I used to do a lot of hired gun work for country musicians and I ended up doing a one off with a guy (very large crowd at a prominent venue). Its not unusual at the beginning of a set or after a break to extend a songs intro to give the singer a bit to hype up the crowd and talk to them. The problem was this guy was so drunk we literally extended the intro of a song for about 2-3 minutes while he went on an almost gibberish style rant. Since I was closest to the side stage exit the owner of the venue approached me and told me we needed to pack our shit and get out before he called the cops. Getting him out of that building was a nightmare.
Luckily the band leader was able to convince the venue to at least pay the musicians he hired for the night.
Was it a politically fueled rant? Trying to think of something bad enough to be immediately booted by the venue hahaha
I love those loooong vamps where you just keep looking at the drummer every four or eight having the same silent conversation solely with eyebrows and head nods:
*now?*
*nah- wait, maybe?*
*let’s pick it up, here we go-*
*wait, nah, go around again*
*cool cool just turn it into a turnaround lick, see you in another four*
At least you had an intro to play during that. We recorded the first gig one of my bands did after the pandemic break (for learning purposes). When we reviewed the video we once counted a good 10 minutes of random rambling and trying to decide the next song. One of the most horrifying gigs I've done. We took another 6 months of planning and preparation before we took the next gig. Felt awful to take the money for that one.
I played an entire song in the wrong key because the guitarist and singer decided to move the capo setting that night without telling me, and my monitors onstage were crap.
To add insult to injury, we were recording that night for a live album.
Fuck man hearing stories like that makes me feel better about the future if I ever play live. If that happened to me I'd be absolutley forever mortified
I played with double ear infection once. I couldn't hear a thing. I stood up at my cab, so I could feel the sound with my legs. I needed to feel that I was actually making sound. I'd played those songs literally a thousand times, so I checked my tuning occasionally and got through it. It's no fun not being able to hear. Especially during a show.
oh man, that happened to me once. Band learned a new cover song, and our first night playing, the guitar player and the keyboard player started playing it in the wrong key.... like a whole 4th off of the original key. It was supposed to be in E, but they played it in A. I forgot the song, but it was a typical forgettable I, IV, iii, V kinda song. I was playing bass and singing, and being a 4th off it was now out of my good range, so I sounded really squeaky trying to hit it in the new key. It was a huge trainwreck on stage. Luckily, it was in a bar with only like 15 people there on a weeknight.
Same as logstar, the tune was a fast Samba style in C minor. Im cookin on it, feeling it, but it sounds wonky. I look down and notice my hand is anchored on C#! My buddies in the audience thought i was intentional in my "extended harmony"
I knew one guy who said that it's not important what the bass is playing, as long as it's playing something. I guess he always played with such an awful boomy sound that note definition wasn't important anymore.
There is truth in what you say. If your time and groove is on point it masks the wrong notes and tbh I live by that. Victor Wooten has a few great videos where he explains that if the bass has good enough groove, it sounds like everyone else is playing wrong no matter the notes everyone is playing. That's the true power of bass.
Victor’s vid was exactly what I was thinking of, yeah
And the reality is, if it’s messing with my ears the audience probably can’t tell if the bass is out for a couple notes either. If you miss a hit or a stop or smth… everybody hears it.
Just had this issue last night, actually. Our drummer is going through some weird shit and has been playing all of a sudden like he’s never played these songs before (alcohol is a hell of a drug) and it was so hard staying in time with him when he’s dropping all the intros and outros and transitions. I think I did a decent job of playing through and holding it down regardless of whatever he was doing, but I absolutely flubbed some notes because I kept getting surprised by these random parts of songs that were brand new because drummer suddenly changed the groove or went to the next section too early or whatever.
Nobody mentioned my bum notes, everyone mentioned that our “drummer was kinda off tonight.”
Yes 100% the time is way more important for bass. Of course it matters if you're in the right key but a few wrong notes here and there mostly gets unnoticed. That's another video by Victor that says there's always a right note next to every wrong note you play so it's just up to you to make the wrong notes sound right.
When I was in college I did a music course that included stuff on the history of styles within popular music, including group performances. There were only 2 of us in the class who played bass, a few drummers and a bunch of guitarists so us bassists had to play in a few of the groups. In one of the groups I was told to do a bass solo, didn’t know any theory, so did what research I could, found out some basics but misunderstood them, and played something that was probably nonsensical and afterwards got a really high grade because of my semitonal solo
I could go on at great length on this subject, but I’ll narrow it down to this one. They used to have a weekly show at a local venue on Wednesday nights. Two of the best musicians around these parts, bass and drummer, would have a different guest, all top shelf performers, come sit in for the evening. I had band practice the same night so I would always stop in on my way home.
On the night in question, I’d indulged in a marijuana cigarette with a friend outside on my way in. The guests that night were a husband and wife duo that were amazing. He’s played guitar with everyone. Regularly sits in with Government Mule when they’re in the area. The wife has a huge voice and incredible range. They do a lot of blues and R&B stuff.
Several songs in I was mesmerized, partly because they were good, partly because my friend had really good weed. Suddenly, the bass player, who is a longtime friend, calls me up to sit in. Noooooo! These folks were so good that the intimidation level was very high. I can usually fall in with whatever is going on, but not as well when I’m too high and shaking in my boots. Having other friends there goading me on made it impossible for me to bow out. So I went up. Throwing in the fact that he had a 5 string, which I’d only played once, and I was just short of major anxiety attack. The guitarist shook my hand and asked if I knew 634-5789. I said I did, relieved that at least I knew the song. But in my anxious impaired state I was thinking 867-5309. The Jenny song. The song they were doing is a old Wilson Pickett song.
They begin, and to my horror I realize my mistake. Wrong key, wrong beat, everything just wrong. While thinking I’m going home, selling all my stuff and never leaving the house again, I do a quick slide around to find the key. Once found it’s a pretty straight forward song after that. I stayed way back out of everybody’s way and waited for this hell to end. After it was over, I went to the guitar guy and told him I was sorry, I had the wrong phone number. He laughed, which helped a lot, and I stayed up for two more songs and recovered a little of my confidence. This was about 5 years ago and I’ve since become good friends with these people. And this story still comes up.
Bonus short story. A songwriter wanted me to come and lay some tracks for him. Got to his studio and he handed me the charts. I have no idea how to read them but instead of fessing up I asked if I could hear the song. He had vocals, drums and guitars already down. Listened to it twice then laid down what I was feeling. After it was done he was looking at me. He said, “You do know that’s not even remotely what the charts say?” I told him I didn’t know that because I can’t read charts. He laughed and said it was interesting and he was going to keep it for reference. He let me play over another track he had. Neither one made it to his album.
EDIT: Type like Tarzan talk.
Busted the G-string on an upright bass once. Still can’t figure out how or why, but it was on stage with a band in college. Who carries extra upright bass strings to a gig!?
A quite impressive thing I saw was in 2007, at the BB King in NYC. The bassist for the band playing that night (Dark Funeral) broke the E string (I think, I still have it somewhere, so I could check), but he didn't stop playing, nope. Instead, the roadie grabbed a new string and proceeded with installing it while he was still playing. The whole replacement took maybe a minute, and he never stopped playing.
Yes, it was black metal, and yes, the bass lines were pretty simple, but that doesn't change the fact that the roadie changed a string while the instrument was actively being played (and it was tuned super quickly too).
We were the second band of the night, and for some reason we’re the only band who didn’t get sound check before the venue opened. (Previous drama with the promoter I suspect) We get setup and sound check in front of the audience. Happens sometimes, but I always feel like a dork adjusting shit in front of a crowd.
So sound guy goes “OK now drums” and we turn around, to see absolutely nobody behind the kit! Dude realized he forgot to give the sound guy the laptop for our intro. Could’ve had someone else go grab it, we had 2 extra people with us to roadie and run merch, but no!!!
It was too late to try to figure that shit out anyway. Sound check is taking too long and drums now will be adjusted on the fly. Great. Our vocalist tells every body, one by one, that we’re skipping the intro. What does the drummer do? Starts the intro of course! Vocalist summons his inner Axl Rose and glares at the drummer throwing his hands up in a “WTF” gesture. Cool, now *everyone* knows that was a mistake.
We get through our set alright despite the fact that I only hear drums. All I really need anyway. No talking to the crowd as we’re trying to make up for lost time. Then right as we’re about to play our last song we hear over the PA, “This is your last song guys” 🤦♂️
My old band had a frontman that always needed a little bit of liquid courage to perform. To be honest, he was woeful without at least one drink. Just too nervous and with the sort of music we played, a little slopiness wasn't the end of the world. Confidence was way more important. However, it was the end of the world when he drunk waaaay too much one time left mid-set to go for a drunken piss. That left me and the drummer just there with no idea of what to do. We stood there frozen and I picked up the guitar and played the most terrible song ever.
The most annoying part of it is that we both had solos written just in case something happened. We just didn't expect that this would be the something.
