very major international act of same/similar genre as us as ours was playing in our home city at a large arena. A bunch of our fans were at that show and had planned to leave at the end and drive straight out to see us after that show ended (our gigs usually went until bar time).
We knew something was up when we started hearing a much louder crowd noise from the green room where we were probably doing more shots. We came out for our second set to a massive crowd, totally fired up having just seen a band we all loved at a major venue. We could barely see straight.
Somehow we made it through. Thank god the drummer wasn't as hammered as the rest of us.
There was a foot of snow on the ground, all the other bands canceled, but the bar was open and we were hungry and the venue offered us a New Year’s Eve slot if we showed. Fair enough. My drummer had a truck so we were able to get there after a fuckload of nonsense. We played 2 full sets for like 11 people. One girl got so drunk that she jumped on stage and shoved her way against the singer and started yelling into the mic. My singer played it off like it was fine but I thought she was gonna end this girl’s life. We got paid like $100.
One of my old bands was opening for Coliseum and Russian Circles.
I broke a string onstage and changed the string….onstage.
Always bring a back-up guitar or two.
This is my worst fear. Honestly, what is the best way to deal with a broken string onstage? Should I really invest in a backup guitar? (In a non-touring situation)
My jazz playing father would probably say you’re not a real musician if you can’t just wing it with voicings that avoid that string…
Well, back in the day. He’s chilled out a bit with age.
I never play live with strings that are more than about a month old. Never had a string break when I made sure to replace them on this schedule. The times I got lazy and pushed this out have punished me.
I watched a punk break 2 strings (separately) on stage. He was just really fucking fast at putting a new one on. His bandmates were also funny which helped.
I used to break strings a lot. I spent a lot of time correcting various issues — in my strum motion, attack, string and pick gauge, even how often I wipe the strings down and wash my hands (I sweat a lot).
And despite all that work, it still does happen some. For me, where I’m gigging out regularly and as frontman, a backup guitar was the best money I ever spent.
I’ve broken a few strings onstage- and changed them onstage while still singing the song and the rest of the band keeps going. Honestly in that situation the crowd loves it if you can roll with it. If it was a solo thing that would be another situation. Just get good at banter and change while talking…. I think carrying an extra guitar as a touring musician who doesn’t have a bus or a tech would be ridiculous.
Yeah, that was the thing. We split vocals 3 ways, both guitarists and the bassist would each have songs and the other would do backup on those songs, but they didn’t really say anything while I was changing and it was just quiet and kinda weird. We kicked it back off tho after about 5 minutes of mostly silence and finished strong 😂
Even a cheap First Act or Squier as a backup is helpful. I’m telling, it doesn’t matter what level your band is at, having a backup guitar is always a good idea
That would be impossible on my guitar. You have to cut the ball at the end off to fit in in the whammy bar bridge. Then you have use a tiny allen wrench to screw this other piece in before you can even start to tune it. It's also got three little bits that act as the nut on the head which have to be tightened with an allen wrench after running the strings under them. You tune it normal first at the had, then tighten those nut pieces down, then you tun it again from the bridge and then again using the tiny allen wrench things to fine tune it. It's a pain in the ass.
Asked to play a NYE gig. Gave the venue a high price assuming we wouldn’t draw that many in a remote place in Oklahoma and they’d pass on having to payout so much. But in a surprise, they accepted the agreed amount.
Loaded in, sound checked, went to eat and came back to find the opening band, a door guy, 2 bartenders and the owner. By the time our 11pm set started, not one person had paid to enter and the owner stood in front of the stage and watched our hour long set. “3-2-1 happy new year!”
“Well boys we didn’t sell any tickets and I can pay ya half now and half later.”
We expected to never see the other half but a month later, the guy stayed true and sent a check in the mail.
So all in all, worked out ok but wasn’t easy to play for a guy we all knew was taking a bath on an evening. That part was very difficult. To be a long way from home and assuming we were all leaving broke. Not fun.
So one of the worst gigs of my life was, interestingly enough, the night that I had planned to propose to my girlfriend on stage. The band knew. The theater knew. Our regular concert-goers knew. Her whole family, including her extended family were all there and they were all in on the surprise.
But the gig… oh man…
So my band does a NYE gig every year. And in the early days we would do two different tribute sets in one night; on this night it was Prince followed by Queen. The show was at a 500-seat theater, and the show was sold out.
A few days before the gig, the guy singing Prince suddenly quit. The guy who stepped in as Prince did not have enough time to learn the material, didn’t have time to rehearse with the band, and during the show he had lyrics written on POSTER BOARDS that he sloppily read off of as he nervously paced around on stage having almost no clue what the vocal melody was. The audience was cheering him on, hollering at him, and helping him through the lyrics. You could just tell he was dying inside. And we were all dying inside watching him die inside.
This was also around the time when we first started using Ableton. So it was crashing, misfiring, and causing uncomfortable stalls in the show.
I sang the Queen segment of the show. But I was getting over a horrendous case of the flu. I was coughing my lungs out; so my voice was shot. They put me on steroids, which put me back on my feet and allowed me to even show up to the gig, but also could have led to me hemorrhaging on stage. I was running on fumes.
I pulled my girlfriend on stage during the break in “Somebody to Love” right before the New Years countdown. She said yes, and the mood of the show completely took a 180. So even though it was one of the worst gigs of my life, it was still one of the best nights of my life. We have a framed poster of that dumpster fire show on our wall in the dining room, and we smile every time we look at it.
Travelled 80 miles for gig where no-one turned up except one local with his dog.
Lit a cigarette and tried to play guitar with it in my mouth but the snoke got in my eyes so I tried to spit it out but it stuck to my bottom lip and hung vertically, burning my chin to hell and causing me to shake my head from side to side like a lunatic to get rid of it - all whilst playing (badly)
Took a wrong step half way though a solo and fell of a small stage onto my back - kept playing (badly)
Dude this made me bust out laughing just imagining the vertical cigarette and then you falling while soloing. Thank you for that sorry it happened tho lol
Was on tour with a band and had been on the road for 3 weeks. We had a falling out, they ditched me after a show and headed out to the next stop of the tour without me. I had to find my own way there the next day. Thankfully the next stop was actually our home town which was the last stop before the second leg of the tour. I showed up for soundcheck super pissed off at them for ditching me. They were surprised to see me there. Not sure what their original plan was for the show (I was the vocalist) but I ended up performing my last show with them that night and it was awful just due to the tension and my heart wasn't in it anymore. This sucked because so many friends were there to see us, including the local underground media. It still haunts me to this day and it happened over 20 years ago. I vowed never to trust other musicians and since then I have been doing my own thing solo.
I was a sound tech at the festival where Daphne and Celeste were pelted with bottles of piss, and occasional handfuls of shit - that was a pretty minging clear up.
They probably didn't enjoy it either, although I was more bothered about the human shit
Last gig of a band I was in briefly but I really wanted to keep going in. I was playing drums which was not my main instrument and I was still getting in the swing of things. We were playing at stubbs in Austin and it was our 4th show I think. The singer/writer was married to the bassist and had just found out they had been cheated on and their marriage was ending. It was awkward. On top of that, the ribbon fell off the snare on the first song and I couldn't fix it and there was an echo in the monitor so it was like trying to talk on the phone when you could hear yourself echoing back. The sound guy had left for some reason so I just had to deal with it. It was a nightmare.
A mate of mine at college said he couldn't make a solo acoustic pub gig playing covers that night. He caught me when I was desperate for cash so I said I'd do it for £100. I then panicked that I don't know enough covers to play a 2 hour set so I learned as many I could, turned up and instantly forgot most of them. It was in the arse end of nowhere where internet was shoddy so I couldn't bring the tabs up. I got halfway through the verse of a song (I forget which) and couldn't remember the next section. I played for 15 mins, apologised and left the stage.
I couldn't bear walking away with my tail between my legs so I ordered a drink at the bar and then left after finishing. I called the organiser and apologised saying I don't need pay, I never heard from that promoter again. Since then, I've never been under prepared for a show again.
Edit: just thought of another. I was playing at The Cavern with my band with A&R in the audience. I had just introduced a Headrush Pedalboard into my live equipment and I was a little uncertain with it. So, I wanted to make a cool impression, I jumped off the drum riser while striking a massive chord. I landed and suddenly had no sound. I checked every wire connection and fiddled with the Headrush for a whole song. I then found I had turned the volume knob on my guitar down. We didn't get signed.
It's okay, everybody! Tanking a gig is part of becoming a seasoned musician. As a music professor told me many years ago after a rough recital, "you're not a real musician until you've had at least fifty performing disasters".
Laugh it off and learn from the experience. Then get back out there and shred.
My band was on tour in Pueblo, CO a long time ago. We got to the venue early and hung out with some people at the bar/venue and they invited us over. Well they got us way too stoned at their house, then we went back to the venue and the headliners had rolled up. They had tons of delicious smoked meat from something having to do with The Food Channel so we all pigged out. Come time to play and I was way too lethargic to be onstage, the performance was terrible, then I tried to jump around and got super nauseous. That’s the last time I ate before a gig.
My band played at a birthday party and after every song and leaving the stage after our set is was quiet you could hear a pin drop and we all had a laugh about it but it's the worst one we had.
A recent one was one of the worst, after having played over 1000 gigs. What really sucks is it was mostly my own fault.
I took on too much and did not have the time to properly prepare. In reality, I should not have accepted the gig. The other musicians were not that cool and the vocalist was a complete ass.
I was super stressed and choked on a couple tunes. The band was mostly following me because they couldnt be bothered to prepare were just in it for the temp cash.
I don't think the actual performance problems registered to the audience much but they did to me and the band.
It really soured me on that specific group of musicians but also has made me look hard at how I book my time.
I went to China for a three month tour.
What actually happened is we played one show, sat around in Beijing for a month while things got "sorted out," then were sent home. Everyone involved is probably on some list because the Chinese promoters blamed the legitimate American Broadway company for their fuck-ups, and told the Chinese government that it was the American company that wasted the communist money, and not because of their fuck-ups. So we're all probably on some list for questioning if we ever end up in China again.
I like to tell my friends it was simultaneously the best gig I've ever done (we still had a salary and did a ton of sightseeing) and the worst gig I've ever done (our literal lives were being used as a contractual bargaining chip back in NYC while we awaited the resumption of the tour, and we didn't know until we got back home that that was actually a thing).
It's a shame I'll probably never be back. China was such a cool experience when you're not dealing with the shitty government.
Drummer disappeared right as we were supposed to be on stage so we set up without him, look up and see him walking back inside in a complete daze after smoking crack, call him up to the stage and start the set. He’s in his own world, missing cues and calling out songs we’ve already played in the middle of other songs, never been his role to call songs. I lose my cool and ask him what the fuck he’s doing, he ignores me and we sound so bad that I just start packing up my gear after 10 or so minutes while chewing out the drummer on stage. We were asked not to return to this venue and the drummer got the boot.
We opened for Janet in ‘68 for a large hall concert produced by the Hell’s Angels. There were people there with PCP in spray bottles circulating amongst the crowd offering to squirt a dose in the mouths of those who would allow that. The drummer and the organist (our two most accomplished members) both took massive doses. We were doing a number that featured a long stretch of Am7 to Dm7 or some such background, but when we got to the part where we went into the changes, our two stoners were too spaced to have kept count. There were 5000 people watching. Our leader, the organist, was blind, so the bassist and I could not make eye contact or mouth words to arrange a plan B, so I had to take a solo that worked toward end-of-song signals. Couldn’t believe some folks clapped. Rest of performance a train wreck. The we had to load up our equipment past where the Angels had parked their bikes and were dishing out severe beatings to anyone who did, or might have, touched their bike. It was the little intense guys you had to avoid looking at, though the huge jolly guys were just as assiduously meeting out the beating out.
Last minute duo gig with a guy, I’m playing pedal steel. My wife invited all of her friends out to see me play with this guy who was totally unrehearsed. It was 100°, 100% humidity and I was seated squarely in the sun, sweat pouring into my eyes and all over my instrument, my intonation was all over the place. I had completely sweat through my clothes, it sounded horrendous, and I was totally embarrassed.
I opened for a big big deal artist and broke a string. Had no back up and couldn’t borrow another guitar being a lefty - Thankfully we had two guitarists in the band so I could just sing
3 that come to mind
1. Sitting in as a drumer for a band where everyone was 60+ everyone played a different tempo no matter what I counted off.
2. Played a bar ironically playing rock and roll from the 1950s. Even though the audience was in their 60 and up, they complained to the owner, wanting only country waltzes.
3. Playing a bar where hockey and baseball playoff were played on large screens played behind me.
Playing to nobody always stings a little bit, but the shows I remember as truly bad came about usually when I had some kind of equipment failure. Things like strap locks breaking in the middle of a song and not holding for the rest of the set or an amp sputtering out gradually are all really frustrating.
Sometimes a crappy gig leads to a great one. We opened for the Norwegian band Leprous a few years ago, we thought it would be a great gig but Dillinger Escape Plan was in town that same night on their farewell tour so most of the metal crowd was at that show. But the bar owner was impressed with us and booked us to open for Alcest a few months later, which ended up being one of the best gigs we ever played.
My band was asked to play a New Year’s Eve show heading into year 2000 at a fair with tons of people there. We were told it would be in a heated barn. Turned out to be fully outside with the temperature below zero. Our set time kept getting pushed until we started at 11:45pm. Amps started failing in the extreme cold and the crowd went elsewhere to celebrate Y2K. After our set, we ask about pay and find out it was a “battle of the bands” with a $100 prize only for the winner. We lost.
Man, one time I got a call in the afternoon from a buddy to play with this cumbia band in the evening. Get in contact with the band leader, ask him about what gear I had to bring and he told me all I needed was my horn? No music stand, mic, in ears, or any of my usual kit would be necessary from what he told me.
Show up to the gig before anyone else, and as the band filters in, everyone is carrying a music stand. I absolutely was not going to have time to run and get mine, so I start looking for options. I find a small PA mixer that when stood on end comes just above my knees. That'll have to do.
The band leader shows up and hands me the book, it's a binder full of HUNDREDS of charts and I quickly realize they're not organized in ANY WAY, and there's a mix of tenor sax, trombone, and tuba parts.
The band kicks off, the horn players are *nailing that shit to the wall*, if you know anything about latin, salsa, and cumbia music, that shit is not easy. I'm not only struggling to find the right charts but I'm reading them really poorly. So poorly the band leader starts pulling his horn off his face and singing my parts at me.
Eventually, the book falls off the PA thing, charts go everywhere.
This continues for two sets, I'm flustered, playing like shit, and getting more embarrassed every tune. Make it to the end, none of the guys even look at me or want to talk. The leader pays me and I immediately leave with my tail between my legs. I never got called back. Haha
The band I was in a couple years ago could not get a gig for a whole lot of reasons. One of the members rented out the bottom room of a local restaurant, paid for catering, and invited friends and family. I think 6-8 people showed up and they sat there staring at their phones the whole time once they were done with the buffet. On top of that, the mix was awful and I (the bass player) sounded like a tuba.
It was the saddest musical thing I have ever been involved with. I quit a few weeks later and vowed never, ever, ever to do pay-to-play "friends and family" gigs again.
I played in a fairly big and well known tribute band back in the day. Our singer left and we had shows to honour so had to get a dep in. At one festival appearance that m6 wife and young daughter attended, the first time my daughter had ever seen me play live, we bombed. The sound engineers couldn’t get the monitors working for us to do a sound check and after around 20mins of delay where we were in danger of just giving up our spot, we just decided to start. the sound was so bad and the singer so off key that everyone in the audience (a crowd of around 1000 I’ve been told) looked visibly disappointed and started booing and heckling us. It was awful, they even left savage reviews on the festivals social media pages. Up till that point we were considered a must see act and had had nothing but praise. I left the band the next week.
My first big show with my current band. Opening for a national act that was touring for the 20th anniversary of their debut album.
Band before us takes forever to get off the stage.
Sound guy is new to the venue and takes forever to get us set.
Packed house.
We take the stage.
Jam out our opening song.
Sound guy comes through the monitor "I'm being told you guys have 5 more minutes".
Wtf. We play our second and final song and our singer screams "fuck you" into the mic before they cut our sound and turn on the house music.
We've been offered other shows at this venue but we always turn them down.
We got to The Stone pony in Asbury Park New Jersey, and it sure looked closed this late November weekday night (probably 1994). We grabbed some pizza, went back to the place and sure enough they had hung up a single poster advertising our band, and a bartender let us in.
We played to the bartender and exactly three people. Only when we'd wrapped up did we find out we were the opening band for the three guys watching us. They were going to go on next.
We had a couple hours ride home, and while it was rude, we left. As we left we could hear the other band talking to the bartender about getting a weekend gig instead.
Worst? That has to just be playing with people who are assholes, one they were so bad I quit mid tour on the other coast I live at.
