Worst Gig Ever.

[AaaSS]

When I was 18, my band got out first big gig at the Metro. We were playing 2nd to last and on our last song. So there we are, rocking out to one of the 2 originals we struggled to write and then it happened. Being the wanna-be rockstar he is, the other guitarist drinks some water and throws the full bottle into the crowd. Apparently he was aiming for the balcony, but it ended up hitting the wall of the balcony and spilling onto, and frying, soundboard. The guys working there had to use the back-up board and one of the soundguys spent about 20 minutes chasing my guitarist around with a pair of drumsticks. The Metro tried to sue us, but later found out that the coordinator of the BOTB was trying to take off with all the money he just made and they made him pay for the board.

So what's the worst thing that's happened while you were on stage?

[Professor Riffs]

Luckily I haven't had many bad shows. However, driving to Atlanta from Chicago without stopping to play for 8 people because the bar forgot to advertise sucks major....things. They did at least pay us in full, so we really didn't lose anything. If that's the worst I've had it after 15 years of doing this stuff, I better knock on some wood!

[GearJunkie]

AaaSS: What band was that? I went to a show a while back and COMPLETELY remember something like that happening.

Worst show I ever played was my first out of state show. I looked on my friend's band's website to see where they'd play in Milwaukee, as they were from there and we were a Chicago band. They had a pretty good following in Milwaukee, so I figured any venue I really picked would be pretty decent.

I sent a demo to Vnuk's Lounge in Cudahy, WI, waited a week, and then heard back from the club owner. He was really excited about us, said he was playing the CD in the bar and a lot of people were asking about it, and said by that and the promotion he was gonna be doing in the papers and whatnot, we'd have a pretty good crowd.

So, we gassed up the van, got on the road and that's where everything started going horribly. We got slammed in traffic, so the usual one hour drive became a good 2 1/2 hour trek. We left early as we wanted to get some more word out at any local record stores or whatever.

We're behind this big flatbed truck filled with christmas trees (this is in august, mind you) when all of the sudden the truck hits a bump, and two pine trees come flying at our van at about 65 MPH. We dodge those things (along with the cars to our immediate left and right) screech our tires, yell a lot of swears and keep going.

We finally pull off the highway, precede to take a wrong turn (mapquest is the enemy) and go 4 miles in the wrong direction. We ask directions, turn around, and finally get to this "venue."

I use "venue" loosely. This was in the middle of the industrial district, about 20 minutes from Milwaukee. Tons of factories, old warehouses, beaten up buildings and then this little crappy bar with a Schlitz sign over the door. We get in, the place is empty and we're looking around trying to find the stage.

The "stage" consisted of us moving the pool table with the owner to the other side of the room and setting up a horrible PA in the corner. 7 foot celiings, tops. Obviously, jumping wasn't going to be an option tonight. The owner setup the PA, and then the lights.

Obviously, this guy spent more money on his lights than his PA. U2 didn't even have this many freakin lights. We had full spots in front of each of us, overheads, Martin intelligent lighting, etc etc all for this little (and I mean LITTLE) room.

We setup, we have our "ahem" soundcheck ("hey guys! turn up your amps so they're louder than the drums!") and wait for doors to open.

Doors at 9. Show at 10. 9:45 rolls around, and there's 5 people in there. The bartender, the barback, two regulars and my girlfriend. 10 pm rolls by and well..... same 5 people.

We started playing our set and in the middle about 6-7 people show up, drunk, and wearing Poison shirts. Apparently they were playing down the road and according to the club owner "they took our regular crowd away". Big hair 80's metal: 1, My band: 0.

By the end of the night, the club owner felt bad, and as consolation, our drinks were "half off!". We got $50 for the show, loaded all our stuff in the car, went back home.

On the highway we were pulled over by the Wisconsin State Police who, for whatever reason, was extremely suspicious of us and preceeded to search the entire van. Pulled out all the equipment, searched all of us, found nothing, let us go.

Top that.

[AaaSS]

I think our band name at the time was Prophet or some variation of that word. It was in May of 2000.