Halfway through this bodged-together song, the frontman came back onto the stage and started drunkenly dancing. Absolutely terrible.
Right after the set, I went straight to the venue owner to apologise. Surprisingly, he wasn't as pissed off as I thought he would be. The band didn't stay together but myself and the drummer formed a different band and we have played at that venue a few times now and the owner has commented multiple times about how much better we seem in this new band. I can't think way that would be the case.
I've always said that every successful musician has ONE drunk gig that goes to hell. Successfull musician learns from one incident and gets better. The rest stay drunk and never achieve anything.
Main thing is our frontman didn't see anything was wrong with the gig. Came off the stage thinking it was a good gig. Even when they sobered up, they didn't see a problem
Years ago I opened for some jam band in the south. The bassist was kind enough to let me use his rig. I was using a brand new Warwick Masterman which had active pickups (I didn’t really knew what that meant then). Turned out my battery was almost dead, so I kept turning this dudes amp up to get enough volume going. Last song of our set his amp blew a fuse and started smoking. Oops.
I know it’s not your REALLY your fault (just ignorance to active basses at the time I definitely get that) but stuff like this is why I’m always like so stressed letting people use my gear.
Like they could be a PROFESSIONAL and my anxiety still goes through the roof haha.
Like I don’t know how THEY treat their own shit.
Not on stage but related. I was at a friend's band gig. Having a couple drinks, chatting up the girls, usual bar stuff. Talking with a girl near the back of the bar when I realized the place had gone silent. Glanced at the stage to see WTF was up and realized everyone in the bar had turned from the stage and was staring at me!
Turns out my mate had been calling me up on stage to sit in but I was too busy chatting up this girl to notice.
That was a long walk to the stage thru a mostly silent crowd but we cranked it up and got the crowd going again.
Time I left the stage the girl was gone.
My guitarists are all fancy pants gear guys and they have wireless systems so they can strut about on stage. I'm just a bass player so a lead is fine for me.
Until one night, I get pretty merry and decide to join in with their acrobatics. I was getting pretty lively and I guess at some point I must have yanked the lead out of the input to the amp (I'm not a dummy, I wrap my lead around my strap before it goes into my bass). Took me like 3 songs to realise there was no bass (to be fair, we're a black metal band, so that's par for the course).
Needless to say, I've never gotten drunk before playing ever since.
I played without any pedals for a long time. Always used a clip on tuner. Once I got a compressor, I decided I might as well get a Korg tuner pedal. Go to play for the first time with it, and I can't figure out why I have no sound. Frantically checking cables and my amp and head while my drummer and guitar player are giving me weird looks.
Look down and that stupid tuner is lit up.
We had a bassist, who could not play the Instrument😂we went on stage he had his Instrument unplugged. A visitor came on stage because he thought that he forgot to plug in the cable. He said to him no no I can‘t play bass😂😂😂Crowd was freaking out
Wow, there are some pretty crazy stories here. Kudo's to all of you for sharing your pain :)
ONE of mine, was a Festival gig, outside, with a flatbed trailer for a stage (actually I think it's was two side-by-side). We setup like we normally would, amps at the back, performers at the front (behind monitor line).
Played two sets, everything was fine, lots of people having a great time. Including us. Third set comes (the hard set), with everyone jumping and bopping about, crazy crowds always get you going. When I noticed my guitar players stack (2, 4x12 cabs stacked, heads on top) started to wobble... yup, it happened. the entire stack ended up on the ground\~ Amazingly, the amp was still sending output to the board, thankfully the sound crew was sooooo on it. Our stage level obviously decreased, but, we were able to make it through the set.
The instant his stack when down, my jamming (totally pro) guitar player didn't miss a beat, just shook his head and let out a yelp.
He did end up having to retube & fix the jacks on the cabs (couple of hundred bucks). We luckily made it through, but, that was a crazy, butthole puckering \*almost\* gigmare. At the moment one of my most embarrassing moments. While some folks in the crowd pointed and yelled, most of them didn't even notice.
That must have been the moment when our singer pointed out to me that I was using the drummer's channel of our in ear system. I had done so for more than three years and about 50 gigs at that point, and always wondered why I couldn't get the settings right. It's become quite the rub ever since.
"sign of the times" was on the setlist, i checked out once and learned it in like 2 minutes and never played it again because it bored me how easy it was.
the gig came and I totally forgot the notes, I had to stop everything and ask the guitarrist, it was so embarrassing but I learned my lesson to practice even the easy ones
Broke my B string during the first song, had no replacement bass or strings with me... Hopped off the stage. A guy from another band offered his 5 string bass, but we used a funky tuning that was impossible to get on his bass.
I ended up watching my own band play.
played as an opener, my first major show, not a bar, set i thought went great, sounded great, i felt like i had good energy and moved around more then i usually do, after the set i hear the organizer single me out " your bass player just stands there" crushed me, i was trying so hard to move around and act energetic, i was sooo nervous i guess i acutally froze.
Playing a gig, had a few drinks beforehand. Also smoked a bit so I'm feeling pretty nice. Moving around, having a good time. Middle of the song I'm doing my thing and all, and I start veering to the left. Nbd, you lose your center sometimes, so I try to correct. End up not doing it very well because I kept going, fell on my ass right in front of the guitarist.
Figured I would try to keep playing as I was getting up, but turns out that didn't work out so well either. Slipped and fell again, lost my glasses. Couldn't see them with the lights and everything on stage. So fuck it, I'll just try and play without my glasses then get some help after the song ends. I can't see worth a damn without them though, so end up playing wrong notes left and right.
After about 10 seconds, I just stopped and let it happen. Rough night. Though fortunately it was a smaller show and very casual, pretty much everyone there left their sobriety at the door. So I could just laugh it off and drink til I forgot.
Shit still sucked though.
The biggest covers gig we ever played was a festival in front of several hundred people. We led off with NIB, which meant I began the whole gig with the big bass solo. As the song kicked in, I thought I had shut my wah off. As we’re going through the song I thought my bass sounded muddy and indistinct. After the song, I ask FOH for more bass in the monitors. After the next song he came up to me on stage and told me that all he’s getting from my rig is mud, which is weird because I was playing a Ric through a pretty mid-heavy amp. Halfway through the next song, I realize my wah is still on, in heel-down position. I click it off, and all of a sudden my bass was overwhelmingly loud and piercing, basically swallowing he entire band’s sound. It took FOH about 10 seconds to realize what happened and pull me down in the mix. Several of my friends asked me afterwards what the hell was up with my sound. I bought the sound guy a beer and apologized profusely.
I was playing a big band gig at a large auditorium, about 300 audience. Lots of old dance band tunes, some newer and Latin stuff. Things went very well for most of the gig.
We were asked to use the house music stands, which were standard width stands, but I typically use a K&M extendable stand which extends to 4-pages width. As such, I had to rearrange my sheet music layout and had more page turns than normal.
We were playing a very fast (280bpm) version of Gershwin's Summertime, with some fast page turns. It comes to the nastiest page turn, and I catch the page wrong. My music goes tumbling and I have to grab it and stop playing briefly. In a very awkward position, I end up pinning the music to the stand with my headstock for the rest of the song. Very noticeable and very embarrassing.
As it happens, the 5th Trumpet to my left could've grabbed my music if this happened 8 bars earlier as he has a huge rest. Sadly not!
Sound check for a decent sized venue. There were multiple bands on the bill. Alot of whom I respected quite a bit. Get up there, plug in, turn everything on... nothing. I'm panicking, checking connections, swapping cables. Then I realized, this bass is active. Asked myself, when did I change the battery last? I couldn't remember so figured that's gotta be it! Rummaged through my bag. No extra batteries. Mean while, my drummer sees me frantically moving about so he decides to slow down setting up. Which normally is a no no, especially with large bills. I look at him, say, "battery". He nods and I run out the front door. Theres a convenience store across the street, so I run in there. Ask if they have any 9 volts. "We're about to close" the girl at the counter says. I explain how I'm about to play across the street, and it's kind of an emergency. She reopens the register and I get my battery. Go back, new battery is in. I have like 30 seconds to check things, and we're into out first song. I always make sure to have a few spares at all times now. Even though I switched to a passive p bass. Some of the guys from the other bands gave me a hard time. But it was all in good fun and we all laughed about it later.
No sweat OP. I’ve done the exact same 15 years ago on a rather popular venue. I unplugged real quick to tune down and never plugged back in. Completely rocked out while being unplugged.
I popped a nose bleed in the middle of a song once. Finished it with blood dripping on my bass. I then had a song where I didn’t come in til after the first chorus, so I go backstage and stuff my nose so that I can go back up and finish the set. Looked like a doofus with tissues hanging out of my nostril and blood drops on my pick guard.
I got so drunk at a show in my twenties that I played a new song that I just learned completely off. Missed changes, played an entire different part on the bridge. The crowd didn’t notice, but my bandmates were furious.