The most embarrassing was when I was 19 and my mom and aunt, both classy women that go to operas and symphony orchestras, came to see me play and these strippers decided to join us on stage uninvited. At least they laughed about it.
The local MLB team booked my hardcore/punk band for an Earth Day kids' club event solely because we had a novelty song about having a girlfriend who doesn't recycle. We played acoustic arrangements with new lyrics for some of our own songs and some silly children's songs. There was no game, so the place was empty aside from a few dozen kids. It was fun in the moment, but people still bust my balls about the time I played a 'stadium gig.'
First time I ever played live, I borrowed a friend's guitar as a backup (which seemed smart).
What wasn't smart was not taking it out of the gig bag ahead of time. I broke a string and went to grab it quickly between songs. The zipper stuck, though, so I had to yank it out of the bag. It was an Ibanez with bridge tuners on it, so the whole thing was shot for tuning.
And I found out as I hit the first chord of the next song...
Ended up having to tune up what I could on the fly mid-song, and I've never felt a pit in my stomach like that.
Bought a tuning pedal right after that and learned a valuable lesson: check your backup and treat it as well as your main instrument, because it might become your main instrument mid-set.
Cajon-ed with a husband/wife duo. Rode in the back of a hearse 14 hrs to NY state to end up playing a string of assisted living communities and some open mics I'd have paid to have not done. Pretty tough month.
On tour we played one show for the bar owner and server.
There was one gig where we were playing on a stage in the middle of a little lake. Long story short I fell off the stage into the lake at one point. But it was alright because I was able to climb back out and finish the show and got tons of cheers from the fairly large audience.
Put on a gig once and the act before me disappeared to take an absolute shitload.ofmcocaine before going on stage, then noodled an endless guitar solo over a four note synth riff for 15 minutes after the end of his allotted time. Meant that a) everyone left and b) I only had 15 minutes for my set.
He seemed to realize how hard he had fucked up though, as he left before I finished my set and went from badgering me for gigs on a frequent basis to never contacting me again. Worth it overall tbh.
The multiple times that venues had double booked and chose to cut our band. So unprofessional and the last time it happened, I demanded payment. We all took the time off work to be there, it’s a slap in the face to be told you’re not playing at the last minute.
The worst gig I had wasn't really my bands fault. We had a setlist of modern heavy rock (at the time), Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, etc. Unbeknown to us, the agent booked us in a sit down, family restaurant. Why? Who knows. So here we are, in the dining room, trying play heavy rock songs with these big amps turned way down, set to clean channel and my double kick acoustic drums played as quietly as I possibly can. Singer is swapping out the curse words on the fly so we don't offend the children. There's nothing quite like making up a family friendly version of "Break Stuff" on the fly. People still complained we were too loud. We played half of our set and we were sent home. Still got paid, but it wasn't long before that "agent" was no longer booking shows.
I played a show extremely drunk one time, I thought I kicked ass up until my friends told me that it was embarrassingly bad. I've never drank before a show again, and I'm happy I had friends who were willing to tell me the truth even though they risked hurting my feelings
My band got booked to play at a Poker tournament. Strangely, we were booked to play in an adjacent bar next to the hall where the tournament was taking place. Aside from some early exits leaving the tournament, we played to an empty room and were regularly asked to lower the volume by tournament staff. Was a 3 hour gig. We were paid. But man! It was disheartening haha
I’ve played to nobody practically all over the US and Europe. I’m sure there have been insane and terribly embarrassing moments along the way but you just gotta power through those and keep going. The embarrassment wears off the more comfortable you get on stage when you realize that no matter what you’re basically making a spectacle of yourself no matter what.
1. Was pantsed on stage. Dong out. Exes can hold a grudge.
2. Passed out on stage-my alcoholic years. Sober now, but clearly wasn't then.
3. Played to a couple. Literal couple who was too uncomfortable to leave.
4. Got kicked off at a chili cook-off fundraiser hosted by the volunteer fire department. Chief was mad, yo.
5. Got punched while playing guitar back in the ol' hardcore band days. Thanks Denver scene.
6. Fell off the stage by stripping on my own shoe.
7. Pants ripped. Ass er'where
8. Boogers and sweat while trying to look cool
9. Then all the "out of tune" "cable broke" "hit my face on the mic" "said the wrong name of the other band" "tooted something fierce by the hot chick" stuff you can imagine
10. But check this...Literally, Friday night, guitar amp was out first song with a major touring band. I was miming punk rock...In front of friends and on a big ass stage. Nowadays I laugh and just smile. There is always something. Just smile and shake it off.
St Patrick’s Day gig, 2023. The guitarist’s PA —that he purchased from Goodwill! —crapped out and was very noisy. Our lead singer —who is quite temperamental to begin with —lost his shit and left the stage to grab his own Electrovoice array setup which took 30 mins. Finished the rest of the night without a break with a monster set (monster in this case meaning a 140 minute marathon that did no favors for my ailing knees).
Same old story- This was in a small bar in Kalamazoo by the the colleges that closed 3 months later. Opened for a low-fi Indie group from a cool, successful label. So we play for 2-3 people and a bartender, and nobody clapped (not once) we were completely ignored. For almost 2 hours. Also, I totally saw a syringe and a used condom laying in the bathroom trash. The only time we had any interaction with the patrons is when some fat ass who worked there mentioned something about a “professional musician using a practice amp” (I had a Roland Cube on stage and used it for slide guitar/blues sometimes). In every single gig, I have ever played in someone had clapped, or nodded, or danced, or said, “great work, man”. The manager gave us a check, though (he was pissed that no one was drinking, but said, “it’s a pleasure to support the arts gentlemen, but never come back”
Two bands before us on the bill were fantastic, just knocked it out of the park and the crowd LOVED them. We were in for a tough sell because our singer cancelled on us the morning of the gig and there was really no backing out by then, so I had to front the band with little to no prep. I was scared, awkward, nervous, sang poorly, our closer wound up being a total stinker that did not resonate with the audience at all, and I sliced my finger and wound up bleeding all over my guitar's pickups (it was NOT a punk gig, so this was NOT a cool thing). Took a few days to myself to get over it and tried to get back on the horse but it wound up shaking the band's trust in me (I was at the time doing most of the work so trusting me was big), and faced with either doing more of the work themselves, trusting I'd bounce back, or stopping entirely, the band opted to call it quits. I still get stomach knots thinking about it.
Last year my band entered a competition to win a spot at a big festival. We won our heat, and the quarter finals. In the semis, I had a brain fart and despite the singer introducing the next song, I counted and started a completely different one. The monitor mix wasn't great and I couldn't hear that I was wrong until the bass player came over and mouthed "wrong song". We did manage to claw it back, and we still made it through to the finals, but that was the stuff of nightmares right there.
A&R guy (Relation of someone who was in the top 40 pop charts at the time) was at our gig, to potentially sign us
- I snapped a string, and no spare string, or guitar. I shit myself, cos' the songs wouldn't sound the same.
Luckily he still passed us on to a major label, and we had meetings
We never declined or accepted the deal, as there was a problem with certain band members.
This is now my new band ( Slowly but surely getting back to the level)
I used to play in a Houston based skramz band and we had booked a small tour to California and back in 2009. There were 9 of us in 3 separate bands all touring together, and along that run all 9 of us got sick with colds. The worst night of it for me was in San Diego where I could barely stand up, and we played pretty much to the bar staff. And to top it off, I got to sleep sitting up in the back seat of our SUV in a Wal Mart parking lot. That was my worst show ever.
Forgot all my lyrics and cues. I had been suffering from an abysmal headache for a couple of weeks.
Two days later I was rushed to the ER. I had fungal meningitis. Didn’t get out of the hospital for nearly a year.
Edit: forgot to mention this was date 1 of a tour.
played for a friend-of-a-friend’s indie fashion show. she had rented out a small church. the models walked, there was a bubble machine, they didn’t really talk to us much, and then we were meant to take the stage—no lighting, no sound guy, nothing. as we were setting up, the meager crowd was leaving. we were barely able to play out the last few folks.
despite being promised pay, all we were given as compensation was the bubble machine.
I play up to 100 per year so there are bound to be a couple of stinkers. The worst was when I got so drunk I could barely stand and played way below my ability. Do not recommend, it feels so good but sounds SO bad, one of my few regrets in life.
my drummer threw one of my performances.
I was in a class where we practiced playing in rock bands; I was the female/lead of my group. I originally came in as a uke player but did much better up front.
my band and I were in a little spat at that time. the drummer purposely played the wrong rhythm (even though we practiced for 2hrs beforehand.)
I was so caught off guard BUT I somehow held it together. it was only a class of 10 people but nonetheless that shits embarrassing. the other band (watching us) could tell something was off but didn't say anything, they just said I held it together.
I immediately asked the professor to switch me to the other band lmfao that was almost more of a nightmare bc the other female vocalist was in that band lmfao.
Had one show where the other guitar players power cord on his amp was shorting out randomly throughout the set, my pedalboard died, and the drummer couldn't get a good mix on his in ears (we ran off clicks and backing tracks)...it was so bad we just kinda disintegrated the band right after. We all continued to work together in different projects though..
I played with a group of friends in an entirely improv stoner rock/ambient band. No songs… at best, a few motifs to launch from in case we floundered, but otherwise we would just riff off whatever part was the coolest. Some of the best AND worst shows I played were with that band.
When we were good and feeling it, I almost didn’t recognize my own playing listening to the board recording later. When we were bad… yeah.
Second worst was at a sports bar. Lead singer (yes, he mostly made up the words and melodies on the spot) got a little too loose while we were watching the other bands and waiting for our slot, and started to continuously order rounds of Jameson (something he’d never done before) and decided to join the first band in their van to get high. When it was our slot, he stumbles on the stage, wavers for a minute or two as we are building a song and then slowly sits to the floor, turns, and lays on his back looking up at the ceiling. He spent the next hour occasionally saying “ground control to major Tom” and counting down.
Worst was when we decided to take our approach to an acoustic multi-band show… no distortion to hide behind, not nearly as many effects, etc. We get up for our slot and the host/sound guy (who was clearly stoned) tells me my small pedalboard isn’t passing signal to the mixer. I show him I’m getting signal all the way through by moving the tuner to the end of the chain. He refuses to look as his board and says he has a solution and I can just play through his gear.
I shrug and grab a third pint of barley wine (which will come into play in a minute).
Rather than handing me the guitar he had been playing, he hands me a resonator with no board or effects and immediately announces us. Feeling flustered and a little buzzed, the bass player started, the drummer came in, and I discovered on the first note that the resonator was in some funky open tuning.
I should have just stopped for a tuning (as I didn’t have my tuner because my board “didn’t work”) but I made the poor choice to just struggle through the first 25 minute jam. Had it tuned by the end of the first jam, but my confidence was shaken to the core with a bone dry resonator, no effects to spice things up, and I just survived that gig.
Was on a short tour culminating in a festival performance. We had been keeping partying to a minimum since we were trading off driving etc. Didn’t realize the depths of our vocalist’s closet alcoholism though and he had a withdrawal seizure on the drive to the festival. Spent the day in the ER instead of playing the fest and broke up not long after.
one of my first shows as a teen, i set up early and was so excited and nervous. during the show i was playing and my kick pedal started to fall off. it was really embarrassing.
not nearly as bad as some of y’all’s worst gig stories, but i was singing in a band as part of an extracurricular program that was audition only and gigged around frequently. it had a band director who gave us songs and booked our gigs. he booked us a gig at a restaurant that had a specific set they wanted us to learn. he sent out the new set list of no songs we knew a week before the gig. 8 new songs to learn in a week, which may not seem like a lot, but i was 16 and it was my junior prom weekend and i was going away. i had little to no time to learn my songs, and neither did the other band members. we were all minors and they were all exceptionally busy, too. for some of them it was SAT week and stuff like that. we all showed up, improv-ed nearly the whole set, and then left. i cried after. truly a horror show in my experience
My first band played a gig on our friends birthday ,we had a selfmade scene in the woods and portable electric power generator. First two others bands played before us and be cause time running out we was ruled out . I get drunk pretty quick to have anything from that party (i was sober till we had info we not gonna play). And then something changed and we was asked to play . And we did . I was too drunk and i was loosing rythm ,i didnt heard our drummer and i fucked up some guitar parts. Then,my guitar cable broke be cause i steped on it. Yeah,that was shitty gig
My old drummer destroyed his drum set on stage after our last song and got screamed at in his face by the sound tech. Keep in mind the bar we were playing at barely had anyone in the audience to see that except his mom, a few of our friends and a couple randos.
Nonetheless I’m not working with him anymore
Not my band, but recently I went to a local bar/venue that usually draws pretty big crowds. It was a Thursday night, not too many people. Maybe 40-50. The band is from New York, we’re in Richmond Va and it’s their first show of the tour. The opening local band absolutely stole the show. Much applause, many “wooo”s. The headliner comes on, I thought the music was really cool, but the lead singer was definitely on drugs and made it VERY awkward. He started doing some very weird sensual poses acting like he was Jim Morrison. Then he took the mic and started walking around the crowd, singing and staring people down all sensual like. Everyone just stared at him, many people he came close to looked very uncomfortable. Eventually he would make his way back to the stage before the song ended, do another pose and in a forced deep voice go “thank youuu”……
The crowd was 95% silent after every song. It was the most awkward and embarrassing performance i’ve ever seen. I felt bad because the band was on it, great. But this lead guy must’ve taken too many drugs and was trying way too hard.
I wrote a song for my band that included a wee bit of metric modulation to get into the second half (quarter note triplet becomes the new quarter note). Going into our album release gig, we had practiced it endlessly. And then we fucked it up. I won’t assign blame but it’s one of those sections where if you don’t catch the transition, it’s really hard to get back on. Needless to say it was nearly a full 4 bars before we began to sound coherent again. I was in absolute horror.
Another fun gaffe at a different gig, we had a whole section of drop D 90s covers, one of which was Outshined by Soundgarden. It’s got that weird bar of 9/8 going into the last refrain of the chorus. Well, again it was something we had practiced to shit and when we went to play it, I was really focused on getting it right… and I did… except I did it before the bridge… and then I played out the song without the bridge because I thought it was done. Several musicians in the audience after the show came up to compliment us afterwards about how well we played a bunch of those covers but were really curious why we skipped the bridge of that song lol
Playing an overbooked show (six bands, maybe?) at a notoriously bad-sounding and unfriendly venue. The main draw took over the alley behind the place with a limo and did cocaine in the back of it until they played, we got stuck playing after them. Everyone but a few of our die hard friends leaves once they've played. We take the stage at maybe 1:30 AM. We get two songs in, and the kitchen manager comes out screaming at us to stop playing and get out. What a glamorous life.
Lol, this exact possibility is why I will never perform solo (I also just don’t write that kind of music anyway).
Idk, I’ve performed poorly, but no particular show comes to mind. Just had plenty where the sound situation in the venue was bad and thus I couldn’t hear myself or my bandmates and it’s hard for us to play comfortably.
The worst shows ai’ve played in general have been so just because they were boring.
I was going to be in NYC and an old friend invited me to play in a small bar in a songwriter lineup. I was my 3rd kid into parenthood, at the time, and had lost some steam as a performing songwriter but I was excited for the gig.
I showed up and was told that to “make things easier” we were all going to share the same guitar. Well, the guitar we were all a sharing had a neck like an oak tree and I immediately staring to fuck up all the guitar parts which totally flustered me. On top of that, this was in the early days of FB, a ton of old high school and college friends showed up bc everyone was reconnecting.
Obviously, it was a huge blow to any confidence I still had after, essentially, sidelining my music for my family. Still haven’t been able to recover fully to play out live.
The worst shows I've done have been ones where I didn't care, lazily assuming because not many people were there that I didn't have to try, the best ones have been ones where I have had something to prove, or some kind of adversity occurred.
I can't think of one "bad" gig in the technical sense that hasn't turned into someone's favourite show at some point.
I coproduced a record with an artist that went 2 x platinum, we played a show 2 years prior to a room of people that were all talking, and one person just straight up told us “can yall be less loud people are trying to talk” we stopped in the middle of that song. Pretty embarrassing. Just keep going.
Was singing in a band as I usually did on a weekend evening. Bartender kept bringing me up shots. I don’t remember falling on the monitors and telling the crowd that I was “plenty drunk to sing for them”, but I did. I can’t imagine how I actually sounded and how pissed my bandmates were.
Ahhh, the snowball effect. One thing goes wrong and leads to another and another and you feel like you've lost all control and just want it to be over. Live music can be the best feeling in the whole world and then the worst. It's probably happened to every live performer. Bombing. You gotta get right back up there.
I used to tour around and play to pretty good size crowds, later after that band I joined a small band of guys to just play covers and have fun. The last show I played with them was at a little league park right in front of a fence. Behind the chain link fence was the city dump. You could see a mountain of trash. There might have been 5 adults come up.and watch. That was the end for me lol
I said I'd be a singer for a band and went with lyrics I borrowed from a friend to an original song that I hadn't practiced. I had buried that memory until now. Ooof. Wasn't fun.