[Bellringer]

Man this is a tough one. So many crazy things happen at gigs and on tours. One of the craziest shows I can remember was during the heatwave in '95 that killed a bunch of people in Chicago. We were out in 2 vans with no A/C. Everyone was at each others throats or just suffering from heat exhaustion. The tour manager didn't call ahead and set up hotel rooms so we were sleeping in rest areas off of the expressway. We had already done 3 shows and got to the Reptile House (Ann Arbor, MI I think). Anyway it was over 95 degrees outside and inside the club the ventilation system had broken down. We had nowhere to shower and we were disgusting humans. Nasty. The stage was small and the light rig was about 10-12 feet above our heads. The club was overcapacity and was over 115 degrees on stage. We had been drinking vodka and water and wrapping our heads in wet towels to survive.
About the third song I was having blackouts on stage where everything would fade away. Slowly I would begin to see and hear again and realize my fingers seemed to be on autopilot. Playing while I was out. At some point I look at the singer and it was between verses and he falls to the floor. For a minute I thought he was doing some kind of cool rock star fall. But no, he was out. We played while a stagehand thru some water on him. He got up and went to sing the next verse and was electrocuted by the mic grounding to his lips as his fingers touched the guitar. So he threw the guitar over the drummer and did his best to sing without getting fried. Then the other guitarist starts throwing up all over himself and the first few rows of people staring up at him. This caused a big angry guy to grab his feet and pull him to the ground halfway off stage. Chaos errupts. Security tries to control the situation but by now we are about 70 percent done with our set. That was enough for us. The place was a wreck. We all were dehydrated or had heatstroke.
We had to pack our nasty, sticky gear up and drive on to Canada with no showers. Of course we are detained at the border and questioned while they searched our disgusting vans for narcotics. No showers till Toronto. A hell I will never forget.

[EvanExempt]

I'll probably get banned if I talk about it.

[lucidlou]

I'm still trying to figure out who's story was worse, Bellringer's or GearJunckie's. Both were brutal. I don't even want to mention my story because it pales in comparison.

[Nubus]

did you learn any lessons?

[dagosto]

We were in Brooklyn playing this show at some label guys aparment for his birthday. We had had a couple of rough days prior to this. We had a couple of shows cancelled in DC and had missed our show on NYU radio and gotten stuck in Delaware because of an overturned oil tanker on the highway. Anyway we were happy to be playing again and decided to make it a fun night. Our idea of fun at the time was a couple cases of 40oz's.

Anyway, we filled his fridge to capacity with 40's with names like "Country Club" "Old Mill" and of course "Steel Reserve" but the dude whos house it was neglected to tell us that his insulin was in there. One of our singers moved it which caused an extreme freak out later that evening. Fortunately I do not remember that.

The bands that had played before us were all hardcore acts with angry singers preaching their straight edge philosophy to a crowd of party goers (lame). The same singer who had hidden the insulin threw beer at one of the bands and they got really pissed and yelled at him in the middle of their set.

Finally, when we went on we were all too drunk to really put on a great show but we made a lot of noise. All the other bands watched us with seething disapproval and our singer didn't help by throwing beer and telling the audience how he hated preaching hardcore bands. I think we got through four songs.

We ended up staying at the same aparment that night. It was nice and akward the next morning when the guy was trying to get us out of his house. On the way out I saw two or three broken forty bottles on the ground. I said something like "what happened here?" Our drummer was standing next to me and said "Oh, you did that."

We didn't drink much for the rest of that tour.

[drewsifer]

Yes... its sad, but true. My first jobbing band was called the Epstien trio (after epistiens mother form the show welcome back cotter). we did lots of random gigs in and around Detroit. We got hired to play at a Rupublican party party. it was awful. All these conservitave politicians trying very little to understand our music. it was actually quite funny, at liest is was after i hit up the open bar. an hour later George W showed up (this was back before he was the pres) and began shotgunning beers in preperation for his lonely drive home. After we got paid we played a full "bonus set" of heavy metal and left.