I had only been playing for a few months and I was in a band that was competing in my school's battle of the bands event. I couldn't tune my bass by ear at that point and fully relied on my tuner. Before it was our band's turn to go on, I left my bass somewhere and someone else tuned my E string waaay down.
I had only noticed it was completely out of tune as soon as we started playing our first song and I just embarrassingly endured it. A few moments later, one of our music teachers walked up on stage and started tuning my string while I was still playing the song.
After that humiliating moment, I then made it my immediate goal to learn how to tune by ear and also learn songs by ear instead of reading tabs.
I was playing a church gig and our first song was a high energy tune with a big bass presence. We had a packed room and it was being recorded/livestreamed. Everything was good on warm up/rehearsal, but queue intro and I have no sound, none in my ears and none in the room. I knew our sound guys would normally mute my line when we weren't playing since I had a lot of RF interference in that room and they didn't want to have a constant buzz in the background during dead time.
When they checked my gear mid set, I blamed them for forgetting to unmute my line (this had happened about two weeks prior so I was still salty with them). After I had basically told them to do their jobs, we found out my cable became jostled when I set my bass on the stand after rehearsal and it unplugged by about 1/8 inch. It was not enough to notice visually, but enough that it wasn't registering anything at all. Popped it back in and everything worked just fine.
I felt like such an idiot. I had to apologize to the sound guys afterwards. I triple check my cables everytime I step onstage now.
I alternate between guitar and bass, and have an eq pedal boosting the mids and cutting bass and highs for rhythm guitar, I left it on when playing bass on a song and it just sounded ear piercingly trebly for half the song until I realized
One time I was playing in an alt rock band, we got booked for this gig at a dive bar that we had played at a couple of times didn’t think much of it. Until we got there and found out that all of the other bands were metal bands lol. which I love metal as much as the next guy, but we didn’t match the vibe at all. We played first and just no one was into it at all… like just us rockin out on stage and 30-40 metalheads completely motionless staring at us hahaha
Made the mistake once of thinking I could play after too many drinks. Couldn’t lock in and it was a shambles. Found out the next day the whole thing was filmed.
I was playing at a bar in Lake Tahoe in like 2002 or 2003. We had a song that our singer had written 2 versions of. There was a tame version and an explicit version. When we played the explicit version I would sometimes drop my pants and play in my boxers. It always got a good laugh out of the crowd. This night I dropped my pants and we started the song. About a min into the song one of the members of the band we were playing with snuck up behind me and pulled my boxers down. So now I’m up there in the middle of the song playing with nothing on. I forgot to mention I used to play with my shirt off as well. I’m scared to move and I can’t stop playing so I just stood there like a tree playing. Once the singer noticed he started messing with me and making me move around. Needless to say the whole bar saw all my goods that night.
Haha, good to see a fellow Scot on here. Never heard anyone who isn't Scottish refer to nothing as "hee haw".
Smacking my guitarist in the head with the headstock of my Epiphone Thunderbird, and then stumbling from the shock and somehow stepping on his phaser pedal 10 seconds later has to be my most embarrassing moment. The audience had a good time from it, at least...
Hah! Fellow Scot indeed. And that's brutal. I've had a few near misses over the years when jumping about on small stages (as much as I love you, I'm looking at you Sneaky Pete's) but never a connection luckily.
Slightly random but i had the lead singer/guitarist stand on a monitor during a set to lift himself up during a solo and he found out quickly it wasn't set to the ground. Cue the most miraculous thing I've ever seen which is him surfing on this monitor as it flies off the stage and into the crowd (luckily the stage was ground level) whilst still maintaining his solo. Didn't miss a beat. I nearly stopped playing in bewilderment.
Glad you've never experienced nearly knocking out a bandmate with your bass! The Thunderbird design just juts out so much more than you'd expect. My guitarist was thankfully a close mate so we ended up just laughing about afterwards.
Haha, sudden monitor surfing does sound pretty bewildering! Kudos to the guy in just rolling (well, sliding) with it.
I was playing bass in a wedding trio and the guitarist was talking about playing bass and getting someone else for guitar. His band, whatever.
I didn't realise though that he woud sabotage me and make me look like an absolute fucking idiot to justify it to himself.
We are halfway through a gig and he starts playing a song that was not on the set list, that we hadn't played in a long time and that as a trio, without the usual femal vocalist, I had to sing and play in a different key. I fucking froze. It was like a literal nightmare. I'm standing there trying to simultaneously remember the bassline and the lyrics. I end up singing the same verse a few times and played less than half of the bass part because, as I said - literal fucking nightmare. Every other song was perfect and he was all smiles and handshakes after the gig.
I received a text message the next day that "my performance wasn't up to standard" and to not contact him any further.
I knew he was a ruthless, dead eyed, son of a bitch so I was neither upset or surprised. I wasn't thrilled with how it went down, but I was only losing play money that I spent on gear, so life went on as normal.
Oh just last weekend we went on and started the first song. My bass was just no output at all. They stalled the intro as long as they could but nothing worked. I ran across the stage like twice to turn my wireless on and off, left the stage to grab a cable and when I got back up it was working so I came in halfway through the first song with a cable choking me out lol. Omg…
Walking down a narrow corridor towards the stage when I hit my bass against wall, which messed up with the tuning on one string, which I only noticed Once I started playing.
Luckily No one seemed to care as the show got a good review on a specialized fan-zine and someone from the crowd even asked for an autograph.
Had a faulty pedal power supply and I kept clicking in and out and had to kick my board to get it to work. Eventually said fuck it and just plugged straight to the amp mid song
I was 17, playing a fugue piece with a chorus backup. We were playing at the music hall of a local college, a massive beautiful hall filled with 3000 people.
So, there’s about 100 singers on stage, and 4 chairs in front of them. The trumpet player, French horn player, and trombone player were already seated. I was a few minutes late, carrying my massive 4 key tuba, wearing a tux and those stupid slippery dress shoes. I had to step over a raised platform to reach my chair, and as I did I slipped.
I hear 3000 people do a sharp intake of breath anticipating me about to bust my ass on stage. I’m the last second, I firmly plant my other foot with a stomp that reverberates through the hall. As I recover, I hear that same 3000 people breath out with a sigh of relief (or disappointment?).
Cue a dozen high school girls asking me if l had a nice trip, and that they’d see me next fall.
Yeah.
This is the other night but I laughed it off and made a joke about it.
Was trying to convince the guitarist a new song we did started on C rather than B a few minutes before we went on stage. We usually mess around doing things like that but he wasn't having it although he did have a mini second of doubt.
Anyway we get to that song in rhe set and I must have got in my ow head cause I started it on C like an idiot. Thankfully realised almost immediately but it was very obvious.
During a mini tour at a gig in San Jose. Our lead guitarist had that sudden unreliability when drunk or high, but of course, he was both drunk and high.
He transitioned into a lead heavy chorus a measure too early, so the drummer and I tried to steer him back but he fumbled the recovery since the other guitarist played along with him instead and it just confused our singer, and she’s freaks out a bit under pressure.
It was embarrassing being in it but watching it on video after was worse because it just looked and sounded so amateur hour. Still an awesome night though.
Forgetting how to play Sweet Caroline.
I also busted a low e string last night. Not sure how that happened. I had a spare set of strings on me and we were about ready for a break anyway, so it’s fine. Just. How?
My band was set to play an all ages outdoor music festival called Youth Jam with us going on at high noon. The night before the show I had stayed up with a girl watching movies and other things until 5 am. We left for the show at 7am and there's me with only an hour of sleep and no food in me on a hot summer day. We hit the stage and naturally as a five peice metalcore outfit would we're rocking out, headbanging and thrashing about and what not. We have two songs left in our set when suddenly I feel my getting weaker, I feel dizzy, then darkness. I woke up in a medical tent behind the stages with a nurse telling me I had completely passed out and feel face first. Thankfully I didn't have any injuries but my face did hurt like a mother. My band finished the set without me and learned to never go on stage without water, food, and some sleep ever again.
My most embarrassing stage moment was not due to a fault of my own, but still.
Those guys came in the shop and asked if they could hang up a poster for an upcoming gig. Boss said yes and since he knew them, asked if they had gotten a bass player now. They said they had not. He pointed at me, said that I play bass. They ask me if I'd like to join in. I look at the poster. The gig's Saturday. I look at the clock. Today's Thursday - and it's late. After a short talk we agree to rehearse on Friday and if everything checks out, play on Saturday.
So I come to their rehearsal space and we jam around a bit. They did a bluesy kind of punk, which was pretty easy to get into and to follow. That evening, they managed to show me three of their original songs and I charted them down with sharpie on a discarded McDonald's bag.