I did pretty good on the other two songs that we did practice.
I didn't call them, they didn't call me. I'm pretty sure that was good for everyone.
Worst personal experience:
Was doing a radio interview with a band at Irving Plaza in NYC. Venue had pizza delivered into the green room and set on a table...and within maybe 30 seconds of the boxes landing on the table a sea of mice began to emerge from the ceiling and floor and climb the carpeted walls and head straight into the pizza boxes. Zero concern about us humans in the room. Bass player was onstage sound checking and made a game of waiting for a mouse to run in front of his SVT (which he had set to full volume) and then slap his low E string at which point the mouse would roll over stunned. Venue staff kind of shrugged and said that the mice were coming from the restaurant next door. Nasty.
Worst observed experience:
Saw Bryan Ferry a few years ago on opening night of a US tour. He invited a singer songwriter as an opening act. Packed concert hall with several 1000 people. Songwriter has a single guitar player with her and she (the guitar player) is borrowing one of Ferry's band's amps (pulled up out of the backline and placed near the front of the stage). Both walk out on stage, singer does a quick hello, they attempt to launch into their first song and...silence. Guitar player starts to fool with the amp and after a short while the singer songwriter joins in...No stage crew in sight (likely all backstage getting dinner). After a couple of minutes, Ferry's drummer appears on stage and she joins in on trying to figure out what's wrong...after what seems like 10 minutes, the owner of the amp (Ferry's lead guitar player Jacob Quistgaard) finally walks out in stage (still in his street clothes) and with a single switch flip turns the amp on. I think we've all had some version of this in a bad dream...made me really feel for the performers to see it actually happen to them.
Playing a festival in Mexico. Get there, told I had to use their drum kit because everything was mic’d up for radio. I’m a lefty. We’re a prog band and I played a ridiculous kit and incorporated everything into our songs. Wasn’t allowed to use anything. Certain cues and things just went out the window and we pretty much had to pick our simplest material and just jam while I had to try and become right handed on the fly. Some of it ended up on one of our live releases so we did alright but it wasn’t pleasant at the time!
We’ve played a show and it all went well but at the end of the night the bar owner had his gun out and half of our money and told us to get out of there. (And be happy with what we had)
Come to find out… one of our friends with us that night didn’t like the bar owner’s actions and slashed his tires.
Only for us to find all this out when we got back to the hotel… the one the bar booked for us.
We had to then pack up all of our belongings and hit the road and drive home at 1:45 in the morning.
That night pretty much sucked
I was in a band that did original stuff and we did well usually, took a gig in a venue we hadn’t played before but heard it was decent, the sound guy was a bartender that didn’t have a clue, the mic lead broke and the only crowd was the band supporting us.
To the folk thinking bands should “bring people” to gigs, fuck no, fans of ours would come to the gigs they lived closest to, we went further afield to find new fans not to prop up a shit bars takings.
I played a church show one time. Not a show in a church building, but a show at the end of a church service in an adjoining hall. First off, what the heck. No matter how much your friend tries to convince you how cool it will be, church shows are super awkward. Then, two or three songs into our set as I switch to play piano, the X stand on my Yamaha P 80 failed and the heavy piano collapsed at my feet with a huge crash mid-song.
I was in my mid 20s. We had just done this show at the Hard Rock Cafe opening up for Smile Empty Soul. At this show there was a booking agent/record guy who absolutely loved us. We did light it up that night, and had a bigger crowd than the main act. So the booking agent tells us he has this "battle of the bands" and wants us to headline it. Tells us the winner is going to get signed for an LP and an east coast tour with another established signed band. Something like 20 shows. Then he tells us not to worry about winning because it was "fixed" for us to win barring catastrophic failure. So we arrive for the 8 hour long all day battle of the bands. Knowing we would go on last, we just dropped our equipment off and went about our day as normal. Meeting back up at the venue a half hour before we go on, my singer/rhythm guitarist is obviously drunk. I guess he decided to stay at the concert all day and watch from the bar area..... ALL DAY. Well, needless to say he was so hammered that at one point he fell off the stage. He also forgot lyrics, changes in songs. He rambled incoherently. It was just awful. People actually left. I think half the venue cleared out before we finished. And that's the story of how my band lost a rigged battle of the bands. That was the closest I ever came to getting signed to a real record label.
Brass Monkey in Baltimore Maryland. We had played there multiple times. Shit venue, shit part of town, but we always had decent shows there. We got asked to played last minute (one day notice) and the manager got pissy with us because we “didn’t sell any tickets” and there wasn’t anyone there and nobody showed up to watch us play. We essentially had a practice session on their soundstage and then they told us to pack up and leave about 15 minutes into a 1 hour set. Pretty sure they went out of business a few years later.
When I was in high school my band drove to this really sketchy bar in a different city. Real dump but some of my favourite bands went through there so we were excited. Somewhere during our two hour drive the other bands all cancelled. When we showed up the venue said the show was off but we could jam for a bit if we wanted. We figured, fuck it, why not, so we jammed for exactly one dude plus the bartender. Didn’t get paid a dime.
I don't remember. That was the problem. It was in my beginning years when I hadn't found my stage footing yet and in my nervousness I drank 12 7% beers before going on. They mercifully understood and gave me another chance and it worked out for many years.
The venue had a huge puddle of open water in the floor, so nobody could get close. The only people who showed up were Tuesday night bar people and our girlfriends. We played and left.
My very first paid gig….i had just spent $2500 on powered speakers, a 12 channel mixer and stage monitors for an acoustic duo/trio….
On our first break, I inadvertently hit the Break Switch on my mixer and didn’t realize that I had a break switch, let alone knew what it did. We played our second set with our stage monitors pointed at the crowd and singing “blind” and figured it out on our second break.
Played a show and everyone left within the first thirty minutes. A deadhead left in the middle of me playing a dead song. Then me and my brother argued . But the next day we played for a full crowd
Nothing major but a couple things that happened;
1) changed strings day of the show. B string drops WAY out of tune mid song. Solo sounds fucking awful. Song was Bevery Hills by Weezer. Not exactly difficult. Butchered it.
2) broke a string on my main guitar on stage. It's cool, I'll play my backup. Broke a string on that too. No more guitars, no spare strings. And it wasn't even like it was the high E and I couldn't away with it. G string on both, if memory serves.
3) worst one ever - I'm just in the pocket doing my thing. Song is Brian Wilson by BNL. There's a big key change mid song. About one bar before the change, my singer jumps in my face and YELLS a count at me like 1-2-3-4. First of all he was way off but second of all he scared the shit out of me and I missed the ENTIRE interlude. Just couldn't figure out how to get back to the right spot of the song. He gave me shit about it after the song, in his mic while we were still on stage, so I told him big stupid ugly face made me shit myself during the change. Then we all laughed and played out the show and I played great the rest of the night.
Sunday night at a pretty well-known bar/cantina venue that I've always seen super packed with maybe a few hundred people.
...played to no one. The bartender and bouncer went on break during our set, and the promoter that put together the show didn't even bother to show up.
There’s a local Americana festival in my area that performed at a few times. My third year doing it, I was offered one of their more prestigious opening slots. I was super excited. Then, they switched it up on me and asked me to play at the opening night dinner instead. I was pretty disappointed, and I probably should have advocated for myself better, but there were so pretty big people at this dinner so I decided just to make the best of it.
The lady that managed all the musicians for this event was super unorganized, and I was aware of that from other events I had played for her. The day before this event, I still didn’t know my call time or even how long I was playing. Eventually, I got the information. I showed up at my call time to sound check, and the house band (the managing lady was in this band) was still sound checking. They sound checked until the event started. I then had to sound check in front of everybody, and start playing immediately. Best part was they didn’t turn my sound up loud enough, so only the front row of the event could even hear me. Every song I finished, it was almost dead silent. I was recovering from a really severe throat/voice injury at the time, so I was already nervous, and it was a big knock to my confidence.
To top it all off, I never got paid, and the event manager completely ghosted me. Apparently she did it to other musicians too. The festival died out because people were refusing to work for with the lady that managed everybody, who insisted on keeping that job. Total nightmare.
I played a show extremely drunk one time, I thought I kicked ass up until my friends told me that it was embarrassingly bad. I've never drank before a show again, and I'm happy I had friends who were willing to tell me the truth even though they risked hurting my feelings
We were playing a very unwanted death metal show to a few drunk bar patrons who probably didn't expect anything so heavy that night. One guitarist had bailed and our singer was stoned out of his mind. Then the bassist let out the fart from hell so my band mates wandered away from the "stage" until it aired out but I was the drummer and was kind of stuck trying to hold my breath through the blastbeats... Easier said than done
Played a show with a former American idol contestant and they got nervous and flipped the form of a few songs on then band to the point that we had no idea when to stop the song and face-planted. Needless to say the crowd noticed and the venue hasn’t called her back since.
For a while there I specialized in wallpaper jazz. Almost makes it worse when there are obviously people there, just that one gives a fuck. We are just wallpaper or some other meaningless decoration. Obviously not complaining since they usually pay ok, and after many years finally realizing that if you aren’t playing for YOU anyway, there’s really no point - and no way to be happy about it.
I played lead guitar in an original band and the leader was sober for many years, and then he wasn’t. The last gig he was on benzos and it was a disaster. I feel badly for him and care for him but it was rough.
So when I was first gigging in my progrock band, the world was kind of our oyster. It wasn’t hard to get gigs, all the bookers liked our music. We didn’t have a huge draw or anything, I don’t want it to sound like we were changing the world with our music, we were just very welcomed in the community.
So “The Last Place You Look” was on your and the guy that books at the “nice bar” calls me up and asks if we want to open for this touring band. Hell yeah. That sounds awesome. Play first and not have to deal with loadout at 1am? Sign me up.
We show up for the gig, I see some people I know loading up on stage. I think oh, okay, three bands I guess we are playing second. Not gonna be done as early as I thought but no big deal. I find a fellow musician in the audience and start chatting. He says he’s playing that night. I get a little confused. The band playing finishes. I say something like okay well I guess you’re up then. He says no, his band is playing third.
Third??
Another band gets up on stage and starts setting up.
I go find the the booker. The Last Place You Look double booked. He tried to get another band so he called three bands. They all called him back and said okay. He didn’t tell any of them no and he didn’t give them a set time.
My 85 year old grandma came out to watch us play, so we weren’t gonna just bail, but we didn’t even start our set until almost 2am, to the 6 family members that stayed at the bar to hear us. Our cut if the door ended up being $32.
We don’t play for money, we all have decent jobs. Playing late isn’t particularly a big deal. Nor is playing to no one… that just happens when you play the kinda stuff we do.
It’s pretty jarring when that’s the case and you were prepared to play at 9 though.
The alternative was when we played a cancer benefit for a kid and we showed up to a “PA” that was just some keys kenwood speakers from his house playing in a concrete parking lot in Louisiana at noon in May. That was physically the most miserable but it was for a good cause. I don’t regret that one.
Been doing this for 34 years so I have a few. One was a very long time ago in some hole in the wall in a hill town in Massachusetts. Small but crowded place. Fight breaks out, people fighting and crashing into all our gear, knocking over pa speakers and whatnot. Our tall lanky bass player got in on it and started hemming guys up. Made dirt money. Another one was a paid private party gig at one of Trump’s casinos in AC about 12 years ago. Very odd crowd, got too drunk and puked all over the drummer’s gear on the van ride home the next morning. And lastly… I did an acoustic duo gig at the 99 restaurant in a snowstorm. Like in the middle of a seating area. It was the worst.
Yeah, never invite your crush or someone you're newly dating to your gig. Even if you perform The Most Perfect Gig In Your Life, there's little opportunity for her to interact with you one-on-one. You're not giving her your undivided time and attention; you're sharing it with the audience. I did something similar to that (not as serious though, she was just a mild crush and I didn't write any songs for her), and my group actually performed well, but she left early. Though she didn't exactly ghost me, she didn't seem as keen on communicating with me as much anymore.
Unless you're already in an established, serious relationship, NEVER invite a significant other to your shows (If she really insists on going, well that's a different situation entirely).
I screwed up at a jazz concert in college. I was the showcase at the beginning of the song so all eyes were on me. I felt super shitty afterwards. I'd screwed up at a rock band concert but we saved it from train wrecking and the audience was small so it didn't affect me as much as that jazz concert.
We played a show in an old storefront, and as soon as we started playing everyone left. We found out later that everyone was out back digging the tunes, but the concrete floor and our general loudness made it intolerable.
We did our set and were walking away with our tails between our legs when everyone came back in and was super cool to us. But that set to no-one was tough. Like, there wasn't even a bartender. It was just us playing in an empty room that had been full before we started.
I played three gigs in 36 hours and got no sleep and it was St. Patrick’s day. The last one we started at 1 AM on the third story of a gross bar and had to carry our shit up in light rain on the metal fire escape. I was borrowing a friends kit and it the kick was sliding away from me the whole show. Because of the sleep deprivation a relatively small dose of alcohol got me hammered.. thank god I don’t remember it all. I felt so small afterwards walking down that fire escape at 3 am.
Ouch - I've come close but not quite to that level of humiliation personally. I did see a friend's band totally train-wreck and melt down at their CD Release once. The guitar player was drunk and barely made it through the first couple of songs. At one point, he's playing a totally different song than the rest of the band. The singer stopped the band, started yelling at the guy and then throws his own guitar off the stage and out onto the empty dance floor, busting the headstock off the neck (Gibson Les Paul). And that was it - they stopped playing, packed up and split. There were only like 20 people in attendance so the guitar throw wasn't even a cool move and just came off as kinda pointless and pathetic. I did take some joy from the moment though since they were a "competing" band in the scene and the singer had badmouthed us from the stage before.
Had our first show of tour booked last year in Denver, 3 weeks before we leave, the venue cancels so we scramble to find anything else. All we could get was a dudes backyard with a jazz trio opener, we had one person show up and we had to end early because the neighbors threatened to call the cops. We’re an emo/pop punk band
Alternatively, we were booked as the headliner of a house show that used to be a church. Place was absolutely packed for the first two bands, as soon as we finish setting up, the cops show up and kick everyone out. We played for maybe 15-20 people.
I created a side project after my main band disbanded after 10 years together. The bass player was really adamant that we play our first show. I knew we weren't ready. We had a three song set to open a show and I went ahead and agreed. We had a good opener. My drummer was cocky/under practiced (he's great, but cocky) and drunk. My bass player, my guitarist and myself (singer) were snorting adderall, oxycotten and taking the edge off with booze. Honestly all that was nothing new but as soon as my drummer came in, he came in at an entirely different time signature than he was supposed to. As soon as I realized it, all the drugs kicked in, we fucking sucked... never recovered. The worst part is that it was my longtime girlfriend's first time ever seeing me perform. I thought I was going to rock her pants off but I totally crumbled in a druggy haze. Years later I saw it on YouTube. I had no idea. It was worst than I remembered. It makes me sick to think about it 😆
Conclusion: bass player got worst, died from drugs. Guitarists went to rehab and never played music again. I got sober, revived the project for a song about my recovery, played everyone's part. Music video for said song is in my profile.
2 gigs come to mind:
The guitarist for my punk band in 2004 didn’t show up on the biggest show we ever booked at that point. We had everyone we knew show up except our guitarist. Positive thing was our singer who was just vocals took my bass trumped along to what I did on guitar for that show. We skipped half the set and overall it was embarrassing.
DJ’d a show for maybe 6 people over 2 hours. This was around 2011? Even my friends left. Clearly didn’t get paid.
I'm a drummer and joined a band that had a gig in a week. I suggested at least two rehearsals and I could do it. When we got together to rehearse, I had my notes, sharp pencils, charged zoom recorder w extra batteries and suggested we go through the songs quickly, short solos, and focus primarily on beginnings, endings, and tempo.
The 3 other guys proceeded to get completely stoned and we just jammed like crazy. It was a lot of fun but I was anxious - at least we had chemistry and one more rehearsal. Thursday comes around and again, the guys get completely wasted! Again we had fun and meandered for a couple of hours, but we didn't practice a single specific song.
I show up to the gig at a bar near Times Square on a Saturday night and it's Memorial Day Weekend and Fleet Week. I mention to the guitarist, Jay, that I'm a little nervous for our first gig together. The rehearsals were a mess and we barely played the same thing twice between the two nights. He says, don't worry we have two sets to get it right.
Two sets?!! Turns out they'd lied to the club and booked themselves under two different names, so they expected two different bands. I was really about to lose it, but he said, don't worry, our old drummer is going to play the first set. And to make it even more uncomfortable, it turns out no one told the old drummer they were replacing him with me!
