Gig nightmares!

I just got back from playing a nice little pub gig. It was fun, but so many things went wrong...

Firstly, our guitarist's dad is either dead or almost dead, so he went back to Wales to be with his family. Which is fair enough. So we spent most of the day teaching a replacement guitarist how to play our songs. That all turned out nicely.

BUT THEN

When we got there, our PA system broke. We were the second band in the lineup, and we were sorta gonna be supplying the PA magic for all three bands. We still have no idea what went wrong with it; sound was going into it just fine (flashy flashy lights), but sound just wasn't coming out the speakers. The leads were fine, the outputs all wired up properly, everything. Just wasn't working. It'd been fine less than 2 hours beforehand.

SO THEN

The first band went back to get their PA system. All new equipment: speakers, leads, amplifier, mixing desk thingymabob. Hooray, we thought! We are saved!

NOT BLOODY LIKELY

Their PA system broke as well. Wasn't a problem with the venue, couldn't have been, as we supplied all the equipment and the inputs were registering fine. Their PA was also absolutely fine a few hours before the gig.

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES

So we just went "bollocks to it" and played our sets with almost inaudible vocals. We did the best we could, and a fairly good time was had by all, all things considered.

Should I mention that this was our very first gig?



What gig nightmare stories do you have to tell?

Aliens

I can't find a band and as such have no gig stories at all, I find that pretty nightmarish too.

Lololiet, do you study in Groningen?

Not yet, in a couple of months I will.

Not nightmares as such, but a gig at my local pub:

I had kinda organised a gig, but my band couldn't make it so I got together a couple of guys from the jam nights I go to. We had one practice, played the gig & it was like we'd been together years!

To start off the second set, we play Memphis Soul Stew, which starts with a simple bassline that turns funky. Except when it turned funky... I realised my G string was so out of tune, I had to stop & try and sort it out The guitarist knocked over a glass of water which was on top of my amp, which must have hit my tuning peg. That was a bit of a disaster, but was ok.

To top it off, later in the set the pub's dog managed to escape from being locked upstairs. What did he do? Run straight to where we were playing, and proceed to drag his backside across the floor, for all to see. I couldn't stop laughing for the rest of the night!

Shame. If you were going to study in Nijmegen, I could've used you as a bass player.

Ah man, I've got so many.

One, a riot involving 700 + people. Someone lobbed a can of beer from the pit, and it hit the mixing desk. Two songs in, with a very up for it crowd. Had to cancel the gig. It kicked off, massively (two chavs in the corner threw the beer).

In this video, we were cut short, and did a song after this one. Notice the guitarist went in the crowd with nun chucks to keep them back? Yea, it kicked off next song. Two broken noses, two ambulances. Blood and snot everythwhere.



But the biggest nightmare was because of the Spice girls.

We had a gig in a local club called, Jays. We thought it would be a good idea (to get people in the door) to post posters that just said SEX at Jays wine bar all round town. That was the way you did things back then. You had to actually go out, and stick flyers everywhere. One of those posters is still there nearly fifteen years on! A mixture of wallpaper paste, glue and flour is all you need my friends. The apocalypse aint even shifting that...

Anyhow, this town we lived in was filled with Para's (Big hard bastards from the army) who used Jays bar as their drinking place. There was always scraps in there. We were looking forward to it.

The night came. It was PACKED with huge bald headed people that came for free sex. We, were a band that played stupid music about cows and sheep and cartoon characters. This wasn't going to go well...

Which is why, to this day, I still don't understand why we made the choice? On hindsight it was the worst thing we could do. But didn't think it through at all.

We dressed up as the spice girls.

I was ginger.

So, we came down the stairs in drag, and the place went silent. They stared at us. We got through the crowd. Silent. You could hear a pin drop. Picked up instruments, and started with this song:



They didn't like it.

It kicked off.

Also that night, was a fireman's stag party. AND two toothless Scottish Gypsies had appeared.

First, the two barman got bottled. Free beer for everyone. It was a riot. We carried on playing, because there was no-where else to go.

Next, our guitarist got bottled, but carried on with blood pissing everywhere. Someone tried to pull my Bass off me, and I kicked them in the face. Our gang was fighting with the Paras, who were fighting with the fireman who were fighting with the Gypsies, who, at this point, had picked up two huge bits of scaffolding and had launched them through the windows. In between were manic people just trying to run to safety.

There was blood and snot everywhere. Cuts, blood, people out cold on the floor.

In the end, we just put everything down and joined in. I managed to make it to the door, where there were now loads of police. I got round a corner with a toothless Gypsy running after me with a knife. I turned round, and as he came at me, instinct came in and I put my foot up, kicking the knife, which somehow flipped round and turned at him, stabbing him in the hip!

He screams that he's been stabbed, and the police set the dogs on me, which ripped me up good and proper. All dressed up as Ginger Spice.

I could go on. That's the short version there....!

Bloody fuck, that's something to tell your grandchildren:"I once accidently stabbed a toothless gypsy in the hip whilst dressed as ginger spice", Fucking hell, my life seems even more boring now.

Yea....sounds a bit crazy when you put it like that!

My twenties were crazy. Just, another planet. I shouldn't be alive, really.

In the gig from my profile pic over to the right, our singer, who has a heart problem, had an arrhythmia attack and nearly died on stage, at a family-friendly gig (we did all the swear words in German to stay safe). He still finished, only to pass out when we were walking off the stage.

Good times.