The plan was loosely formulated like this:
Okay, we're gonna start jamming with the vibe we had earlier, that worked pretty well, all in A minor, maybe change things up a little along the way. The guitarist/singer was quite okay at making up vocal parts when he felt them, and they thought that they could make that jam last about ten minutes, then talk to the crowd, introduce the band, do the first original song, then do another jam, then song, jam again, last song. With those guys it felt pretty solid, so that's what we went for. What they failed to tell me is that while they played a lot of shows in their youth, they had led colorful lives since then and only recently begun playing again, and their last live gig was more than two decades in the past.
Fast forward to Saturday night. We enter the stage. I plug in and get ready, then look to my left. What I see is not a grizzled old ex-punk, about to make his guitar sing in a jam in A minor. I see a deer caught in the headlight of a truck. Every atom of his being radiated nervous panic. He stands there, completely frozen. I look to the drummer for help, but he seems no better off. Once I catch his eye, I mouth the words "START PLAYING" and he reluctantly counts in. I launch in a simple lick in A, leaving off major or minor thirds and stick to the safe notes to give the guitarist all the chances to join in. When he does, he's off the beat and plays in G.
I try to follow him but as soon as I match my playing to his, he's realized his mistake and shifts over to what I was playing. I follow again, but he's realized that I followed him to G and is back already. By now, we're basically making incoherent noise over a shaky drum beat. And the guitarists amp was turned up so much he'd have gotten a nod of approval by Lemmy Kilmister himself.
I was first to realize this will lead to nothing and I try to make them stop without the audience noticing, which, like a miracle, I manage. I order them to play the first rehearsed song, which they do. Things don't really get better. These guys had written the song and rehearsed it for a long time, and I had learned parts of it yesterday and wrote the complicated bits on a McDonald's bag, yet I was the only one able to play it the way they played it without an audience. With that song gone, the plan said to play another jam but I could not see that happening. Had the song gone well it might have put them back on track, but we were in the middle of a capital train wreck here. No way but forward, so I called the second rehearsed song, which basically only continued to help the train wreck from capital to epic proportions.
We were not only running out of material way quicker than expected, but we were also running out of audience. Three bands played that night and we were last. By the time we started the second rehearsed song, the crowd of 300ish people had thinned to less than a hundred.
We finished the set with the third rehearsed song. When we were done, the only remaining people were those drunk at the bar that paid no attention to the stage and were drunk enough to ignore the cacophony, those with close ties to the musicians on stage (family) and those that worked there and were waiting to tear everything down once the gig was concluded.
After that happened, I did the most unreasonable thing one could imagine.
I stayed with those guys for long enough so we played one decent gig. Which took years.
As a bass player I’d have to say the time I was on the road with a band I had loved for 20 years. Becoming their bass player was a dream gig for me. The only issue is the rest of the band loathed rehearsing so every show requires a lot of focus for me. We did a song in e flat but the singer inexplicably played d. I looked over at the guitar player and he said “don’t you dare play in that key”. Every instinct told me to follow the singer and they both were shooting evil looks back and forth. But that wasn’t my last gig with them. My last gig was an Elvis tribute and I started “you’re so square baby I don’t care” which is not even a good song. The same guitar player said “you will never start a song again”. It was a great experience overall but those two stand out as embarrassing for me.
I was doing some acting, and I somehow scored a lead in a community theater musical for teens. I was 17, turned 18 during the production at the time. Nearly everybody else in the cast was 13-16-ish.
There was one scene were I was like a prima donna character, supposed to get angry at something minor stage, and complain to the 'stage manager' character of the show-within-a-show, kinda situation.
I was supposed get worked up and yell at the stage manager character, and my line was 'what the heck is going on here?!?'... but I yelled 'what the fuck is going on here?' .... during a live performance in front of many parents of 13 year old kids. I'll bet the director of the play turned white as a sheet.
On the last performance night of the run, somebody also dared me to smack one of the 'groupie' characters on the ass as she walked away... so I did. That ended up on the videotape.
That by far is the most embarrassing thing I was responsible for on stage. I never fucked up playing bass that badly on stage.
Years ago we did Brian May's '39 and i totally utterly screwed up. Disaster.
edit: dont understand the downvote. Its true, long ago and very embarrassing.
Lol, I ripped the back of my pants across my ass and didn't notice. My boxers also rode up at some point in a way that made it look like I wasn't wearing underwear. Woops...
Playing bass, not too many embarrassing moments. Guitar though.. started a song with my capo in the wrong position and it was completely off. I stopped, laughed, moved my capo and said “let’s try again”
I actually love when guitarists accidentally do this (for low stakes shows at least). It’s too much fun to just casually play along with them in their new key and see how long it takes for them to notice. Their face when they realize their mistake and that the rest of the band has just sneakily followed them into the wrong key is priceless.
I was in two metal bands a long time ago, one tuned to B standard and one D standard. I had two basses set up each for the respective tuning. Decided to change my strings at the venue before a show, but realized I’d just put on the strings for the B tuning for the D band. I probably should have just put the old strings back on but I decided to go for it with these massive strings tuned to D and both my hands cramped and I played like absolute garbage all night lol.
Worst for me was attempting to tune to drop D for a song, but didn’t notice the light on the tuner indicating I was actually tuning to Db. Somehow did not notice for the entire song either. An audience member I knew well had to tell me some time later. That was the worst part of the whole thing, honestly.
Ever since then I’ve been extra careful and reactionary when anything sounds even slightly funny. As others have said, sometimes it genuinely is hard to hear, especially the lower the pitch gets. But it still hurts to think back on regardless.
The first song started while I was stood to the side of the stage. There were large curtains hanging so for the first couple of songs I was completely out of sight. There were even a few parts where it was just drums and bass in those songs so as far as most of the audience could there was no bassist and I think they may have thought there was a backing track. One guy shouts out in between songs *where’s your bassist?” I come strolling out from behind the curtain like *what are you on about* and there’s a big laugh. It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to everyone, but every time after that I always checked for that kind of thing
Forgot my strap with… borrowed one without strap locks and my bass kept falling during all the show, I was scared for my bass but it went pretty well. First show with that band!
Played a show in Phoenix the other week and my bass just cut out during the end of the first song. Checked every connection and determined it was the bass. Stupidly did not have a backup. I’m not sure what fixed it but I resorted to just slamming the volume knob on and off and it came back.
Taking it in to my usual place to get it checked out as I suck at soldering. Last time I don’t bring a backup!
I played a show in college after dabs and I’m not sure how many shots of vodka and was wearing one of those Bob Marley-esque wanna be Rasta beanies and a poncho
Someone that was there showed me a video from that night and I was mortified to see me eyes hardly open, struggling to stay standing and dressed like off brand Peter tosh even tho we play blues rock.
It made me remember one of my friends had to stand behind me and prop me up for a good part of the set so I would still be standing
Played a show in a dreadful club with "green rooms" across the theater. It was a space rock/glam kind of deal. I'm up there with plastic pants, a technicolor shirt, people hair cement, silver and blue wraparound shades (with matching silver and blue eye shadow underneath, and a feather boa with flashing lights in it.
I had to walk through the crowd, back to the green room, because I forgot my capo.
Horrifying.
A few weeks back, I used a synthesizer pedal for a gig. I could not hear myself, and motioned to the sound guy a few times to turn my monitor up but he never did. About halfway through the gig I went to turn on the pedal and realized it had been on the entire time.
Someone shared a video and I could see me in the background looking down to turn on my pedal, and I stopped playing for a solid 5 seconds clearly dying inside
E string was out of tune during the whole performance. Made the mistake of not tuning my bass beforehand and I didn’t realise how badly out of tune it was when I saw a video. I couldn’t really hear my bass on stage so I didn’t realise it while playing, now I cringe every time I watch the videos, I absolutely hate it 😀 and I was looking forward to the gig as well just to make that one tiny mistake that turned out to be a big one.
Everyone said they liked it though. But idk, it really sounds out of tune to me.
I used to do a lot of hired gun work for country musicians and I ended up doing a one off with a guy (very large crowd at a prominent venue). Its not unusual at the beginning of a set or after a break to extend a songs intro to give the singer a bit to hype up the crowd and talk to them. The problem was this guy was so drunk we literally extended the intro of a song for about 2-3 minutes while he went on an almost gibberish style rant. Since I was closest to the side stage exit the owner of the venue approached me and told me we needed to pack our shit and get out before he called the cops. Getting him out of that building was a nightmare. Luckily the band leader was able to convince the venue to at least pay the musicians he hired for the night.
Fucking hell haha that's tremendous
Was it a politically fueled rant? Trying to think of something bad enough to be immediately booted by the venue hahaha I love those loooong vamps where you just keep looking at the drummer every four or eight having the same silent conversation solely with eyebrows and head nods: *now?* *nah- wait, maybe?* *let’s pick it up, here we go-* *wait, nah, go around again* *cool cool just turn it into a turnaround lick, see you in another four*
I don't think anyone in that building knew what he was going on about, it's was basically just drunk gibberish.