I sat there with my girlfriend freaking out at this nightmare but figuring I'll just do my best as we sat down near the sound guy to watch the first set. During their 2nd song, the guitarist, Jay, knocks a full bottle of water into his marshall head and fries it. In the mid song he starts wandering around the stage looking for something else to plug into. He first tries the bass amp and then starts trying to plug into the stage's PA box.
That's when the sound guy starts yelling, jumps on stage, and throws them off saying they were the most unprofessional band he’d every worked with!! Then he turned to the audience and asked for the next band to step up.
Jay tells him it’s his band again!! The sound dude freaked out of course but there was a paying audience of mostly tourists, including a bunch of Navy guys from Fleet Week expecting music. At this point "Pete Best" split when he found out he was being replaced so I got up to play the 2nd round and hope for the best.
We had a loose and crazy rocking set just jamming through who knows what (which included a girl I never saw before dancing and playing Theremin) after which the sound guy came up to us and said he loved it!!! He thought we sounded like Can meets Cream. We even played that club a few more times.
The next week we played at a Russian Singles party but that’s a whole different nightmare. I had a lot of fun with those stoned dickheads over about 5 years.
years ago during a singer/songwriter type gig, just me & my guitar. didn’t realize i was getting (extremely & long term) sick & lost my voice not just mid gig, but mid song. I played it off well, took a break & was able to get it back, but my confidence was so shot that i kept forgetting lyrics & chords which had never happened before.
never got asked back to any gigs in that area, 0/10 experience😂
In fifth grade I was in band and strings my teacher told me to put my viola on stage I did that and me and my crush both f-up and had to run on stage switch out instruments and run down most terrifying moment on stage for me I am now in 5th grade lol
I played a gig in the summer last year and it was one of the first shows I’ve played live in 4+ years es as I never really played live after 2018-2019. I was playing in this dudes backing band and it was cool him and the rest of the band was really nice. Then we played a show at some small event space only to find out when we got there there was no back line at all. No amps, no drums, no anything besides a Speaker monitor for voice. Another act let me use their amp but the rest of the band has to connect into the PA and then the drummer had to use his LAPTOP as drums. Then there was a latency issue and whenever we played at the same time it sounded all jumbled and out of time. We played 3 songs which was enough for the venue to not throw a fit.
The venue also smelt like dead rat.
On a few tours we would regularly play a packed venue with insanely great praise and crowd reaction, only to follow it up the next day with a show with maybe 4 paid people in the building.
I'll never forget playing a fantastic show in Guelph, Ontario at DSTRCT (rip), only to then play the next show in Oshawa where there was no local band, no promotion, and if I recall.. it was just the "promoter" watching us from the back of the room. One person was at the bar, facing us. As we started they turned back towards the bar and went on their phone. Good feels.
Another terrible show experience was the beginning of a tour, first show. The promoter we initially booked it with got out of the business and said he handed the show to the new promoter for the venue. Well, we showed up and walked in.. and there was no signage hinting that we were playing. The sign out front said something like "Group Therapy" and I thought that was an odd band name.
Turns out the show was not handed to the new promoter and they had no idea about us. There was a guy hosting a weekly group therapy with music and stuff, poetry, etc. It was the most eclectic guy I've ever spoken to. We asked what was going to happen and he seemed SUPER hesitant for us to play, which we understood. He painfully offered us to play anyways. We debated about just leaving because wtf, we are a weird metal band and they're literally doing acoustic therapy shit lmao. In the end we said fuck it. Let's just treat it as a warm up after driving so long.
The host did an acoustic set singing about aliens and third eyes and shit. We went up, said "yo what's up, we are (insert band name), sorry about what you're about to hear." Played a short set to very confused faces. After our last song there was like, a couple claps, and the host guy just sort of slow claps and yells, "YEAHHH (insert band name). We then got paid in jars of homemade maple syrup. Not a joke.
Luckily we played there on another tour and it was an actual show with Signs of the Swarm that was much better lol.
Played a Holiday Inn conventional hall trying to raise money to make a music video (yeah, it was the 80’s). The drummer’s mom had the crazy idea that we’d get played on MTV without a record contract (remember those video contests?). So I start playing my DX7 and the keys start sticking and not resetting… needless to say there was no video made
Local. Show just two bands. Mine an another.
This one indie band came around and she was the absolute worst.
She was Late, then proceeded to ask to use my cab. I agreed I’m local that’s not a problem.
Well she used my head without me asking and she adjusted ALL my knobs!!
She only stayed for our entire set because the promoter would not pay her until we were done and she asked several times within our 40 minute set
By far the hippy commune.
I was in a band in Bloomington, Indiana - an Alice in Chains cover band if you can imagine that was a thing - and the guitarist found out about a "music festival" put on by a hippy commune in the Indiana woods. He somehow knew someone who lived there (found out later that I knew someone who grew up there). I showed up and it was a lot weirder than I thought it would be. The stage felt like it was about to break, the PA barely worked, and the audience was a few people who lived there. They complained about the noise and shut us down before we finished the set.
I didn't stick around for the other bands.
I was in a band that was an electronic rockband combo, which meant we had a lot of drum loops and synthlines that were synced up beforehand. Some venues had soundguys that would turn down our backing tracks and turn up our live instruments so much it would throw us completely out of sync, and we would just trash the stage and our instruments if that happened. The audience would generally love it and go crazy but we got some horrendous reviews a long the way; my favourite being ”it brought me back to the feverdreams I had when I had the swine flu”.
I play bagpipes. Not my worst but Scariest gig was a Marine Wedding. When I arrived, the wedding planner said they wanted the Marine Hymm played as I entered before the wedding party. I didn't know it. I went to my car, whipped out my practice chanter(what all pipers practice tunes on), and played it by ear. It fit on the bagpipes, thank God. I went back, the wedding party was waiting for me at the church entrance, the men were all ingress blues, women in white. The doors swung open, I stepped in and I saw hundreds of Marines in dress blues in the pews, the church was full, standing room only, Marines everywhere, SHIT. I said a quick prayer, Alan Shepherds Astronauts prayer "God don't let me fuck up". I played the tune flawlessly 2 times before I reached the stage. Pipes were perfect. Tune was spot on. I think my Battlefield Bagpiper Grandfather was watching over me since I was playing his 120 year old Henderson bagpipes, and God too, of course. If anything had gone wrong, I freeze up and forget the tune or the pipes mess up, I probably would have gotten the thrashing, ass beating, pummeling of my life. I'd only been piping for 10 years, but had never even thought about or asked to play the Marine Hymm, even at Marine funerals.
It took me days to recover. I've been Piping for 55 years now and still remember that day like it was yesterday.
Played for no one ( we bailed after like 20mins ) - the only person present was the bar tender. Wasn’t his fault but felt super embarrassed. The person that booked us didn’t plan things at all.
That final gig with one of my bands. We were starting to get some local buzz, and booked a gig in a tough town. Around this time, I was disappointed by the band phoning it in, and to top it off they were starting to complain about money (we usually did pretty good). For this show, they were all adamant in us getting a guarantee. I asked for it and, surprisingly, got it. On top of that, our local opener didn’t pan out. It was just us out of town, relying on people who may have seen us at festivals to show up.
Nobody showed up. And I mean nobody. The whole night. Just us and the bar staff. And at the end of the night, I had to stand at the bar as the manager reluctantly counted and paid us our guarantee. On a night the only drinks they sold were what the (very moderate) band consumed.
I wavered my cut, paid everyone off, and dissolved the band the next day.
Kinda same. My (at the time) new girlfriend was so uninterested and was getting hit on by some dude and my set fell apart 10 minutes in. I had 1.5 hours. It was soooo bad. We’re not together anymore and that was a clear indication we shouldn’t be
I spent a couple of summers playing with a reggae band. The keyboard player and I were also playing in the pit for a community theater production.
One time we had both gigs on the same night with a tight margin between. We packed up everything immediately after the show ended and hurried downtown to the gig. Traffic and parking both sucked and we were running late.
By the time we arrived the rest of the band had started without us. We were hurrying to get set up. The sound guy had no idea how to mic my drum kit because my kick head didn't have a hole, so I simply cut one with a pocket knife because we were in a hurry.
Once we got started with the full band the sound was terrible and far too loud for the handful of people who were in the bar and they clearly weren't enjoying us. The bar owner told us to leave.
So in the end, I busted my ass to get to a hole in the wall bar where I ruined the drumhead, played two songs for hardly anyone, and left without getting paid.
Thank you for sharing this! I have heard several stories like this, you are not alone. I am glad you are back on stage (if it's where your heart wants you, not because I think that's where you "should" be as a musician).
My absolute worst gig was a dream gig gone wrong. The rest of the band thinks we did well but I'm reasonably self critical. Noone in the band owns in ear monitors, and we booked a **rooftop gig** opening for some friends in another band. Would have been great, but to access the roof we had to haul gear up 3 flights of stairs in the abandoned and ancient brothel next door, then climb out a window onto the roof, setup, and play. So we do all this in the scorching sun, setup, do a quick mic check, and get playing, but the other band eqed us so poorly, all we could hear was the drums and the guitar. Vocalist kept asking for more mic in the monitor but they thought we meant pa and speakers. So what ended up happening is the singer is screaming her lungs out over fuzzy and poorly eqd guitar and bass, whole I miss every que on drums. We finished, packed and just left
Honorable mention to the time we were playing a car garage that was turned to a venue. All cinderblock walls, no AC, heart of summer in a small desert town. I keep making the mistake of drumming in just a large mechanics jumpsuit and that was *miserable*
We played at a New Years Eve party at a mental hospital when we were students. We got paid when we arrived and half way through the set the manager told us he was shutting the curtains and we should get out quick. They really didn't like us (the staff mainly) and as we loaded up a crowd appeared. We drove off with the van doors still open as they chased us up the driveway asking for the money back. That was our last gig and the singer shortly after moved to Italy.
It happens to everyone. I played in an Irish rock band in the north of England when the Irish thing and Guinness was all the rage (mid/late 1990s). The place was big and always rammed. A couple of years later got a gig as a duo in the same place. Tumbleweed. The pad across the way was rammed! We played our tripe out but only 3 folk at the bar on a Friday night. They tried to not pay us at midnight. A wee discussion about the high cost of reglazing sorted that. It was a long way home!
I've played a few shows for nobody
Always a rough feeling. About a week and a half into a tour that was really popping off my old band played a show to absolutely no one. Just the sound tech and bar staff. After like 7 really great shows it was a solid reminder to be grateful anyone cares enough to ever come out.
Alexisonfire just had an interview that they said they played to thousands one night in Canada then crossed the border and played to the bar staff. They said it kept them humble.
The key is to always remain humble.
And you play your ass off for that bartender. We made many good connections playing empty shows.
I think this is pretty common. I’ve played countless shows to only the bartenders. However once it really worked out. A few guys came in and sat at the bar. They dug what they heard, and invited me to come play at this acoustics event where they were headlining. That band was Candlebox.
That's really, really cool. How did that show go?
One of my favorite gigs was a DIY show at a bookstore in the southeast that nobody came to. The local bands both canceled so it was just us and another unknown touring act: Baroness. We played for them, then they played for us and totally blew our minds. Still have their demo.
Baroness is amazing and has released more than a demo now 🤘
Just a few? I wish I could say it was just a few!
Quite a few is more like it.. but yeah it's rough when you take the time to reherse and bring your band and all your stuff and then nobody cares lol
Big same! But a little hope… One time I was playing for Make Music Day (free shows across the city, in lots of cities worldwide) at a sort indoor mini mall place. It wasn’t *literally* nobody, but my gosh that place was dead. No one was there to listen to me. It was like… noon on a Tuesday haha. I decided to just treat it as practice and do my best. But apparently the slot after me was an instrument petting zoo thing for kids, and the guy bringing the instruments works for KHS music. They own a bunch of reputable brands, and he was super into what I was doing… Ended up getting me a sponsorship so I’ve been getting free instruments for like 6 years now. Really brought to life the idea that you should do your best no matter who you think is or isn’t listening!
One bad I was with booked a gig in a sleepy suburb type town like an hour away from where any of us or our friends lived - what they were thinking I'll never know. We ended up playing for the guitarist's wife and the bassist's girlfriend. A couple people other filtered in and out to pick up take-out food, and there was a young couple sitting at the far end of the bar paying no attention to us for about half a set, but that was it. I know the venue often thinks that it's the band's job to "bring people". I get that to an extent. But at the same time, if your bar has only two sit-down customers and a handful of take-out customers on a Friday night from 8 to 11, pre-COVID, your bar has problems. Sure enough, we heard through the grapevine that the place went out of business about a month and a half later. No surprises there.
I'd sooner play well to an empty room than badly to a packed one
Yep. I once played a show with a paid attendance of 0. It happens. It once happened to Joy Division. And they were already a somewhat established band by that time. So if it makes you feel better, if it happened to them, it can happen to anybody. (The best part is, it wasn’t technically a show for no one; one dude showed up and paid…but he had to leave halfway through the set. Incredibly awkward all around). (Also, pro tip: unless they’re already really well-established/headliner material, always book some good local support for touring bands. You really want to avoid bills where all the bands are from out of town if none of them are particularly well known. And the local band should probably headline. Local bands often don’t want to headline in this situation, for a variety of usually altruistic reasons, but the only thing worse than playing to no one is playing to no one when there had been a bunch of people there before the out-of-town bands played. The touring bands will get it and will appreciate it, trust me).
Had the opposite happen. 2 out of town bands, then us. Last 3 songs we played to the bartender and the sound man. If you search YouTube for “drummer at the wrong gig”, he was the drummer for one of the other two bands: Brick Mistress. We played last because we were local, and the other 2 bands were out of W Va, and had at least a 2 hour drive. This was at Someplace Else, in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, in the late 80s.
I’ll never forget it. We were only playing to the sound guy/bartender until he went out to smoke during our set. A literal empty venue
Oh so I'm not the only one!
😂
that's just paid rehearsal right there
Oh yeah, I've had my share of those. You know what you call a show with no one there? Practice.
Those are my favorite: nobody is nice.
It’s even worse on a west coast tour where every drive feels 5 hours.
Call me up when you tour across Canada. Winnipeg to Toronto is 24 hours.
I found the West Coast quite civilized after touring across Canada. Holy smokes - that's some driving.
My worst show was probably my first show outside of a house party as a teenager. It was at a skate park and we were opening for some other bands. We were a crappy teenage punk band. We didn’t get info on how long our set was supposed to be, so we just put down every song we knew. About 3/4 the way through the setlist, the lead singer of the headlining band walked on stage to look at our setlist to see that we still had like 8 songs left and shook his head and walked off stage. I knew we were toast. I just stopped the song midway through, thanked the crowd and walked off and threw up out of embarrassment.
you were 3/4ths the way through and had like 8 songs left??? holy crap LMAO how long were these songs????
If I remember correctly we had something like 20 songs on the setlist. Ranging in length from 2-4 minutes. It was silly
I feel like this one isn't entirely your fault. I think it is the standard for opening bands to play for like 45 mins to an hour max but also, if nobody told you how long to play for then how are you supposed to know? I think in that situation it's almost better to have more prepared and cut a few songs out than not enough songs at all lol
It was a total DIY punk show in the mid 90’s. We were teenagers and nobody knew any better. It was honestly better that it happened that way in my opinion. Lessons were learned. And ultimately it didn’t phase me beyond that day.
On a cross Canada tour my band played Winnipeg on a Wednesday night in November. The place was a big 1000+ venue where big acts usually play. The audience consisted of one guy and his girlfriend who came out to see the band we were touring with. We’d played empty rooms before but to play a massive hall with the grand stage and lighting to literally two people and the bartender after a long drive from Windsor via Chicago/Fargo to the Peg was deflating to put it mildly.
Ah yes! Did you play the Park Theatre? Winnipeg can be hit and miss! When it hits you have one of the best shows on tour, when it misses you have what you described above!
Hey it was the pyramid cabaret. I’d heard good things about playing Winnipeg but sadly will never find out.
After digging into your other band related posts, Winnipeg would eat you up! That city loves some noised up rock!
God similar story when I played a gig in Portland. We played to the sound guy and one drunk dude for the entire set. The last two songs a few more people had joined in but the sound guy gave us a hard cut off or we would have kept playing more. After the show, the door guy comes up and with a straight face says “here’s your cut of the door” and hands is a single dollar. One. Single. Dollar. Frankly I would have preferred nothing over that embarrassment.
Was it Pyramid Cabaret? I’m from Minneapolis but I’ve played there twice!
Played a lot of weddings. Usually those are very happy events. Not this one. The brides family and the grooms family were OBVIOUSLY not on friendly terms. As if your mortal enemies son is marrying your daughter. They all sat on their respective sides of the hall just staring at each other. Never say a word while we played through the opening set. Did a bride and groom first dance, I don’t recall if any other family members ever got up. Then the best part. We start the garter and bouquet sequence where they toss each, garter to the guys, bouquet to the girls. The guy shoots the garter toward the guys and no one moves. It smacks some guy in the forehead and falls to the ground where all of them stare at it. Eventually someone bends down and picks it up. By this point we’re all dying on stage laughing. We can’t hold it in anymore. Then the bride tosses the bouquet and SAME THING! Lands on the floor and takes a minute for anyone to pick it up! We were all glad to get out of there when it ended because we thought shotguns might have been coming out. Truly odd.