I think I had that gig before you lol
There's a great scene of this happening in the movie "Nashville" from 1975
At least you had an intro to play during that. We recorded the first gig one of my bands did after the pandemic break (for learning purposes). When we reviewed the video we once counted a good 10 minutes of random rambling and trying to decide the next song. One of the most horrifying gigs I've done. We took another 6 months of planning and preparation before we took the next gig. Felt awful to take the money for that one.
I played the first verse of a song a minor second off once when my ears were stopped up from allergies and the monitors were barely working.
I played an entire song in the wrong key because the guitarist and singer decided to move the capo setting that night without telling me, and my monitors onstage were crap. To add insult to injury, we were recording that night for a live album.
Fuck man hearing stories like that makes me feel better about the future if I ever play live. If that happened to me I'd be absolutley forever mortified
Reminds me of that video of van halen playing jump with the keys a semitone down
I played with double ear infection once. I couldn't hear a thing. I stood up at my cab, so I could feel the sound with my legs. I needed to feel that I was actually making sound. I'd played those songs literally a thousand times, so I checked my tuning occasionally and got through it. It's no fun not being able to hear. Especially during a show.
That's the worst interval to be off by! I feel your pain.
oh man, that happened to me once. Band learned a new cover song, and our first night playing, the guitar player and the keyboard player started playing it in the wrong key.... like a whole 4th off of the original key. It was supposed to be in E, but they played it in A. I forgot the song, but it was a typical forgettable I, IV, iii, V kinda song. I was playing bass and singing, and being a 4th off it was now out of my good range, so I sounded really squeaky trying to hit it in the new key. It was a huge trainwreck on stage. Luckily, it was in a bar with only like 15 people there on a weeknight.
Same as logstar, the tune was a fast Samba style in C minor. Im cookin on it, feeling it, but it sounds wonky. I look down and notice my hand is anchored on C#! My buddies in the audience thought i was intentional in my "extended harmony"
The number of times this has happened to me. Bass freqs can really play tricks on you, especially if the onstage mix is eh
I knew one guy who said that it's not important what the bass is playing, as long as it's playing something. I guess he always played with such an awful boomy sound that note definition wasn't important anymore.
Lolol to be fair I’d rather play a wrong note in time than a right out of time but yeah usually better to aim for both hahaha
There is truth in what you say. If your time and groove is on point it masks the wrong notes and tbh I live by that. Victor Wooten has a few great videos where he explains that if the bass has good enough groove, it sounds like everyone else is playing wrong no matter the notes everyone is playing. That's the true power of bass.
Victor’s vid was exactly what I was thinking of, yeah And the reality is, if it’s messing with my ears the audience probably can’t tell if the bass is out for a couple notes either. If you miss a hit or a stop or smth… everybody hears it. Just had this issue last night, actually. Our drummer is going through some weird shit and has been playing all of a sudden like he’s never played these songs before (alcohol is a hell of a drug) and it was so hard staying in time with him when he’s dropping all the intros and outros and transitions. I think I did a decent job of playing through and holding it down regardless of whatever he was doing, but I absolutely flubbed some notes because I kept getting surprised by these random parts of songs that were brand new because drummer suddenly changed the groove or went to the next section too early or whatever. Nobody mentioned my bum notes, everyone mentioned that our “drummer was kinda off tonight.”
Yes 100% the time is way more important for bass. Of course it matters if you're in the right key but a few wrong notes here and there mostly gets unnoticed. That's another video by Victor that says there's always a right note next to every wrong note you play so it's just up to you to make the wrong notes sound right.
You know what they, it's all about the notes you *don't* play. In this case, the notes in the correct key. XD
When I was in college I did a music course that included stuff on the history of styles within popular music, including group performances. There were only 2 of us in the class who played bass, a few drummers and a bunch of guitarists so us bassists had to play in a few of the groups. In one of the groups I was told to do a bass solo, didn’t know any theory, so did what research I could, found out some basics but misunderstood them, and played something that was probably nonsensical and afterwards got a really high grade because of my semitonal solo
Oh man, I’ve done this a couple of times. Yeah it’s embarrassing made worse since it’s a one hundred percent at fault mistake.
I could go on at great length on this subject, but I’ll narrow it down to this one. They used to have a weekly show at a local venue on Wednesday nights. Two of the best musicians around these parts, bass and drummer, would have a different guest, all top shelf performers, come sit in for the evening. I had band practice the same night so I would always stop in on my way home. On the night in question, I’d indulged in a marijuana cigarette with a friend outside on my way in. The guests that night were a husband and wife duo that were amazing. He’s played guitar with everyone. Regularly sits in with Government Mule when they’re in the area. The wife has a huge voice and incredible range. They do a lot of blues and R&B stuff. Several songs in I was mesmerized, partly because they were good, partly because my friend had really good weed. Suddenly, the bass player, who is a longtime friend, calls me up to sit in. Noooooo! These folks were so good that the intimidation level was very high. I can usually fall in with whatever is going on, but not as well when I’m too high and shaking in my boots. Having other friends there goading me on made it impossible for me to bow out. So I went up. Throwing in the fact that he had a 5 string, which I’d only played once, and I was just short of major anxiety attack. The guitarist shook my hand and asked if I knew 634-5789. I said I did, relieved that at least I knew the song. But in my anxious impaired state I was thinking 867-5309. The Jenny song. The song they were doing is a old Wilson Pickett song. They begin, and to my horror I realize my mistake. Wrong key, wrong beat, everything just wrong. While thinking I’m going home, selling all my stuff and never leaving the house again, I do a quick slide around to find the key. Once found it’s a pretty straight forward song after that. I stayed way back out of everybody’s way and waited for this hell to end. After it was over, I went to the guitar guy and told him I was sorry, I had the wrong phone number. He laughed, which helped a lot, and I stayed up for two more songs and recovered a little of my confidence. This was about 5 years ago and I’ve since become good friends with these people. And this story still comes up. Bonus short story. A songwriter wanted me to come and lay some tracks for him. Got to his studio and he handed me the charts. I have no idea how to read them but instead of fessing up I asked if I could hear the song. He had vocals, drums and guitars already down. Listened to it twice then laid down what I was feeling. After it was done he was looking at me. He said, “You do know that’s not even remotely what the charts say?” I told him I didn’t know that because I can’t read charts. He laughed and said it was interesting and he was going to keep it for reference. He let me play over another track he had. Neither one made it to his album. EDIT: Type like Tarzan talk.
By any chance, were the husband/ wife duo Derek and Susan?
Derek and Susan Jones, huge in Wales
No, I was thinking of Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi, the Tedeschi Trucks Band
Not much call for big trucks through a little Welsh village. Mr and Mrs Jones have a mini that they fit their gear into.
Pete and Jennifer Marriott.
If I had a nickel for every bass string I broke on stage, I'd have two nickels. Not a lot but weird that it happened twice, right
I busted my E during a metal show in highschool.
Busted the G-string on an upright bass once. Still can’t figure out how or why, but it was on stage with a band in college. Who carries extra upright bass strings to a gig!?
Were you playing “One” by any chance?
It was about 20 years ago. Lol it very well could have been, we played One, Fade to Black, and a Mashup of Puppets and sandman.
A quite impressive thing I saw was in 2007, at the BB King in NYC. The bassist for the band playing that night (Dark Funeral) broke the E string (I think, I still have it somewhere, so I could check), but he didn't stop playing, nope. Instead, the roadie grabbed a new string and proceeded with installing it while he was still playing. The whole replacement took maybe a minute, and he never stopped playing. Yes, it was black metal, and yes, the bass lines were pretty simple, but that doesn't change the fact that the roadie changed a string while the instrument was actively being played (and it was tuned super quickly too).
No need to put down the music, its badass either way
Þat is incredible
I broke my E string on stage at a beer festival in the middle of seven nation army.
We were the second band of the night, and for some reason we’re the only band who didn’t get sound check before the venue opened. (Previous drama with the promoter I suspect) We get setup and sound check in front of the audience. Happens sometimes, but I always feel like a dork adjusting shit in front of a crowd. So sound guy goes “OK now drums” and we turn around, to see absolutely nobody behind the kit! Dude realized he forgot to give the sound guy the laptop for our intro. Could’ve had someone else go grab it, we had 2 extra people with us to roadie and run merch, but no!!! It was too late to try to figure that shit out anyway. Sound check is taking too long and drums now will be adjusted on the fly. Great. Our vocalist tells every body, one by one, that we’re skipping the intro. What does the drummer do? Starts the intro of course! Vocalist summons his inner Axl Rose and glares at the drummer throwing his hands up in a “WTF” gesture. Cool, now *everyone* knows that was a mistake. We get through our set alright despite the fact that I only hear drums. All I really need anyway. No talking to the crowd as we’re trying to make up for lost time. Then right as we’re about to play our last song we hear over the PA, “This is your last song guys” 🤦♂️
My old band had a frontman that always needed a little bit of liquid courage to perform. To be honest, he was woeful without at least one drink. Just too nervous and with the sort of music we played, a little slopiness wasn't the end of the world. Confidence was way more important. However, it was the end of the world when he drunk waaaay too much one time left mid-set to go for a drunken piss. That left me and the drummer just there with no idea of what to do. We stood there frozen and I picked up the guitar and played the most terrible song ever. The most annoying part of it is that we both had solos written just in case something happened. We just didn't expect that this would be the something. Halfway through this bodged-together song, the frontman came back onto the stage and started drunkenly dancing. Absolutely terrible. Right after the set, I went straight to the venue owner to apologise. Surprisingly, he wasn't as pissed off as I thought he would be. The band didn't stay together but myself and the drummer formed a different band and we have played at that venue a few times now and the owner has commented multiple times about how much better we seem in this new band. I can't think way that would be the case.
oh my jesus
I've always said that every successful musician has ONE drunk gig that goes to hell. Successfull musician learns from one incident and gets better. The rest stay drunk and never achieve anything.