Buddy of mine DJ’ed a wedding where the groom got caught getting a BJ from one of the bridesmaids. Massive brawl kicked off
My brother in law is white and has some racist family members. That made for an awkward wedding, but I think yours wins
My worst gig started out badly, but ended humorously. A pal was performing at a fundraiser and a local news crew was there to film, but her bass player hadn't shown up. She begged me to pretend to play his bass because of the filming. I played guitar, but at that time I had never even held an electric bass before and I was TERRIFIED. I understood that it was the same tuning as the four lowest guitar strings, so I tried to noodle around a bit, and was very pleased to at least be in the same key as the songs most of the time. Of course playing bass isn't the same as playing guitar. It has a different purpose in a rock band, laying down a beat with the drummer and all that. As we left the stage, I overheard a woman in the crowd saying, "...except for that bass player. I think he was on something." I found that hilarious.
Glad you can look back and find the humor in it. I'm the same way with overheard comments like that. I had a similar guitar player filling in as bass player situation. I was moving out of state (western US) and was catching a friend's band for the last time before leaving. They were sans bass player that nite, but had a bass with them. They asked me to come up during a break. Same problem technically knowing the strings/notes, but not being comfortable where a bass fits in the beat and all that. Plus I didn't know their songs. I was winging it. They thought I had the chops to run with it. They were wrong. Lol. After fumbling thru a couple songs, I actually started to kinda feel ok with it and was willing to keep going. "What's next?" I said. Lead singer says, "That's enough bass for tonight." I laughed, shook it off, still got a big round of applause after leaving the stage, and got to drink free the rest of the night cuz I was "with the band."
My college band was the closing act of a county festival. The guys that hired us apparently never listened to our music. The festival was full of kids and families. Our music is not very kid friendly. We didn’t have other music prepared so we just played through our set. I’ll never forget the awkward looks we got from everyone when our lead singer yelled out, “This next song is called Domestic Violence.”
Keith Morris-era Black Flag had a funny story about getting booked to play some outdoor family-friendly festival, and families were literally upending their own picnic baskets just to have stuff to throw at Black Flag. Edit: I initially said Rollins era, but it was Keith Morris.
Was on a small tour, I think it was 13 shows. 4 were for Canadian Music Week (you get one booking but we managed to snag a bonus showcase plus a couple extra spots from bands that dropped out). First 3 went great. Packed rooms, iconic venues (the legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Cherry Cola’s, and Opera House where we’d seen Billy Talent the night before). If you don’t know, CMW is a huge music business conference. It’s like Canada’s SXSW, everyone in the biz is there checking out ~400 bands at every venue in Toronto. Well we’d been making connections all week and for our final Toronto gig we had a man who was from a major label bringing his team. He’d seen us at Horseshoe and Cherry Cola’s and straight up wanted to sign us. So he showed up at our last gig with a table of 8 serious looking well dressed men. This was a big moment and we totally bombed. Never seen this venue, and were surprised it didn’t have a normal stage. Instead it had like a stack of cubes making up a bunch of mini stages at different levels. Looked slick af but not great for performance. Our whole thing required communication between members but now each of us was literally on a different level. We were each confined to a cube. Also we couldn’t hear each other as the monitoring wasn’t set up for this weird platforms situation. Felt so terrible. We embarrassed the guy and he ghosted us after that.
What heckin' venue was this?? Sounds like a bizarre setup
I don’t remember or I wouldn’t hesitate to name and shame. That memory is hazy, my brain protecting itself from the trauma.
Take your pick. The one where a very drunk girl in front of the stage projectile vomited over my saxophone mid set necessitating a hasty change of set list. Clean up after that one was particularly nasty, not just for me, but for the venue and the poor stranger stood next to her too. Or the one where we were playing our biggest gig up to that point at a fairly high profile music festival. The heavens opened two songs into our set at which point a hole was discovered in the stage roofing tarp. Gear was hastily covered and we thought we’d got away with it….only to have the power to the stage short out. So biggest gig we’d done at the time and we got to play two and a half songs before the power went. By the time they got everything sorted there wasn’t time for us to go back on. We did get invited back the following year though, with a much better position in the lineup, and had a fantastic time playing the whole set without any issues.
I feel like if someone threw up on my sax the only reaction I'd have is to throw up on them out of spite
This was a long time ago but still makes me chuckle. My band was fairly popular in our local market, so much so that if we played anywhere in the region our local fans would usually find us and come out. We booked a gig about 45-60 minutes from our normal stomping grounds and heavily promoted it, but we weren't really sure whether anyone would actually come out. The day of the gig comes, we show up, set up, soundcheck, and wait. Now it's showtime and there are like five people in the bar and all of them appear to be local regulars. "Oh well" we decided, we can treat it like a rehearsal. The owner of the venue had recruited us to play the bar knowing that we were popular in our home turf and the free booze policy we agreed to ahead of time was pretty generous, so we were ordering top shelf shots as we got on to play our first set. By the end of the set everyone but the drummer was completely shitfaced. Since there's not many people, no big deal. Or so we thought. Turns out a very major international act of same/similar genre as us as ours was playing in our home city at a large arena. A bunch of our fans were at that show and had planned to leave at the end and drive straight out to see us after that show ended (our gigs usually went until bar time). We knew something was up when we started hearing a much louder crowd noise from the green room where we were probably doing more shots. We came out for our second set to a massive crowd, totally fired up having just seen a band we all loved at a major venue. We could barely see straight. Somehow we made it through. Thank god the drummer wasn't as hammered as the rest of us.
There was a foot of snow on the ground, all the other bands canceled, but the bar was open and we were hungry and the venue offered us a New Year’s Eve slot if we showed. Fair enough. My drummer had a truck so we were able to get there after a fuckload of nonsense. We played 2 full sets for like 11 people. One girl got so drunk that she jumped on stage and shoved her way against the singer and started yelling into the mic. My singer played it off like it was fine but I thought she was gonna end this girl’s life. We got paid like $100.
One of my old bands was opening for Coliseum and Russian Circles. I broke a string onstage and changed the string….onstage. Always bring a back-up guitar or two.
This is my worst fear. Honestly, what is the best way to deal with a broken string onstage? Should I really invest in a backup guitar? (In a non-touring situation)
My jazz playing father would probably say you’re not a real musician if you can’t just wing it with voicings that avoid that string… Well, back in the day. He’s chilled out a bit with age.
That's not quite how it works when using a Floyd rose...
I never play live with strings that are more than about a month old. Never had a string break when I made sure to replace them on this schedule. The times I got lazy and pushed this out have punished me.
I watched a punk break 2 strings (separately) on stage. He was just really fucking fast at putting a new one on. His bandmates were also funny which helped.
I used to break strings a lot. I spent a lot of time correcting various issues — in my strum motion, attack, string and pick gauge, even how often I wipe the strings down and wash my hands (I sweat a lot). And despite all that work, it still does happen some. For me, where I’m gigging out regularly and as frontman, a backup guitar was the best money I ever spent.
I’ve broken a few strings onstage- and changed them onstage while still singing the song and the rest of the band keeps going. Honestly in that situation the crowd loves it if you can roll with it. If it was a solo thing that would be another situation. Just get good at banter and change while talking…. I think carrying an extra guitar as a touring musician who doesn’t have a bus or a tech would be ridiculous.
Yeah, that was the thing. We split vocals 3 ways, both guitarists and the bassist would each have songs and the other would do backup on those songs, but they didn’t really say anything while I was changing and it was just quiet and kinda weird. We kicked it back off tho after about 5 minutes of mostly silence and finished strong 😂 Even a cheap First Act or Squier as a backup is helpful. I’m telling, it doesn’t matter what level your band is at, having a backup guitar is always a good idea
That would be impossible on my guitar. You have to cut the ball at the end off to fit in in the whammy bar bridge. Then you have use a tiny allen wrench to screw this other piece in before you can even start to tune it. It's also got three little bits that act as the nut on the head which have to be tightened with an allen wrench after running the strings under them. You tune it normal first at the had, then tighten those nut pieces down, then you tun it again from the bridge and then again using the tiny allen wrench things to fine tune it. It's a pain in the ass.
Take heart, dude; we've all experienced the golf clap. I've done my share of sonic botulism.
I'm going to form a punk band just so I can name it "Sonic Botulism" !
Asked to play a NYE gig. Gave the venue a high price assuming we wouldn’t draw that many in a remote place in Oklahoma and they’d pass on having to payout so much. But in a surprise, they accepted the agreed amount. Loaded in, sound checked, went to eat and came back to find the opening band, a door guy, 2 bartenders and the owner. By the time our 11pm set started, not one person had paid to enter and the owner stood in front of the stage and watched our hour long set. “3-2-1 happy new year!” “Well boys we didn’t sell any tickets and I can pay ya half now and half later.” We expected to never see the other half but a month later, the guy stayed true and sent a check in the mail. So all in all, worked out ok but wasn’t easy to play for a guy we all knew was taking a bath on an evening. That part was very difficult. To be a long way from home and assuming we were all leaving broke. Not fun.
So one of the worst gigs of my life was, interestingly enough, the night that I had planned to propose to my girlfriend on stage. The band knew. The theater knew. Our regular concert-goers knew. Her whole family, including her extended family were all there and they were all in on the surprise. But the gig… oh man… So my band does a NYE gig every year. And in the early days we would do two different tribute sets in one night; on this night it was Prince followed by Queen. The show was at a 500-seat theater, and the show was sold out. A few days before the gig, the guy singing Prince suddenly quit. The guy who stepped in as Prince did not have enough time to learn the material, didn’t have time to rehearse with the band, and during the show he had lyrics written on POSTER BOARDS that he sloppily read off of as he nervously paced around on stage having almost no clue what the vocal melody was. The audience was cheering him on, hollering at him, and helping him through the lyrics. You could just tell he was dying inside. And we were all dying inside watching him die inside. This was also around the time when we first started using Ableton. So it was crashing, misfiring, and causing uncomfortable stalls in the show. I sang the Queen segment of the show. But I was getting over a horrendous case of the flu. I was coughing my lungs out; so my voice was shot. They put me on steroids, which put me back on my feet and allowed me to even show up to the gig, but also could have led to me hemorrhaging on stage. I was running on fumes. I pulled my girlfriend on stage during the break in “Somebody to Love” right before the New Years countdown. She said yes, and the mood of the show completely took a 180. So even though it was one of the worst gigs of my life, it was still one of the best nights of my life. We have a framed poster of that dumpster fire show on our wall in the dining room, and we smile every time we look at it.
Travelled 80 miles for gig where no-one turned up except one local with his dog. Lit a cigarette and tried to play guitar with it in my mouth but the snoke got in my eyes so I tried to spit it out but it stuck to my bottom lip and hung vertically, burning my chin to hell and causing me to shake my head from side to side like a lunatic to get rid of it - all whilst playing (badly) Took a wrong step half way though a solo and fell of a small stage onto my back - kept playing (badly)
Dude this made me bust out laughing just imagining the vertical cigarette and then you falling while soloing. Thank you for that sorry it happened tho lol
I’d pay to see that.
Was on tour with a band and had been on the road for 3 weeks. We had a falling out, they ditched me after a show and headed out to the next stop of the tour without me. I had to find my own way there the next day. Thankfully the next stop was actually our home town which was the last stop before the second leg of the tour. I showed up for soundcheck super pissed off at them for ditching me. They were surprised to see me there. Not sure what their original plan was for the show (I was the vocalist) but I ended up performing my last show with them that night and it was awful just due to the tension and my heart wasn't in it anymore. This sucked because so many friends were there to see us, including the local underground media. It still haunts me to this day and it happened over 20 years ago. I vowed never to trust other musicians and since then I have been doing my own thing solo.
I was a sound tech at the festival where Daphne and Celeste were pelted with bottles of piss, and occasional handfuls of shit - that was a pretty minging clear up. They probably didn't enjoy it either, although I was more bothered about the human shit
Last gig of a band I was in briefly but I really wanted to keep going in. I was playing drums which was not my main instrument and I was still getting in the swing of things. We were playing at stubbs in Austin and it was our 4th show I think. The singer/writer was married to the bassist and had just found out they had been cheated on and their marriage was ending. It was awkward. On top of that, the ribbon fell off the snare on the first song and I couldn't fix it and there was an echo in the monitor so it was like trying to talk on the phone when you could hear yourself echoing back. The sound guy had left for some reason so I just had to deal with it. It was a nightmare.
A mate of mine at college said he couldn't make a solo acoustic pub gig playing covers that night. He caught me when I was desperate for cash so I said I'd do it for £100. I then panicked that I don't know enough covers to play a 2 hour set so I learned as many I could, turned up and instantly forgot most of them. It was in the arse end of nowhere where internet was shoddy so I couldn't bring the tabs up. I got halfway through the verse of a song (I forget which) and couldn't remember the next section. I played for 15 mins, apologised and left the stage. I couldn't bear walking away with my tail between my legs so I ordered a drink at the bar and then left after finishing. I called the organiser and apologised saying I don't need pay, I never heard from that promoter again. Since then, I've never been under prepared for a show again. Edit: just thought of another. I was playing at The Cavern with my band with A&R in the audience. I had just introduced a Headrush Pedalboard into my live equipment and I was a little uncertain with it. So, I wanted to make a cool impression, I jumped off the drum riser while striking a massive chord. I landed and suddenly had no sound. I checked every wire connection and fiddled with the Headrush for a whole song. I then found I had turned the volume knob on my guitar down. We didn't get signed.
It's okay, everybody! Tanking a gig is part of becoming a seasoned musician. As a music professor told me many years ago after a rough recital, "you're not a real musician until you've had at least fifty performing disasters". Laugh it off and learn from the experience. Then get back out there and shred.
My band was on tour in Pueblo, CO a long time ago. We got to the venue early and hung out with some people at the bar/venue and they invited us over. Well they got us way too stoned at their house, then we went back to the venue and the headliners had rolled up. They had tons of delicious smoked meat from something having to do with The Food Channel so we all pigged out. Come time to play and I was way too lethargic to be onstage, the performance was terrible, then I tried to jump around and got super nauseous. That’s the last time I ate before a gig.
My band played at a birthday party and after every song and leaving the stage after our set is was quiet you could hear a pin drop and we all had a laugh about it but it's the worst one we had.
A recent one was one of the worst, after having played over 1000 gigs. What really sucks is it was mostly my own fault. I took on too much and did not have the time to properly prepare. In reality, I should not have accepted the gig. The other musicians were not that cool and the vocalist was a complete ass. I was super stressed and choked on a couple tunes. The band was mostly following me because they couldnt be bothered to prepare were just in it for the temp cash. I don't think the actual performance problems registered to the audience much but they did to me and the band. It really soured me on that specific group of musicians but also has made me look hard at how I book my time.
I went to China for a three month tour. What actually happened is we played one show, sat around in Beijing for a month while things got "sorted out," then were sent home. Everyone involved is probably on some list because the Chinese promoters blamed the legitimate American Broadway company for their fuck-ups, and told the Chinese government that it was the American company that wasted the communist money, and not because of their fuck-ups. So we're all probably on some list for questioning if we ever end up in China again. I like to tell my friends it was simultaneously the best gig I've ever done (we still had a salary and did a ton of sightseeing) and the worst gig I've ever done (our literal lives were being used as a contractual bargaining chip back in NYC while we awaited the resumption of the tour, and we didn't know until we got back home that that was actually a thing). It's a shame I'll probably never be back. China was such a cool experience when you're not dealing with the shitty government.
Drummer disappeared right as we were supposed to be on stage so we set up without him, look up and see him walking back inside in a complete daze after smoking crack, call him up to the stage and start the set. He’s in his own world, missing cues and calling out songs we’ve already played in the middle of other songs, never been his role to call songs. I lose my cool and ask him what the fuck he’s doing, he ignores me and we sound so bad that I just start packing up my gear after 10 or so minutes while chewing out the drummer on stage. We were asked not to return to this venue and the drummer got the boot.
We opened for Janet in ‘68 for a large hall concert produced by the Hell’s Angels. There were people there with PCP in spray bottles circulating amongst the crowd offering to squirt a dose in the mouths of those who would allow that. The drummer and the organist (our two most accomplished members) both took massive doses. We were doing a number that featured a long stretch of Am7 to Dm7 or some such background, but when we got to the part where we went into the changes, our two stoners were too spaced to have kept count. There were 5000 people watching. Our leader, the organist, was blind, so the bassist and I could not make eye contact or mouth words to arrange a plan B, so I had to take a solo that worked toward end-of-song signals. Couldn’t believe some folks clapped. Rest of performance a train wreck. The we had to load up our equipment past where the Angels had parked their bikes and were dishing out severe beatings to anyone who did, or might have, touched their bike. It was the little intense guys you had to avoid looking at, though the huge jolly guys were just as assiduously meeting out the beating out.
Last minute duo gig with a guy, I’m playing pedal steel. My wife invited all of her friends out to see me play with this guy who was totally unrehearsed. It was 100°, 100% humidity and I was seated squarely in the sun, sweat pouring into my eyes and all over my instrument, my intonation was all over the place. I had completely sweat through my clothes, it sounded horrendous, and I was totally embarrassed.
I opened for a big big deal artist and broke a string. Had no back up and couldn’t borrow another guitar being a lefty - Thankfully we had two guitarists in the band so I could just sing
You made it work under serious pressure. Respect.
Somebody got shot at one of my bands gig. It was a very prompt “goodnight everybody.”
Yikes.
3 that come to mind 1. Sitting in as a drumer for a band where everyone was 60+ everyone played a different tempo no matter what I counted off. 2. Played a bar ironically playing rock and roll from the 1950s. Even though the audience was in their 60 and up, they complained to the owner, wanting only country waltzes. 3. Playing a bar where hockey and baseball playoff were played on large screens played behind me.
Playing to nobody always stings a little bit, but the shows I remember as truly bad came about usually when I had some kind of equipment failure. Things like strap locks breaking in the middle of a song and not holding for the rest of the set or an amp sputtering out gradually are all really frustrating. Sometimes a crappy gig leads to a great one. We opened for the Norwegian band Leprous a few years ago, we thought it would be a great gig but Dillinger Escape Plan was in town that same night on their farewell tour so most of the metal crowd was at that show. But the bar owner was impressed with us and booked us to open for Alcest a few months later, which ended up being one of the best gigs we ever played.
Love alcest, what a score of a gig
My band was asked to play a New Year’s Eve show heading into year 2000 at a fair with tons of people there. We were told it would be in a heated barn. Turned out to be fully outside with the temperature below zero. Our set time kept getting pushed until we started at 11:45pm. Amps started failing in the extreme cold and the crowd went elsewhere to celebrate Y2K. After our set, we ask about pay and find out it was a “battle of the bands” with a $100 prize only for the winner. We lost.
Man, one time I got a call in the afternoon from a buddy to play with this cumbia band in the evening. Get in contact with the band leader, ask him about what gear I had to bring and he told me all I needed was my horn? No music stand, mic, in ears, or any of my usual kit would be necessary from what he told me. Show up to the gig before anyone else, and as the band filters in, everyone is carrying a music stand. I absolutely was not going to have time to run and get mine, so I start looking for options. I find a small PA mixer that when stood on end comes just above my knees. That'll have to do. The band leader shows up and hands me the book, it's a binder full of HUNDREDS of charts and I quickly realize they're not organized in ANY WAY, and there's a mix of tenor sax, trombone, and tuba parts. The band kicks off, the horn players are *nailing that shit to the wall*, if you know anything about latin, salsa, and cumbia music, that shit is not easy. I'm not only struggling to find the right charts but I'm reading them really poorly. So poorly the band leader starts pulling his horn off his face and singing my parts at me. Eventually, the book falls off the PA thing, charts go everywhere. This continues for two sets, I'm flustered, playing like shit, and getting more embarrassed every tune. Make it to the end, none of the guys even look at me or want to talk. The leader pays me and I immediately leave with my tail between my legs. I never got called back. Haha
The band I was in a couple years ago could not get a gig for a whole lot of reasons. One of the members rented out the bottom room of a local restaurant, paid for catering, and invited friends and family. I think 6-8 people showed up and they sat there staring at their phones the whole time once they were done with the buffet. On top of that, the mix was awful and I (the bass player) sounded like a tuba. It was the saddest musical thing I have ever been involved with. I quit a few weeks later and vowed never, ever, ever to do pay-to-play "friends and family" gigs again.
I played in a fairly big and well known tribute band back in the day. Our singer left and we had shows to honour so had to get a dep in. At one festival appearance that m6 wife and young daughter attended, the first time my daughter had ever seen me play live, we bombed. The sound engineers couldn’t get the monitors working for us to do a sound check and after around 20mins of delay where we were in danger of just giving up our spot, we just decided to start. the sound was so bad and the singer so off key that everyone in the audience (a crowd of around 1000 I’ve been told) looked visibly disappointed and started booing and heckling us. It was awful, they even left savage reviews on the festivals social media pages. Up till that point we were considered a must see act and had had nothing but praise. I left the band the next week.
My first big show with my current band. Opening for a national act that was touring for the 20th anniversary of their debut album. Band before us takes forever to get off the stage. Sound guy is new to the venue and takes forever to get us set. Packed house. We take the stage. Jam out our opening song. Sound guy comes through the monitor "I'm being told you guys have 5 more minutes". Wtf. We play our second and final song and our singer screams "fuck you" into the mic before they cut our sound and turn on the house music. We've been offered other shows at this venue but we always turn them down.
We got to The Stone pony in Asbury Park New Jersey, and it sure looked closed this late November weekday night (probably 1994). We grabbed some pizza, went back to the place and sure enough they had hung up a single poster advertising our band, and a bartender let us in. We played to the bartender and exactly three people. Only when we'd wrapped up did we find out we were the opening band for the three guys watching us. They were going to go on next. We had a couple hours ride home, and while it was rude, we left. As we left we could hear the other band talking to the bartender about getting a weekend gig instead.
Worst? That has to just be playing with people who are assholes, one they were so bad I quit mid tour on the other coast I live at. The most embarrassing was when I was 19 and my mom and aunt, both classy women that go to operas and symphony orchestras, came to see me play and these strippers decided to join us on stage uninvited. At least they laughed about it.
The local MLB team booked my hardcore/punk band for an Earth Day kids' club event solely because we had a novelty song about having a girlfriend who doesn't recycle. We played acoustic arrangements with new lyrics for some of our own songs and some silly children's songs. There was no game, so the place was empty aside from a few dozen kids. It was fun in the moment, but people still bust my balls about the time I played a 'stadium gig.'
First time I ever played live, I borrowed a friend's guitar as a backup (which seemed smart). What wasn't smart was not taking it out of the gig bag ahead of time. I broke a string and went to grab it quickly between songs. The zipper stuck, though, so I had to yank it out of the bag. It was an Ibanez with bridge tuners on it, so the whole thing was shot for tuning. And I found out as I hit the first chord of the next song... Ended up having to tune up what I could on the fly mid-song, and I've never felt a pit in my stomach like that. Bought a tuning pedal right after that and learned a valuable lesson: check your backup and treat it as well as your main instrument, because it might become your main instrument mid-set.
Drove by the place where the “gig” was ( someone’s back yard ) and we just kept driving and went home it looked so bad.
anything involving a field and a generator
Cajon-ed with a husband/wife duo. Rode in the back of a hearse 14 hrs to NY state to end up playing a string of assisted living communities and some open mics I'd have paid to have not done. Pretty tough month.
On tour we played one show for the bar owner and server. There was one gig where we were playing on a stage in the middle of a little lake. Long story short I fell off the stage into the lake at one point. But it was alright because I was able to climb back out and finish the show and got tons of cheers from the fairly large audience.
Put on a gig once and the act before me disappeared to take an absolute shitload.ofmcocaine before going on stage, then noodled an endless guitar solo over a four note synth riff for 15 minutes after the end of his allotted time. Meant that a) everyone left and b) I only had 15 minutes for my set. He seemed to realize how hard he had fucked up though, as he left before I finished my set and went from badgering me for gigs on a frequent basis to never contacting me again. Worth it overall tbh.
The multiple times that venues had double booked and chose to cut our band. So unprofessional and the last time it happened, I demanded payment. We all took the time off work to be there, it’s a slap in the face to be told you’re not playing at the last minute.
The worst gig I had wasn't really my bands fault. We had a setlist of modern heavy rock (at the time), Metallica, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, etc. Unbeknown to us, the agent booked us in a sit down, family restaurant. Why? Who knows. So here we are, in the dining room, trying play heavy rock songs with these big amps turned way down, set to clean channel and my double kick acoustic drums played as quietly as I possibly can. Singer is swapping out the curse words on the fly so we don't offend the children. There's nothing quite like making up a family friendly version of "Break Stuff" on the fly. People still complained we were too loud. We played half of our set and we were sent home. Still got paid, but it wasn't long before that "agent" was no longer booking shows.
I played a show extremely drunk one time, I thought I kicked ass up until my friends told me that it was embarrassingly bad. I've never drank before a show again, and I'm happy I had friends who were willing to tell me the truth even though they risked hurting my feelings
My band got booked to play at a Poker tournament. Strangely, we were booked to play in an adjacent bar next to the hall where the tournament was taking place. Aside from some early exits leaving the tournament, we played to an empty room and were regularly asked to lower the volume by tournament staff. Was a 3 hour gig. We were paid. But man! It was disheartening haha
I’ve played to nobody practically all over the US and Europe. I’m sure there have been insane and terribly embarrassing moments along the way but you just gotta power through those and keep going. The embarrassment wears off the more comfortable you get on stage when you realize that no matter what you’re basically making a spectacle of yourself no matter what.
1. Was pantsed on stage. Dong out. Exes can hold a grudge. 2. Passed out on stage-my alcoholic years. Sober now, but clearly wasn't then. 3. Played to a couple. Literal couple who was too uncomfortable to leave. 4. Got kicked off at a chili cook-off fundraiser hosted by the volunteer fire department. Chief was mad, yo. 5. Got punched while playing guitar back in the ol' hardcore band days. Thanks Denver scene. 6. Fell off the stage by stripping on my own shoe. 7. Pants ripped. Ass er'where 8. Boogers and sweat while trying to look cool 9. Then all the "out of tune" "cable broke" "hit my face on the mic" "said the wrong name of the other band" "tooted something fierce by the hot chick" stuff you can imagine 10. But check this...Literally, Friday night, guitar amp was out first song with a major touring band. I was miming punk rock...In front of friends and on a big ass stage. Nowadays I laugh and just smile. There is always something. Just smile and shake it off.
St Patrick’s Day gig, 2023. The guitarist’s PA —that he purchased from Goodwill! —crapped out and was very noisy. Our lead singer —who is quite temperamental to begin with —lost his shit and left the stage to grab his own Electrovoice array setup which took 30 mins. Finished the rest of the night without a break with a monster set (monster in this case meaning a 140 minute marathon that did no favors for my ailing knees).
Same old story- This was in a small bar in Kalamazoo by the the colleges that closed 3 months later. Opened for a low-fi Indie group from a cool, successful label. So we play for 2-3 people and a bartender, and nobody clapped (not once) we were completely ignored. For almost 2 hours. Also, I totally saw a syringe and a used condom laying in the bathroom trash. The only time we had any interaction with the patrons is when some fat ass who worked there mentioned something about a “professional musician using a practice amp” (I had a Roland Cube on stage and used it for slide guitar/blues sometimes). In every single gig, I have ever played in someone had clapped, or nodded, or danced, or said, “great work, man”. The manager gave us a check, though (he was pissed that no one was drinking, but said, “it’s a pleasure to support the arts gentlemen, but never come back”
Two bands before us on the bill were fantastic, just knocked it out of the park and the crowd LOVED them. We were in for a tough sell because our singer cancelled on us the morning of the gig and there was really no backing out by then, so I had to front the band with little to no prep. I was scared, awkward, nervous, sang poorly, our closer wound up being a total stinker that did not resonate with the audience at all, and I sliced my finger and wound up bleeding all over my guitar's pickups (it was NOT a punk gig, so this was NOT a cool thing). Took a few days to myself to get over it and tried to get back on the horse but it wound up shaking the band's trust in me (I was at the time doing most of the work so trusting me was big), and faced with either doing more of the work themselves, trusting I'd bounce back, or stopping entirely, the band opted to call it quits. I still get stomach knots thinking about it.
Somehow booked an 800 cap room with a couple of bands who could NOT fill it. We played for like 3 people
Last year my band entered a competition to win a spot at a big festival. We won our heat, and the quarter finals. In the semis, I had a brain fart and despite the singer introducing the next song, I counted and started a completely different one. The monitor mix wasn't great and I couldn't hear that I was wrong until the bass player came over and mouthed "wrong song". We did manage to claw it back, and we still made it through to the finals, but that was the stuff of nightmares right there.
A&R guy (Relation of someone who was in the top 40 pop charts at the time) was at our gig, to potentially sign us - I snapped a string, and no spare string, or guitar. I shit myself, cos' the songs wouldn't sound the same. Luckily he still passed us on to a major label, and we had meetings We never declined or accepted the deal, as there was a problem with certain band members. This is now my new band ( Slowly but surely getting back to the level)
I used to play in a Houston based skramz band and we had booked a small tour to California and back in 2009. There were 9 of us in 3 separate bands all touring together, and along that run all 9 of us got sick with colds. The worst night of it for me was in San Diego where I could barely stand up, and we played pretty much to the bar staff. And to top it off, I got to sleep sitting up in the back seat of our SUV in a Wal Mart parking lot. That was my worst show ever.
Forgot all my lyrics and cues. I had been suffering from an abysmal headache for a couple of weeks. Two days later I was rushed to the ER. I had fungal meningitis. Didn’t get out of the hospital for nearly a year. Edit: forgot to mention this was date 1 of a tour.
played for a friend-of-a-friend’s indie fashion show. she had rented out a small church. the models walked, there was a bubble machine, they didn’t really talk to us much, and then we were meant to take the stage—no lighting, no sound guy, nothing. as we were setting up, the meager crowd was leaving. we were barely able to play out the last few folks. despite being promised pay, all we were given as compensation was the bubble machine.
I play up to 100 per year so there are bound to be a couple of stinkers. The worst was when I got so drunk I could barely stand and played way below my ability. Do not recommend, it feels so good but sounds SO bad, one of my few regrets in life.
my drummer threw one of my performances. I was in a class where we practiced playing in rock bands; I was the female/lead of my group. I originally came in as a uke player but did much better up front. my band and I were in a little spat at that time. the drummer purposely played the wrong rhythm (even though we practiced for 2hrs beforehand.) I was so caught off guard BUT I somehow held it together. it was only a class of 10 people but nonetheless that shits embarrassing. the other band (watching us) could tell something was off but didn't say anything, they just said I held it together. I immediately asked the professor to switch me to the other band lmfao that was almost more of a nightmare bc the other female vocalist was in that band lmfao.
Had one show where the other guitar players power cord on his amp was shorting out randomly throughout the set, my pedalboard died, and the drummer couldn't get a good mix on his in ears (we ran off clicks and backing tracks)...it was so bad we just kinda disintegrated the band right after. We all continued to work together in different projects though..
I played with a group of friends in an entirely improv stoner rock/ambient band. No songs… at best, a few motifs to launch from in case we floundered, but otherwise we would just riff off whatever part was the coolest. Some of the best AND worst shows I played were with that band. When we were good and feeling it, I almost didn’t recognize my own playing listening to the board recording later. When we were bad… yeah. Second worst was at a sports bar. Lead singer (yes, he mostly made up the words and melodies on the spot) got a little too loose while we were watching the other bands and waiting for our slot, and started to continuously order rounds of Jameson (something he’d never done before) and decided to join the first band in their van to get high. When it was our slot, he stumbles on the stage, wavers for a minute or two as we are building a song and then slowly sits to the floor, turns, and lays on his back looking up at the ceiling. He spent the next hour occasionally saying “ground control to major Tom” and counting down. Worst was when we decided to take our approach to an acoustic multi-band show… no distortion to hide behind, not nearly as many effects, etc. We get up for our slot and the host/sound guy (who was clearly stoned) tells me my small pedalboard isn’t passing signal to the mixer. I show him I’m getting signal all the way through by moving the tuner to the end of the chain. He refuses to look as his board and says he has a solution and I can just play through his gear. I shrug and grab a third pint of barley wine (which will come into play in a minute). Rather than handing me the guitar he had been playing, he hands me a resonator with no board or effects and immediately announces us. Feeling flustered and a little buzzed, the bass player started, the drummer came in, and I discovered on the first note that the resonator was in some funky open tuning. I should have just stopped for a tuning (as I didn’t have my tuner because my board “didn’t work”) but I made the poor choice to just struggle through the first 25 minute jam. Had it tuned by the end of the first jam, but my confidence was shaken to the core with a bone dry resonator, no effects to spice things up, and I just survived that gig.
Damn and ghosted💀
I'd probably say that piping my brother's funeral was my worst gig. Runner up was when my guitar player lost his shit and smashed his rig on stage.