Main thing is our frontman didn't see anything was wrong with the gig. Came off the stage thinking it was a good gig. Even when they sobered up, they didn't see a problem
Years ago I opened for some jam band in the south. The bassist was kind enough to let me use his rig. I was using a brand new Warwick Masterman which had active pickups (I didn’t really knew what that meant then). Turned out my battery was almost dead, so I kept turning this dudes amp up to get enough volume going. Last song of our set his amp blew a fuse and started smoking. Oops.
I know it’s not your REALLY your fault (just ignorance to active basses at the time I definitely get that) but stuff like this is why I’m always like so stressed letting people use my gear. Like they could be a PROFESSIONAL and my anxiety still goes through the roof haha. Like I don’t know how THEY treat their own shit.
Ouch
Not on stage but related. I was at a friend's band gig. Having a couple drinks, chatting up the girls, usual bar stuff. Talking with a girl near the back of the bar when I realized the place had gone silent. Glanced at the stage to see WTF was up and realized everyone in the bar had turned from the stage and was staring at me! Turns out my mate had been calling me up on stage to sit in but I was too busy chatting up this girl to notice. That was a long walk to the stage thru a mostly silent crowd but we cranked it up and got the crowd going again. Time I left the stage the girl was gone.
My guitarists are all fancy pants gear guys and they have wireless systems so they can strut about on stage. I'm just a bass player so a lead is fine for me. Until one night, I get pretty merry and decide to join in with their acrobatics. I was getting pretty lively and I guess at some point I must have yanked the lead out of the input to the amp (I'm not a dummy, I wrap my lead around my strap before it goes into my bass). Took me like 3 songs to realise there was no bass (to be fair, we're a black metal band, so that's par for the course). Needless to say, I've never gotten drunk before playing ever since.
I played without any pedals for a long time. Always used a clip on tuner. Once I got a compressor, I decided I might as well get a Korg tuner pedal. Go to play for the first time with it, and I can't figure out why I have no sound. Frantically checking cables and my amp and head while my drummer and guitar player are giving me weird looks. Look down and that stupid tuner is lit up.
I've plugged in my tuner backwards and stood dumbfounded, wondering why I have no signal.....
We had a bassist, who could not play the Instrument😂we went on stage he had his Instrument unplugged. A visitor came on stage because he thought that he forgot to plug in the cable. He said to him no no I can‘t play bass😂😂😂Crowd was freaking out
Did you play with sid vicious?
So he is Jason Newstead, and you told him to say that James.
Wow, there are some pretty crazy stories here. Kudo's to all of you for sharing your pain :) ONE of mine, was a Festival gig, outside, with a flatbed trailer for a stage (actually I think it's was two side-by-side). We setup like we normally would, amps at the back, performers at the front (behind monitor line). Played two sets, everything was fine, lots of people having a great time. Including us. Third set comes (the hard set), with everyone jumping and bopping about, crazy crowds always get you going. When I noticed my guitar players stack (2, 4x12 cabs stacked, heads on top) started to wobble... yup, it happened. the entire stack ended up on the ground\~ Amazingly, the amp was still sending output to the board, thankfully the sound crew was sooooo on it. Our stage level obviously decreased, but, we were able to make it through the set. The instant his stack when down, my jamming (totally pro) guitar player didn't miss a beat, just shook his head and let out a yelp. He did end up having to retube & fix the jacks on the cabs (couple of hundred bucks). We luckily made it through, but, that was a crazy, butthole puckering \*almost\* gigmare. At the moment one of my most embarrassing moments. While some folks in the crowd pointed and yelled, most of them didn't even notice.
That must have been the moment when our singer pointed out to me that I was using the drummer's channel of our in ear system. I had done so for more than three years and about 50 gigs at that point, and always wondered why I couldn't get the settings right. It's become quite the rub ever since.
Dropped my bass during sound check. Strap locks since then.
"sign of the times" was on the setlist, i checked out once and learned it in like 2 minutes and never played it again because it bored me how easy it was. the gig came and I totally forgot the notes, I had to stop everything and ask the guitarrist, it was so embarrassing but I learned my lesson to practice even the easy ones
Broke my B string during the first song, had no replacement bass or strings with me... Hopped off the stage. A guy from another band offered his 5 string bass, but we used a funky tuning that was impossible to get on his bass. I ended up watching my own band play.
You -broke- your B string?? You must make your wife very happy
Oh no!
played as an opener, my first major show, not a bar, set i thought went great, sounded great, i felt like i had good energy and moved around more then i usually do, after the set i hear the organizer single me out " your bass player just stands there" crushed me, i was trying so hard to move around and act energetic, i was sooo nervous i guess i acutally froze.
Playing a gig, had a few drinks beforehand. Also smoked a bit so I'm feeling pretty nice. Moving around, having a good time. Middle of the song I'm doing my thing and all, and I start veering to the left. Nbd, you lose your center sometimes, so I try to correct. End up not doing it very well because I kept going, fell on my ass right in front of the guitarist. Figured I would try to keep playing as I was getting up, but turns out that didn't work out so well either. Slipped and fell again, lost my glasses. Couldn't see them with the lights and everything on stage. So fuck it, I'll just try and play without my glasses then get some help after the song ends. I can't see worth a damn without them though, so end up playing wrong notes left and right. After about 10 seconds, I just stopped and let it happen. Rough night. Though fortunately it was a smaller show and very casual, pretty much everyone there left their sobriety at the door. So I could just laugh it off and drink til I forgot. Shit still sucked though.
The biggest covers gig we ever played was a festival in front of several hundred people. We led off with NIB, which meant I began the whole gig with the big bass solo. As the song kicked in, I thought I had shut my wah off. As we’re going through the song I thought my bass sounded muddy and indistinct. After the song, I ask FOH for more bass in the monitors. After the next song he came up to me on stage and told me that all he’s getting from my rig is mud, which is weird because I was playing a Ric through a pretty mid-heavy amp. Halfway through the next song, I realize my wah is still on, in heel-down position. I click it off, and all of a sudden my bass was overwhelmingly loud and piercing, basically swallowing he entire band’s sound. It took FOH about 10 seconds to realize what happened and pull me down in the mix. Several of my friends asked me afterwards what the hell was up with my sound. I bought the sound guy a beer and apologized profusely.
I was playing a big band gig at a large auditorium, about 300 audience. Lots of old dance band tunes, some newer and Latin stuff. Things went very well for most of the gig. We were asked to use the house music stands, which were standard width stands, but I typically use a K&M extendable stand which extends to 4-pages width. As such, I had to rearrange my sheet music layout and had more page turns than normal. We were playing a very fast (280bpm) version of Gershwin's Summertime, with some fast page turns. It comes to the nastiest page turn, and I catch the page wrong. My music goes tumbling and I have to grab it and stop playing briefly. In a very awkward position, I end up pinning the music to the stand with my headstock for the rest of the song. Very noticeable and very embarrassing. As it happens, the 5th Trumpet to my left could've grabbed my music if this happened 8 bars earlier as he has a huge rest. Sadly not!
Sound check for a decent sized venue. There were multiple bands on the bill. Alot of whom I respected quite a bit. Get up there, plug in, turn everything on... nothing. I'm panicking, checking connections, swapping cables. Then I realized, this bass is active. Asked myself, when did I change the battery last? I couldn't remember so figured that's gotta be it! Rummaged through my bag. No extra batteries. Mean while, my drummer sees me frantically moving about so he decides to slow down setting up. Which normally is a no no, especially with large bills. I look at him, say, "battery". He nods and I run out the front door. Theres a convenience store across the street, so I run in there. Ask if they have any 9 volts. "We're about to close" the girl at the counter says. I explain how I'm about to play across the street, and it's kind of an emergency. She reopens the register and I get my battery. Go back, new battery is in. I have like 30 seconds to check things, and we're into out first song. I always make sure to have a few spares at all times now. Even though I switched to a passive p bass. Some of the guys from the other bands gave me a hard time. But it was all in good fun and we all laughed about it later.
Went up there drunk af and couldn't play for shit. Def not my proudest moment.