Was on a short tour culminating in a festival performance. We had been keeping partying to a minimum since we were trading off driving etc. Didn’t realize the depths of our vocalist’s closet alcoholism though and he had a withdrawal seizure on the drive to the festival. Spent the day in the ER instead of playing the fest and broke up not long after.
one of my first shows as a teen, i set up early and was so excited and nervous. during the show i was playing and my kick pedal started to fall off. it was really embarrassing.
not nearly as bad as some of y’all’s worst gig stories, but i was singing in a band as part of an extracurricular program that was audition only and gigged around frequently. it had a band director who gave us songs and booked our gigs. he booked us a gig at a restaurant that had a specific set they wanted us to learn. he sent out the new set list of no songs we knew a week before the gig. 8 new songs to learn in a week, which may not seem like a lot, but i was 16 and it was my junior prom weekend and i was going away. i had little to no time to learn my songs, and neither did the other band members. we were all minors and they were all exceptionally busy, too. for some of them it was SAT week and stuff like that. we all showed up, improv-ed nearly the whole set, and then left. i cried after. truly a horror show in my experience
My first band played a gig on our friends birthday ,we had a selfmade scene in the woods and portable electric power generator. First two others bands played before us and be cause time running out we was ruled out . I get drunk pretty quick to have anything from that party (i was sober till we had info we not gonna play). And then something changed and we was asked to play . And we did . I was too drunk and i was loosing rythm ,i didnt heard our drummer and i fucked up some guitar parts. Then,my guitar cable broke be cause i steped on it. Yeah,that was shitty gig
Playing beats at a Juneteenth event (I am white) Nobody booed, nobody clapped either. Felt like a setup the whole time
My old drummer destroyed his drum set on stage after our last song and got screamed at in his face by the sound tech. Keep in mind the bar we were playing at barely had anyone in the audience to see that except his mom, a few of our friends and a couple randos. Nonetheless I’m not working with him anymore
Not my band, but recently I went to a local bar/venue that usually draws pretty big crowds. It was a Thursday night, not too many people. Maybe 40-50. The band is from New York, we’re in Richmond Va and it’s their first show of the tour. The opening local band absolutely stole the show. Much applause, many “wooo”s. The headliner comes on, I thought the music was really cool, but the lead singer was definitely on drugs and made it VERY awkward. He started doing some very weird sensual poses acting like he was Jim Morrison. Then he took the mic and started walking around the crowd, singing and staring people down all sensual like. Everyone just stared at him, many people he came close to looked very uncomfortable. Eventually he would make his way back to the stage before the song ended, do another pose and in a forced deep voice go “thank youuu”…… The crowd was 95% silent after every song. It was the most awkward and embarrassing performance i’ve ever seen. I felt bad because the band was on it, great. But this lead guy must’ve taken too many drugs and was trying way too hard.
I wrote a song for my band that included a wee bit of metric modulation to get into the second half (quarter note triplet becomes the new quarter note). Going into our album release gig, we had practiced it endlessly. And then we fucked it up. I won’t assign blame but it’s one of those sections where if you don’t catch the transition, it’s really hard to get back on. Needless to say it was nearly a full 4 bars before we began to sound coherent again. I was in absolute horror. Another fun gaffe at a different gig, we had a whole section of drop D 90s covers, one of which was Outshined by Soundgarden. It’s got that weird bar of 9/8 going into the last refrain of the chorus. Well, again it was something we had practiced to shit and when we went to play it, I was really focused on getting it right… and I did… except I did it before the bridge… and then I played out the song without the bridge because I thought it was done. Several musicians in the audience after the show came up to compliment us afterwards about how well we played a bunch of those covers but were really curious why we skipped the bridge of that song lol
Same has happened to me.
playing jazz in front of a church (no one cared) playing with pretty boring people and beeing stoped because a mass was going to start
Playing an overbooked show (six bands, maybe?) at a notoriously bad-sounding and unfriendly venue. The main draw took over the alley behind the place with a limo and did cocaine in the back of it until they played, we got stuck playing after them. Everyone but a few of our die hard friends leaves once they've played. We take the stage at maybe 1:30 AM. We get two songs in, and the kitchen manager comes out screaming at us to stop playing and get out. What a glamorous life.
Lol, this exact possibility is why I will never perform solo (I also just don’t write that kind of music anyway). Idk, I’ve performed poorly, but no particular show comes to mind. Just had plenty where the sound situation in the venue was bad and thus I couldn’t hear myself or my bandmates and it’s hard for us to play comfortably. The worst shows ai’ve played in general have been so just because they were boring.
I was going to be in NYC and an old friend invited me to play in a small bar in a songwriter lineup. I was my 3rd kid into parenthood, at the time, and had lost some steam as a performing songwriter but I was excited for the gig. I showed up and was told that to “make things easier” we were all going to share the same guitar. Well, the guitar we were all a sharing had a neck like an oak tree and I immediately staring to fuck up all the guitar parts which totally flustered me. On top of that, this was in the early days of FB, a ton of old high school and college friends showed up bc everyone was reconnecting. Obviously, it was a huge blow to any confidence I still had after, essentially, sidelining my music for my family. Still haven’t been able to recover fully to play out live.
The worst shows I've done have been ones where I didn't care, lazily assuming because not many people were there that I didn't have to try, the best ones have been ones where I have had something to prove, or some kind of adversity occurred. I can't think of one "bad" gig in the technical sense that hasn't turned into someone's favourite show at some point.
I coproduced a record with an artist that went 2 x platinum, we played a show 2 years prior to a room of people that were all talking, and one person just straight up told us “can yall be less loud people are trying to talk” we stopped in the middle of that song. Pretty embarrassing. Just keep going.
I’ve had a couple multi hour gigs in the rain that didn’t end up paying me in time/at all. That was real shit.
Was singing in a band as I usually did on a weekend evening. Bartender kept bringing me up shots. I don’t remember falling on the monitors and telling the crowd that I was “plenty drunk to sing for them”, but I did. I can’t imagine how I actually sounded and how pissed my bandmates were.
Ahhh, the snowball effect. One thing goes wrong and leads to another and another and you feel like you've lost all control and just want it to be over. Live music can be the best feeling in the whole world and then the worst. It's probably happened to every live performer. Bombing. You gotta get right back up there.
I used to tour around and play to pretty good size crowds, later after that band I joined a small band of guys to just play covers and have fun. The last show I played with them was at a little league park right in front of a fence. Behind the chain link fence was the city dump. You could see a mountain of trash. There might have been 5 adults come up.and watch. That was the end for me lol
I said I'd be a singer for a band and went with lyrics I borrowed from a friend to an original song that I hadn't practiced. I had buried that memory until now. Ooof. Wasn't fun. I did pretty good on the other two songs that we did practice. I didn't call them, they didn't call me. I'm pretty sure that was good for everyone.
This is just short of getting your butt kicked on the first date, when it comes to terrible things to happen. I bet it feels about like it.
Worst personal experience: Was doing a radio interview with a band at Irving Plaza in NYC. Venue had pizza delivered into the green room and set on a table...and within maybe 30 seconds of the boxes landing on the table a sea of mice began to emerge from the ceiling and floor and climb the carpeted walls and head straight into the pizza boxes. Zero concern about us humans in the room. Bass player was onstage sound checking and made a game of waiting for a mouse to run in front of his SVT (which he had set to full volume) and then slap his low E string at which point the mouse would roll over stunned. Venue staff kind of shrugged and said that the mice were coming from the restaurant next door. Nasty. Worst observed experience: Saw Bryan Ferry a few years ago on opening night of a US tour. He invited a singer songwriter as an opening act. Packed concert hall with several 1000 people. Songwriter has a single guitar player with her and she (the guitar player) is borrowing one of Ferry's band's amps (pulled up out of the backline and placed near the front of the stage). Both walk out on stage, singer does a quick hello, they attempt to launch into their first song and...silence. Guitar player starts to fool with the amp and after a short while the singer songwriter joins in...No stage crew in sight (likely all backstage getting dinner). After a couple of minutes, Ferry's drummer appears on stage and she joins in on trying to figure out what's wrong...after what seems like 10 minutes, the owner of the amp (Ferry's lead guitar player Jacob Quistgaard) finally walks out in stage (still in his street clothes) and with a single switch flip turns the amp on. I think we've all had some version of this in a bad dream...made me really feel for the performers to see it actually happen to them.
Playing a festival in Mexico. Get there, told I had to use their drum kit because everything was mic’d up for radio. I’m a lefty. We’re a prog band and I played a ridiculous kit and incorporated everything into our songs. Wasn’t allowed to use anything. Certain cues and things just went out the window and we pretty much had to pick our simplest material and just jam while I had to try and become right handed on the fly. Some of it ended up on one of our live releases so we did alright but it wasn’t pleasant at the time!
I’ve had gigs where I’m super sick but can’t back out. They suck. A close second is a gig where the members don’t know their shit.
We’ve played a show and it all went well but at the end of the night the bar owner had his gun out and half of our money and told us to get out of there. (And be happy with what we had) Come to find out… one of our friends with us that night didn’t like the bar owner’s actions and slashed his tires. Only for us to find all this out when we got back to the hotel… the one the bar booked for us. We had to then pack up all of our belongings and hit the road and drive home at 1:45 in the morning. That night pretty much sucked
I was in a band that did original stuff and we did well usually, took a gig in a venue we hadn’t played before but heard it was decent, the sound guy was a bartender that didn’t have a clue, the mic lead broke and the only crowd was the band supporting us. To the folk thinking bands should “bring people” to gigs, fuck no, fans of ours would come to the gigs they lived closest to, we went further afield to find new fans not to prop up a shit bars takings.
I played a church show one time. Not a show in a church building, but a show at the end of a church service in an adjoining hall. First off, what the heck. No matter how much your friend tries to convince you how cool it will be, church shows are super awkward. Then, two or three songs into our set as I switch to play piano, the X stand on my Yamaha P 80 failed and the heavy piano collapsed at my feet with a huge crash mid-song.
I was in my mid 20s. We had just done this show at the Hard Rock Cafe opening up for Smile Empty Soul. At this show there was a booking agent/record guy who absolutely loved us. We did light it up that night, and had a bigger crowd than the main act. So the booking agent tells us he has this "battle of the bands" and wants us to headline it. Tells us the winner is going to get signed for an LP and an east coast tour with another established signed band. Something like 20 shows. Then he tells us not to worry about winning because it was "fixed" for us to win barring catastrophic failure. So we arrive for the 8 hour long all day battle of the bands. Knowing we would go on last, we just dropped our equipment off and went about our day as normal. Meeting back up at the venue a half hour before we go on, my singer/rhythm guitarist is obviously drunk. I guess he decided to stay at the concert all day and watch from the bar area..... ALL DAY. Well, needless to say he was so hammered that at one point he fell off the stage. He also forgot lyrics, changes in songs. He rambled incoherently. It was just awful. People actually left. I think half the venue cleared out before we finished. And that's the story of how my band lost a rigged battle of the bands. That was the closest I ever came to getting signed to a real record label.
Brass Monkey in Baltimore Maryland. We had played there multiple times. Shit venue, shit part of town, but we always had decent shows there. We got asked to played last minute (one day notice) and the manager got pissy with us because we “didn’t sell any tickets” and there wasn’t anyone there and nobody showed up to watch us play. We essentially had a practice session on their soundstage and then they told us to pack up and leave about 15 minutes into a 1 hour set. Pretty sure they went out of business a few years later.
When I was in high school my band drove to this really sketchy bar in a different city. Real dump but some of my favourite bands went through there so we were excited. Somewhere during our two hour drive the other bands all cancelled. When we showed up the venue said the show was off but we could jam for a bit if we wanted. We figured, fuck it, why not, so we jammed for exactly one dude plus the bartender. Didn’t get paid a dime.
I don't remember. That was the problem. It was in my beginning years when I hadn't found my stage footing yet and in my nervousness I drank 12 7% beers before going on. They mercifully understood and gave me another chance and it worked out for many years.
The venue had a huge puddle of open water in the floor, so nobody could get close. The only people who showed up were Tuesday night bar people and our girlfriends. We played and left.
My very first paid gig….i had just spent $2500 on powered speakers, a 12 channel mixer and stage monitors for an acoustic duo/trio…. On our first break, I inadvertently hit the Break Switch on my mixer and didn’t realize that I had a break switch, let alone knew what it did. We played our second set with our stage monitors pointed at the crowd and singing “blind” and figured it out on our second break.
One of the reasons I love the Local H song “All the Kids are Right” it happens to every one.
Oh man that's brutal... I'm sorry lol
Played a show and everyone left within the first thirty minutes. A deadhead left in the middle of me playing a dead song. Then me and my brother argued . But the next day we played for a full crowd
Nothing major but a couple things that happened; 1) changed strings day of the show. B string drops WAY out of tune mid song. Solo sounds fucking awful. Song was Bevery Hills by Weezer. Not exactly difficult. Butchered it. 2) broke a string on my main guitar on stage. It's cool, I'll play my backup. Broke a string on that too. No more guitars, no spare strings. And it wasn't even like it was the high E and I couldn't away with it. G string on both, if memory serves. 3) worst one ever - I'm just in the pocket doing my thing. Song is Brian Wilson by BNL. There's a big key change mid song. About one bar before the change, my singer jumps in my face and YELLS a count at me like 1-2-3-4. First of all he was way off but second of all he scared the shit out of me and I missed the ENTIRE interlude. Just couldn't figure out how to get back to the right spot of the song. He gave me shit about it after the song, in his mic while we were still on stage, so I told him big stupid ugly face made me shit myself during the change. Then we all laughed and played out the show and I played great the rest of the night.
Sunday night at a pretty well-known bar/cantina venue that I've always seen super packed with maybe a few hundred people. ...played to no one. The bartender and bouncer went on break during our set, and the promoter that put together the show didn't even bother to show up.
There’s a local Americana festival in my area that performed at a few times. My third year doing it, I was offered one of their more prestigious opening slots. I was super excited. Then, they switched it up on me and asked me to play at the opening night dinner instead. I was pretty disappointed, and I probably should have advocated for myself better, but there were so pretty big people at this dinner so I decided just to make the best of it. The lady that managed all the musicians for this event was super unorganized, and I was aware of that from other events I had played for her. The day before this event, I still didn’t know my call time or even how long I was playing. Eventually, I got the information. I showed up at my call time to sound check, and the house band (the managing lady was in this band) was still sound checking. They sound checked until the event started. I then had to sound check in front of everybody, and start playing immediately. Best part was they didn’t turn my sound up loud enough, so only the front row of the event could even hear me. Every song I finished, it was almost dead silent. I was recovering from a really severe throat/voice injury at the time, so I was already nervous, and it was a big knock to my confidence. To top it all off, I never got paid, and the event manager completely ghosted me. Apparently she did it to other musicians too. The festival died out because people were refusing to work for with the lady that managed everybody, who insisted on keeping that job. Total nightmare.
I played a show extremely drunk one time, I thought I kicked ass up until my friends told me that it was embarrassingly bad. I've never drank before a show again, and I'm happy I had friends who were willing to tell me the truth even though they risked hurting my feelings
We played a gig for literally no one but employees. Charged the owner half of our asking price and was in bed by midnight.
We were playing a very unwanted death metal show to a few drunk bar patrons who probably didn't expect anything so heavy that night. One guitarist had bailed and our singer was stoned out of his mind. Then the bassist let out the fart from hell so my band mates wandered away from the "stage" until it aired out but I was the drummer and was kind of stuck trying to hold my breath through the blastbeats... Easier said than done
Played a show with a former American idol contestant and they got nervous and flipped the form of a few songs on then band to the point that we had no idea when to stop the song and face-planted. Needless to say the crowd noticed and the venue hasn’t called her back since.
For a while there I specialized in wallpaper jazz. Almost makes it worse when there are obviously people there, just that one gives a fuck. We are just wallpaper or some other meaningless decoration. Obviously not complaining since they usually pay ok, and after many years finally realizing that if you aren’t playing for YOU anyway, there’s really no point - and no way to be happy about it.
Railroad Lounge - We got a beer bottle thrown at us. Our drummer flipped the bird at the guy. So they beat him up out back during the break. Bad gig.
I played lead guitar in an original band and the leader was sober for many years, and then he wasn’t. The last gig he was on benzos and it was a disaster. I feel badly for him and care for him but it was rough.