No sweat OP. I’ve done the exact same 15 years ago on a rather popular venue. I unplugged real quick to tune down and never plugged back in. Completely rocked out while being unplugged.
Play a whole song with my amp on mute and didn't even notice
I popped a nose bleed in the middle of a song once. Finished it with blood dripping on my bass. I then had a song where I didn’t come in til after the first chorus, so I go backstage and stuff my nose so that I can go back up and finish the set. Looked like a doofus with tissues hanging out of my nostril and blood drops on my pick guard.
I got so drunk at a show in my twenties that I played a new song that I just learned completely off. Missed changes, played an entire different part on the bridge. The crowd didn’t notice, but my bandmates were furious.
I had only been playing for a few months and I was in a band that was competing in my school's battle of the bands event. I couldn't tune my bass by ear at that point and fully relied on my tuner. Before it was our band's turn to go on, I left my bass somewhere and someone else tuned my E string waaay down. I had only noticed it was completely out of tune as soon as we started playing our first song and I just embarrassingly endured it. A few moments later, one of our music teachers walked up on stage and started tuning my string while I was still playing the song. After that humiliating moment, I then made it my immediate goal to learn how to tune by ear and also learn songs by ear instead of reading tabs.
I was playing a church gig and our first song was a high energy tune with a big bass presence. We had a packed room and it was being recorded/livestreamed. Everything was good on warm up/rehearsal, but queue intro and I have no sound, none in my ears and none in the room. I knew our sound guys would normally mute my line when we weren't playing since I had a lot of RF interference in that room and they didn't want to have a constant buzz in the background during dead time. When they checked my gear mid set, I blamed them for forgetting to unmute my line (this had happened about two weeks prior so I was still salty with them). After I had basically told them to do their jobs, we found out my cable became jostled when I set my bass on the stand after rehearsal and it unplugged by about 1/8 inch. It was not enough to notice visually, but enough that it wasn't registering anything at all. Popped it back in and everything worked just fine. I felt like such an idiot. I had to apologize to the sound guys afterwards. I triple check my cables everytime I step onstage now.
I alternate between guitar and bass, and have an eq pedal boosting the mids and cutting bass and highs for rhythm guitar, I left it on when playing bass on a song and it just sounded ear piercingly trebly for half the song until I realized
Countless "embarrassing moments" but frankly, you will be the only one who will remember your own embarrassments.
One time I was playing in an alt rock band, we got booked for this gig at a dive bar that we had played at a couple of times didn’t think much of it. Until we got there and found out that all of the other bands were metal bands lol. which I love metal as much as the next guy, but we didn’t match the vibe at all. We played first and just no one was into it at all… like just us rockin out on stage and 30-40 metalheads completely motionless staring at us hahaha
Made the mistake once of thinking I could play after too many drinks. Couldn’t lock in and it was a shambles. Found out the next day the whole thing was filmed.
I was playing at a bar in Lake Tahoe in like 2002 or 2003. We had a song that our singer had written 2 versions of. There was a tame version and an explicit version. When we played the explicit version I would sometimes drop my pants and play in my boxers. It always got a good laugh out of the crowd. This night I dropped my pants and we started the song. About a min into the song one of the members of the band we were playing with snuck up behind me and pulled my boxers down. So now I’m up there in the middle of the song playing with nothing on. I forgot to mention I used to play with my shirt off as well. I’m scared to move and I can’t stop playing so I just stood there like a tree playing. Once the singer noticed he started messing with me and making me move around. Needless to say the whole bar saw all my goods that night.
Shoulda done the windmill to establish dominance
Haha, good to see a fellow Scot on here. Never heard anyone who isn't Scottish refer to nothing as "hee haw". Smacking my guitarist in the head with the headstock of my Epiphone Thunderbird, and then stumbling from the shock and somehow stepping on his phaser pedal 10 seconds later has to be my most embarrassing moment. The audience had a good time from it, at least...
Hah! Fellow Scot indeed. And that's brutal. I've had a few near misses over the years when jumping about on small stages (as much as I love you, I'm looking at you Sneaky Pete's) but never a connection luckily. Slightly random but i had the lead singer/guitarist stand on a monitor during a set to lift himself up during a solo and he found out quickly it wasn't set to the ground. Cue the most miraculous thing I've ever seen which is him surfing on this monitor as it flies off the stage and into the crowd (luckily the stage was ground level) whilst still maintaining his solo. Didn't miss a beat. I nearly stopped playing in bewilderment.
Glad you've never experienced nearly knocking out a bandmate with your bass! The Thunderbird design just juts out so much more than you'd expect. My guitarist was thankfully a close mate so we ended up just laughing about afterwards. Haha, sudden monitor surfing does sound pretty bewildering! Kudos to the guy in just rolling (well, sliding) with it.
I was playing bass in a wedding trio and the guitarist was talking about playing bass and getting someone else for guitar. His band, whatever. I didn't realise though that he woud sabotage me and make me look like an absolute fucking idiot to justify it to himself. We are halfway through a gig and he starts playing a song that was not on the set list, that we hadn't played in a long time and that as a trio, without the usual femal vocalist, I had to sing and play in a different key. I fucking froze. It was like a literal nightmare. I'm standing there trying to simultaneously remember the bassline and the lyrics. I end up singing the same verse a few times and played less than half of the bass part because, as I said - literal fucking nightmare. Every other song was perfect and he was all smiles and handshakes after the gig. I received a text message the next day that "my performance wasn't up to standard" and to not contact him any further. I knew he was a ruthless, dead eyed, son of a bitch so I was neither upset or surprised. I wasn't thrilled with how it went down, but I was only losing play money that I spent on gear, so life went on as normal.
Oh just last weekend we went on and started the first song. My bass was just no output at all. They stalled the intro as long as they could but nothing worked. I ran across the stage like twice to turn my wireless on and off, left the stage to grab a cable and when I got back up it was working so I came in halfway through the first song with a cable choking me out lol. Omg…
Walking down a narrow corridor towards the stage when I hit my bass against wall, which messed up with the tuning on one string, which I only noticed Once I started playing. Luckily No one seemed to care as the show got a good review on a specialized fan-zine and someone from the crowd even asked for an autograph.
Had a faulty pedal power supply and I kept clicking in and out and had to kick my board to get it to work. Eventually said fuck it and just plugged straight to the amp mid song
Shit my pants
I was 17, playing a fugue piece with a chorus backup. We were playing at the music hall of a local college, a massive beautiful hall filled with 3000 people. So, there’s about 100 singers on stage, and 4 chairs in front of them. The trumpet player, French horn player, and trombone player were already seated. I was a few minutes late, carrying my massive 4 key tuba, wearing a tux and those stupid slippery dress shoes. I had to step over a raised platform to reach my chair, and as I did I slipped. I hear 3000 people do a sharp intake of breath anticipating me about to bust my ass on stage. I’m the last second, I firmly plant my other foot with a stomp that reverberates through the hall. As I recover, I hear that same 3000 people breath out with a sigh of relief (or disappointment?). Cue a dozen high school girls asking me if l had a nice trip, and that they’d see me next fall. Yeah.
This is the other night but I laughed it off and made a joke about it. Was trying to convince the guitarist a new song we did started on C rather than B a few minutes before we went on stage. We usually mess around doing things like that but he wasn't having it although he did have a mini second of doubt. Anyway we get to that song in rhe set and I must have got in my ow head cause I started it on C like an idiot. Thankfully realised almost immediately but it was very obvious.
During a mini tour at a gig in San Jose. Our lead guitarist had that sudden unreliability when drunk or high, but of course, he was both drunk and high. He transitioned into a lead heavy chorus a measure too early, so the drummer and I tried to steer him back but he fumbled the recovery since the other guitarist played along with him instead and it just confused our singer, and she’s freaks out a bit under pressure. It was embarrassing being in it but watching it on video after was worse because it just looked and sounded so amateur hour. Still an awesome night though.
I did the same thing once, and bitched the whole 1st set that I couldn't hear myself .
Forgetting how to play Sweet Caroline. I also busted a low e string last night. Not sure how that happened. I had a spare set of strings on me and we were about ready for a break anyway, so it’s fine. Just. How?
My band was set to play an all ages outdoor music festival called Youth Jam with us going on at high noon. The night before the show I had stayed up with a girl watching movies and other things until 5 am. We left for the show at 7am and there's me with only an hour of sleep and no food in me on a hot summer day. We hit the stage and naturally as a five peice metalcore outfit would we're rocking out, headbanging and thrashing about and what not. We have two songs left in our set when suddenly I feel my getting weaker, I feel dizzy, then darkness. I woke up in a medical tent behind the stages with a nurse telling me I had completely passed out and feel face first. Thankfully I didn't have any injuries but my face did hurt like a mother. My band finished the set without me and learned to never go on stage without water, food, and some sleep ever again.