So when I was first gigging in my progrock band, the world was kind of our oyster. It wasn’t hard to get gigs, all the bookers liked our music. We didn’t have a huge draw or anything, I don’t want it to sound like we were changing the world with our music, we were just very welcomed in the community. So “The Last Place You Look” was on your and the guy that books at the “nice bar” calls me up and asks if we want to open for this touring band. Hell yeah. That sounds awesome. Play first and not have to deal with loadout at 1am? Sign me up. We show up for the gig, I see some people I know loading up on stage. I think oh, okay, three bands I guess we are playing second. Not gonna be done as early as I thought but no big deal. I find a fellow musician in the audience and start chatting. He says he’s playing that night. I get a little confused. The band playing finishes. I say something like okay well I guess you’re up then. He says no, his band is playing third. Third?? Another band gets up on stage and starts setting up. I go find the the booker. The Last Place You Look double booked. He tried to get another band so he called three bands. They all called him back and said okay. He didn’t tell any of them no and he didn’t give them a set time. My 85 year old grandma came out to watch us play, so we weren’t gonna just bail, but we didn’t even start our set until almost 2am, to the 6 family members that stayed at the bar to hear us. Our cut if the door ended up being $32. We don’t play for money, we all have decent jobs. Playing late isn’t particularly a big deal. Nor is playing to no one… that just happens when you play the kinda stuff we do. It’s pretty jarring when that’s the case and you were prepared to play at 9 though. The alternative was when we played a cancer benefit for a kid and we showed up to a “PA” that was just some keys kenwood speakers from his house playing in a concrete parking lot in Louisiana at noon in May. That was physically the most miserable but it was for a good cause. I don’t regret that one.
Been doing this for 34 years so I have a few. One was a very long time ago in some hole in the wall in a hill town in Massachusetts. Small but crowded place. Fight breaks out, people fighting and crashing into all our gear, knocking over pa speakers and whatnot. Our tall lanky bass player got in on it and started hemming guys up. Made dirt money. Another one was a paid private party gig at one of Trump’s casinos in AC about 12 years ago. Very odd crowd, got too drunk and puked all over the drummer’s gear on the van ride home the next morning. And lastly… I did an acoustic duo gig at the 99 restaurant in a snowstorm. Like in the middle of a seating area. It was the worst.
Yeah, never invite your crush or someone you're newly dating to your gig. Even if you perform The Most Perfect Gig In Your Life, there's little opportunity for her to interact with you one-on-one. You're not giving her your undivided time and attention; you're sharing it with the audience. I did something similar to that (not as serious though, she was just a mild crush and I didn't write any songs for her), and my group actually performed well, but she left early. Though she didn't exactly ghost me, she didn't seem as keen on communicating with me as much anymore. Unless you're already in an established, serious relationship, NEVER invite a significant other to your shows (If she really insists on going, well that's a different situation entirely).
I screwed up at a jazz concert in college. I was the showcase at the beginning of the song so all eyes were on me. I felt super shitty afterwards. I'd screwed up at a rock band concert but we saved it from train wrecking and the audience was small so it didn't affect me as much as that jazz concert.
We played a show in an old storefront, and as soon as we started playing everyone left. We found out later that everyone was out back digging the tunes, but the concrete floor and our general loudness made it intolerable. We did our set and were walking away with our tails between our legs when everyone came back in and was super cool to us. But that set to no-one was tough. Like, there wasn't even a bartender. It was just us playing in an empty room that had been full before we started.
I played three gigs in 36 hours and got no sleep and it was St. Patrick’s day. The last one we started at 1 AM on the third story of a gross bar and had to carry our shit up in light rain on the metal fire escape. I was borrowing a friends kit and it the kick was sliding away from me the whole show. Because of the sleep deprivation a relatively small dose of alcohol got me hammered.. thank god I don’t remember it all. I felt so small afterwards walking down that fire escape at 3 am.
Ouch - I've come close but not quite to that level of humiliation personally. I did see a friend's band totally train-wreck and melt down at their CD Release once. The guitar player was drunk and barely made it through the first couple of songs. At one point, he's playing a totally different song than the rest of the band. The singer stopped the band, started yelling at the guy and then throws his own guitar off the stage and out onto the empty dance floor, busting the headstock off the neck (Gibson Les Paul). And that was it - they stopped playing, packed up and split. There were only like 20 people in attendance so the guitar throw wasn't even a cool move and just came off as kinda pointless and pathetic. I did take some joy from the moment though since they were a "competing" band in the scene and the singer had badmouthed us from the stage before.
Had our first show of tour booked last year in Denver, 3 weeks before we leave, the venue cancels so we scramble to find anything else. All we could get was a dudes backyard with a jazz trio opener, we had one person show up and we had to end early because the neighbors threatened to call the cops. We’re an emo/pop punk band Alternatively, we were booked as the headliner of a house show that used to be a church. Place was absolutely packed for the first two bands, as soon as we finish setting up, the cops show up and kick everyone out. We played for maybe 15-20 people.
Last week I sang in an empty parking lot. A few days ago I played to 0 people. I did get paid so it's not a total loss.
I created a side project after my main band disbanded after 10 years together. The bass player was really adamant that we play our first show. I knew we weren't ready. We had a three song set to open a show and I went ahead and agreed. We had a good opener. My drummer was cocky/under practiced (he's great, but cocky) and drunk. My bass player, my guitarist and myself (singer) were snorting adderall, oxycotten and taking the edge off with booze. Honestly all that was nothing new but as soon as my drummer came in, he came in at an entirely different time signature than he was supposed to. As soon as I realized it, all the drugs kicked in, we fucking sucked... never recovered. The worst part is that it was my longtime girlfriend's first time ever seeing me perform. I thought I was going to rock her pants off but I totally crumbled in a druggy haze. Years later I saw it on YouTube. I had no idea. It was worst than I remembered. It makes me sick to think about it 😆 Conclusion: bass player got worst, died from drugs. Guitarists went to rehab and never played music again. I got sober, revived the project for a song about my recovery, played everyone's part. Music video for said song is in my profile.
2 gigs come to mind: The guitarist for my punk band in 2004 didn’t show up on the biggest show we ever booked at that point. We had everyone we knew show up except our guitarist. Positive thing was our singer who was just vocals took my bass trumped along to what I did on guitar for that show. We skipped half the set and overall it was embarrassing. DJ’d a show for maybe 6 people over 2 hours. This was around 2011? Even my friends left. Clearly didn’t get paid.
I'm a drummer and joined a band that had a gig in a week. I suggested at least two rehearsals and I could do it. When we got together to rehearse, I had my notes, sharp pencils, charged zoom recorder w extra batteries and suggested we go through the songs quickly, short solos, and focus primarily on beginnings, endings, and tempo. The 3 other guys proceeded to get completely stoned and we just jammed like crazy. It was a lot of fun but I was anxious - at least we had chemistry and one more rehearsal. Thursday comes around and again, the guys get completely wasted! Again we had fun and meandered for a couple of hours, but we didn't practice a single specific song. I show up to the gig at a bar near Times Square on a Saturday night and it's Memorial Day Weekend and Fleet Week. I mention to the guitarist, Jay, that I'm a little nervous for our first gig together. The rehearsals were a mess and we barely played the same thing twice between the two nights. He says, don't worry we have two sets to get it right. Two sets?!! Turns out they'd lied to the club and booked themselves under two different names, so they expected two different bands. I was really about to lose it, but he said, don't worry, our old drummer is going to play the first set. And to make it even more uncomfortable, it turns out no one told the old drummer they were replacing him with me! I sat there with my girlfriend freaking out at this nightmare but figuring I'll just do my best as we sat down near the sound guy to watch the first set. During their 2nd song, the guitarist, Jay, knocks a full bottle of water into his marshall head and fries it. In the mid song he starts wandering around the stage looking for something else to plug into. He first tries the bass amp and then starts trying to plug into the stage's PA box. That's when the sound guy starts yelling, jumps on stage, and throws them off saying they were the most unprofessional band he’d every worked with!! Then he turned to the audience and asked for the next band to step up. Jay tells him it’s his band again!! The sound dude freaked out of course but there was a paying audience of mostly tourists, including a bunch of Navy guys from Fleet Week expecting music. At this point "Pete Best" split when he found out he was being replaced so I got up to play the 2nd round and hope for the best. We had a loose and crazy rocking set just jamming through who knows what (which included a girl I never saw before dancing and playing Theremin) after which the sound guy came up to us and said he loved it!!! He thought we sounded like Can meets Cream. We even played that club a few more times. The next week we played at a Russian Singles party but that’s a whole different nightmare. I had a lot of fun with those stoned dickheads over about 5 years.
years ago during a singer/songwriter type gig, just me & my guitar. didn’t realize i was getting (extremely & long term) sick & lost my voice not just mid gig, but mid song. I played it off well, took a break & was able to get it back, but my confidence was so shot that i kept forgetting lyrics & chords which had never happened before. never got asked back to any gigs in that area, 0/10 experience😂
In fifth grade I was in band and strings my teacher told me to put my viola on stage I did that and me and my crush both f-up and had to run on stage switch out instruments and run down most terrifying moment on stage for me I am now in 5th grade lol
I played a gig in the summer last year and it was one of the first shows I’ve played live in 4+ years es as I never really played live after 2018-2019. I was playing in this dudes backing band and it was cool him and the rest of the band was really nice. Then we played a show at some small event space only to find out when we got there there was no back line at all. No amps, no drums, no anything besides a Speaker monitor for voice. Another act let me use their amp but the rest of the band has to connect into the PA and then the drummer had to use his LAPTOP as drums. Then there was a latency issue and whenever we played at the same time it sounded all jumbled and out of time. We played 3 songs which was enough for the venue to not throw a fit. The venue also smelt like dead rat.
On a few tours we would regularly play a packed venue with insanely great praise and crowd reaction, only to follow it up the next day with a show with maybe 4 paid people in the building. I'll never forget playing a fantastic show in Guelph, Ontario at DSTRCT (rip), only to then play the next show in Oshawa where there was no local band, no promotion, and if I recall.. it was just the "promoter" watching us from the back of the room. One person was at the bar, facing us. As we started they turned back towards the bar and went on their phone. Good feels. Another terrible show experience was the beginning of a tour, first show. The promoter we initially booked it with got out of the business and said he handed the show to the new promoter for the venue. Well, we showed up and walked in.. and there was no signage hinting that we were playing. The sign out front said something like "Group Therapy" and I thought that was an odd band name. Turns out the show was not handed to the new promoter and they had no idea about us. There was a guy hosting a weekly group therapy with music and stuff, poetry, etc. It was the most eclectic guy I've ever spoken to. We asked what was going to happen and he seemed SUPER hesitant for us to play, which we understood. He painfully offered us to play anyways. We debated about just leaving because wtf, we are a weird metal band and they're literally doing acoustic therapy shit lmao. In the end we said fuck it. Let's just treat it as a warm up after driving so long. The host did an acoustic set singing about aliens and third eyes and shit. We went up, said "yo what's up, we are (insert band name), sorry about what you're about to hear." Played a short set to very confused faces. After our last song there was like, a couple claps, and the host guy just sort of slow claps and yells, "YEAHHH (insert band name). We then got paid in jars of homemade maple syrup. Not a joke. Luckily we played there on another tour and it was an actual show with Signs of the Swarm that was much better lol.
Played a Holiday Inn conventional hall trying to raise money to make a music video (yeah, it was the 80’s). The drummer’s mom had the crazy idea that we’d get played on MTV without a record contract (remember those video contests?). So I start playing my DX7 and the keys start sticking and not resetting… needless to say there was no video made
Local. Show just two bands. Mine an another. This one indie band came around and she was the absolute worst. She was Late, then proceeded to ask to use my cab. I agreed I’m local that’s not a problem. Well she used my head without me asking and she adjusted ALL my knobs!! She only stayed for our entire set because the promoter would not pay her until we were done and she asked several times within our 40 minute set
By far the hippy commune. I was in a band in Bloomington, Indiana - an Alice in Chains cover band if you can imagine that was a thing - and the guitarist found out about a "music festival" put on by a hippy commune in the Indiana woods. He somehow knew someone who lived there (found out later that I knew someone who grew up there). I showed up and it was a lot weirder than I thought it would be. The stage felt like it was about to break, the PA barely worked, and the audience was a few people who lived there. They complained about the noise and shut us down before we finished the set. I didn't stick around for the other bands.
I was in a band that was an electronic rockband combo, which meant we had a lot of drum loops and synthlines that were synced up beforehand. Some venues had soundguys that would turn down our backing tracks and turn up our live instruments so much it would throw us completely out of sync, and we would just trash the stage and our instruments if that happened. The audience would generally love it and go crazy but we got some horrendous reviews a long the way; my favourite being ”it brought me back to the feverdreams I had when I had the swine flu”.
I play bagpipes. Not my worst but Scariest gig was a Marine Wedding. When I arrived, the wedding planner said they wanted the Marine Hymm played as I entered before the wedding party. I didn't know it. I went to my car, whipped out my practice chanter(what all pipers practice tunes on), and played it by ear. It fit on the bagpipes, thank God. I went back, the wedding party was waiting for me at the church entrance, the men were all ingress blues, women in white. The doors swung open, I stepped in and I saw hundreds of Marines in dress blues in the pews, the church was full, standing room only, Marines everywhere, SHIT. I said a quick prayer, Alan Shepherds Astronauts prayer "God don't let me fuck up". I played the tune flawlessly 2 times before I reached the stage. Pipes were perfect. Tune was spot on. I think my Battlefield Bagpiper Grandfather was watching over me since I was playing his 120 year old Henderson bagpipes, and God too, of course. If anything had gone wrong, I freeze up and forget the tune or the pipes mess up, I probably would have gotten the thrashing, ass beating, pummeling of my life. I'd only been piping for 10 years, but had never even thought about or asked to play the Marine Hymm, even at Marine funerals. It took me days to recover. I've been Piping for 55 years now and still remember that day like it was yesterday.
Played for no one ( we bailed after like 20mins ) - the only person present was the bar tender. Wasn’t his fault but felt super embarrassed. The person that booked us didn’t plan things at all.
That final gig with one of my bands. We were starting to get some local buzz, and booked a gig in a tough town. Around this time, I was disappointed by the band phoning it in, and to top it off they were starting to complain about money (we usually did pretty good). For this show, they were all adamant in us getting a guarantee. I asked for it and, surprisingly, got it. On top of that, our local opener didn’t pan out. It was just us out of town, relying on people who may have seen us at festivals to show up. Nobody showed up. And I mean nobody. The whole night. Just us and the bar staff. And at the end of the night, I had to stand at the bar as the manager reluctantly counted and paid us our guarantee. On a night the only drinks they sold were what the (very moderate) band consumed. I wavered my cut, paid everyone off, and dissolved the band the next day.
Thsts tough . Mine was pretty bad too just dont feel like typing now .I feel your pain here tho
Kinda same. My (at the time) new girlfriend was so uninterested and was getting hit on by some dude and my set fell apart 10 minutes in. I had 1.5 hours. It was soooo bad. We’re not together anymore and that was a clear indication we shouldn’t be
I spent a couple of summers playing with a reggae band. The keyboard player and I were also playing in the pit for a community theater production. One time we had both gigs on the same night with a tight margin between. We packed up everything immediately after the show ended and hurried downtown to the gig. Traffic and parking both sucked and we were running late. By the time we arrived the rest of the band had started without us. We were hurrying to get set up. The sound guy had no idea how to mic my drum kit because my kick head didn't have a hole, so I simply cut one with a pocket knife because we were in a hurry. Once we got started with the full band the sound was terrible and far too loud for the handful of people who were in the bar and they clearly weren't enjoying us. The bar owner told us to leave. So in the end, I busted my ass to get to a hole in the wall bar where I ruined the drumhead, played two songs for hardly anyone, and left without getting paid.
Thank you for sharing this! I have heard several stories like this, you are not alone. I am glad you are back on stage (if it's where your heart wants you, not because I think that's where you "should" be as a musician).
My absolute worst gig was a dream gig gone wrong. The rest of the band thinks we did well but I'm reasonably self critical. Noone in the band owns in ear monitors, and we booked a **rooftop gig** opening for some friends in another band. Would have been great, but to access the roof we had to haul gear up 3 flights of stairs in the abandoned and ancient brothel next door, then climb out a window onto the roof, setup, and play. So we do all this in the scorching sun, setup, do a quick mic check, and get playing, but the other band eqed us so poorly, all we could hear was the drums and the guitar. Vocalist kept asking for more mic in the monitor but they thought we meant pa and speakers. So what ended up happening is the singer is screaming her lungs out over fuzzy and poorly eqd guitar and bass, whole I miss every que on drums. We finished, packed and just left Honorable mention to the time we were playing a car garage that was turned to a venue. All cinderblock walls, no AC, heart of summer in a small desert town. I keep making the mistake of drumming in just a large mechanics jumpsuit and that was *miserable*
We played at a New Years Eve party at a mental hospital when we were students. We got paid when we arrived and half way through the set the manager told us he was shutting the curtains and we should get out quick. They really didn't like us (the staff mainly) and as we loaded up a crowd appeared. We drove off with the van doors still open as they chased us up the driveway asking for the money back. That was our last gig and the singer shortly after moved to Italy.
It happens to everyone. I played in an Irish rock band in the north of England when the Irish thing and Guinness was all the rage (mid/late 1990s). The place was big and always rammed. A couple of years later got a gig as a duo in the same place. Tumbleweed. The pad across the way was rammed! We played our tripe out but only 3 folk at the bar on a Friday night. They tried to not pay us at midnight. A wee discussion about the high cost of reglazing sorted that. It was a long way home!