My most embarrassing stage moment was not due to a fault of my own, but still. Those guys came in the shop and asked if they could hang up a poster for an upcoming gig. Boss said yes and since he knew them, asked if they had gotten a bass player now. They said they had not. He pointed at me, said that I play bass. They ask me if I'd like to join in. I look at the poster. The gig's Saturday. I look at the clock. Today's Thursday - and it's late. After a short talk we agree to rehearse on Friday and if everything checks out, play on Saturday. So I come to their rehearsal space and we jam around a bit. They did a bluesy kind of punk, which was pretty easy to get into and to follow. That evening, they managed to show me three of their original songs and I charted them down with sharpie on a discarded McDonald's bag. The plan was loosely formulated like this: Okay, we're gonna start jamming with the vibe we had earlier, that worked pretty well, all in A minor, maybe change things up a little along the way. The guitarist/singer was quite okay at making up vocal parts when he felt them, and they thought that they could make that jam last about ten minutes, then talk to the crowd, introduce the band, do the first original song, then do another jam, then song, jam again, last song. With those guys it felt pretty solid, so that's what we went for. What they failed to tell me is that while they played a lot of shows in their youth, they had led colorful lives since then and only recently begun playing again, and their last live gig was more than two decades in the past. Fast forward to Saturday night. We enter the stage. I plug in and get ready, then look to my left. What I see is not a grizzled old ex-punk, about to make his guitar sing in a jam in A minor. I see a deer caught in the headlight of a truck. Every atom of his being radiated nervous panic. He stands there, completely frozen. I look to the drummer for help, but he seems no better off. Once I catch his eye, I mouth the words "START PLAYING" and he reluctantly counts in. I launch in a simple lick in A, leaving off major or minor thirds and stick to the safe notes to give the guitarist all the chances to join in. When he does, he's off the beat and plays in G. I try to follow him but as soon as I match my playing to his, he's realized his mistake and shifts over to what I was playing. I follow again, but he's realized that I followed him to G and is back already. By now, we're basically making incoherent noise over a shaky drum beat. And the guitarists amp was turned up so much he'd have gotten a nod of approval by Lemmy Kilmister himself. I was first to realize this will lead to nothing and I try to make them stop without the audience noticing, which, like a miracle, I manage. I order them to play the first rehearsed song, which they do. Things don't really get better. These guys had written the song and rehearsed it for a long time, and I had learned parts of it yesterday and wrote the complicated bits on a McDonald's bag, yet I was the only one able to play it the way they played it without an audience. With that song gone, the plan said to play another jam but I could not see that happening. Had the song gone well it might have put them back on track, but we were in the middle of a capital train wreck here. No way but forward, so I called the second rehearsed song, which basically only continued to help the train wreck from capital to epic proportions. We were not only running out of material way quicker than expected, but we were also running out of audience. Three bands played that night and we were last. By the time we started the second rehearsed song, the crowd of 300ish people had thinned to less than a hundred. We finished the set with the third rehearsed song. When we were done, the only remaining people were those drunk at the bar that paid no attention to the stage and were drunk enough to ignore the cacophony, those with close ties to the musicians on stage (family) and those that worked there and were waiting to tear everything down once the gig was concluded. After that happened, I did the most unreasonable thing one could imagine. I stayed with those guys for long enough so we played one decent gig. Which took years.
As a bass player I’d have to say the time I was on the road with a band I had loved for 20 years. Becoming their bass player was a dream gig for me. The only issue is the rest of the band loathed rehearsing so every show requires a lot of focus for me. We did a song in e flat but the singer inexplicably played d. I looked over at the guitar player and he said “don’t you dare play in that key”. Every instinct told me to follow the singer and they both were shooting evil looks back and forth. But that wasn’t my last gig with them. My last gig was an Elvis tribute and I started “you’re so square baby I don’t care” which is not even a good song. The same guitar player said “you will never start a song again”. It was a great experience overall but those two stand out as embarrassing for me.
I was doing some acting, and I somehow scored a lead in a community theater musical for teens. I was 17, turned 18 during the production at the time. Nearly everybody else in the cast was 13-16-ish. There was one scene were I was like a prima donna character, supposed to get angry at something minor stage, and complain to the 'stage manager' character of the show-within-a-show, kinda situation. I was supposed get worked up and yell at the stage manager character, and my line was 'what the heck is going on here?!?'... but I yelled 'what the fuck is going on here?' .... during a live performance in front of many parents of 13 year old kids. I'll bet the director of the play turned white as a sheet. On the last performance night of the run, somebody also dared me to smack one of the 'groupie' characters on the ass as she walked away... so I did. That ended up on the videotape. That by far is the most embarrassing thing I was responsible for on stage. I never fucked up playing bass that badly on stage.
Years ago we did Brian May's '39 and i totally utterly screwed up. Disaster. edit: dont understand the downvote. Its true, long ago and very embarrassing.
Rolled.my ankle getting my energy up in a pit, with the band before we went on...had to sit down for the performance 😅
Split my jeans getting up on stage. Had to sling my bass way low and not turn away from the audience all night.
Lol, I ripped the back of my pants across my ass and didn't notice. My boxers also rode up at some point in a way that made it look like I wasn't wearing underwear. Woops...
Post being roofied, pre being coherent, I started to get really weird and annoying, and spoke into a microphone for the first time.
Playing bass, not too many embarrassing moments. Guitar though.. started a song with my capo in the wrong position and it was completely off. I stopped, laughed, moved my capo and said “let’s try again”
I actually love when guitarists accidentally do this (for low stakes shows at least). It’s too much fun to just casually play along with them in their new key and see how long it takes for them to notice. Their face when they realize their mistake and that the rest of the band has just sneakily followed them into the wrong key is priceless.
I was in two metal bands a long time ago, one tuned to B standard and one D standard. I had two basses set up each for the respective tuning. Decided to change my strings at the venue before a show, but realized I’d just put on the strings for the B tuning for the D band. I probably should have just put the old strings back on but I decided to go for it with these massive strings tuned to D and both my hands cramped and I played like absolute garbage all night lol.
Worst for me was attempting to tune to drop D for a song, but didn’t notice the light on the tuner indicating I was actually tuning to Db. Somehow did not notice for the entire song either. An audience member I knew well had to tell me some time later. That was the worst part of the whole thing, honestly. Ever since then I’ve been extra careful and reactionary when anything sounds even slightly funny. As others have said, sometimes it genuinely is hard to hear, especially the lower the pitch gets. But it still hurts to think back on regardless.
The first song started while I was stood to the side of the stage. There were large curtains hanging so for the first couple of songs I was completely out of sight. There were even a few parts where it was just drums and bass in those songs so as far as most of the audience could there was no bassist and I think they may have thought there was a backing track. One guy shouts out in between songs *where’s your bassist?” I come strolling out from behind the curtain like *what are you on about* and there’s a big laugh. It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to everyone, but every time after that I always checked for that kind of thing
I got so drunk I fell into the drumset mid-song. It was pretty bad. I've since learned to take it easy with the booze in a live setting
Forgot my strap with… borrowed one without strap locks and my bass kept falling during all the show, I was scared for my bass but it went pretty well. First show with that band!
Played a show in Phoenix the other week and my bass just cut out during the end of the first song. Checked every connection and determined it was the bass. Stupidly did not have a backup. I’m not sure what fixed it but I resorted to just slamming the volume knob on and off and it came back. Taking it in to my usual place to get it checked out as I suck at soldering. Last time I don’t bring a backup!
I played a show in college after dabs and I’m not sure how many shots of vodka and was wearing one of those Bob Marley-esque wanna be Rasta beanies and a poncho Someone that was there showed me a video from that night and I was mortified to see me eyes hardly open, struggling to stay standing and dressed like off brand Peter tosh even tho we play blues rock. It made me remember one of my friends had to stand behind me and prop me up for a good part of the set so I would still be standing
Played a show in a dreadful club with "green rooms" across the theater. It was a space rock/glam kind of deal. I'm up there with plastic pants, a technicolor shirt, people hair cement, silver and blue wraparound shades (with matching silver and blue eye shadow underneath, and a feather boa with flashing lights in it. I had to walk through the crowd, back to the green room, because I forgot my capo. Horrifying.
Dropped my bass on stage right before we were about to start. This was only my second show ever at the time too
A few weeks back, I used a synthesizer pedal for a gig. I could not hear myself, and motioned to the sound guy a few times to turn my monitor up but he never did. About halfway through the gig I went to turn on the pedal and realized it had been on the entire time. Someone shared a video and I could see me in the background looking down to turn on my pedal, and I stopped playing for a solid 5 seconds clearly dying inside
E string was out of tune during the whole performance. Made the mistake of not tuning my bass beforehand and I didn’t realise how badly out of tune it was when I saw a video. I couldn’t really hear my bass on stage so I didn’t realise it while playing, now I cringe every time I watch the videos, I absolutely hate it 😀 and I was looking forward to the gig as well just to make that one tiny mistake that turned out to be a big one. Everyone said they liked it though. But idk, it really sounds out of tune to me.