In a band? What's the worst gig you've ever played?

Hmm…I actually don’t think that would be too bad. Did anyone else try and sing, is that what made it awkward?

We vowed never to play without a drummer again. Did 2 gigs with a stand-in a few weeks after. He learnt all our songs (all 9 of them!!!11!) in about 3 hours. Trooper.

There are some backing vocal parts but otherwise it just didn’t work.

Ah fair enough.

Once played to literally no one in Preston, above a pub at about 5.30pm on a Saturday. We were the only band on. No idea what that was all about

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So, so many. One that particularly stands out was one early in my old band’s career when we were booked to play a festival in Norfolk. None of us could drive so we booked train tickets, and then found out that there was no backline on the stage we were playing on. Ended up taking a whole drum kit and bass amp alongside our tents and regular gear on the train from Oxford to Norwich (including a change across London). Got to the festival and it turned out to be a mess, really druggy, and we were really not the music they had come to see. Not only that but we had decided to dress as Morris Dancers (no idea why). So ended up playing to a bunch of really crusty trustifarians dressed as Morris Dancers, then after we played got into an argument with a guy in a suit who kept shouting at us about how we were all going to space.

Rubbish trip home, that.

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We often try and recall some kind of top 5. The Halloween one usually tops the bill, but notable others -

  • We played a “festival” in Crewe, different venues participating a little like Tramlines or something. We ended up playing in some Wetherspoons type place, had a bunch of Brexit types screaming at us to turn it down. Imagine Green Room, in a 'Spoons with the EDL as opposed to U.S based white supremacists. Grim. Worst bit was I left behind my pedal board so had to travel back by train two days later (took all day just about there and back at a cost of about £40). Place was even more distressing in the day light

  • We played at The Leopard in Doncaster. Nice venue really. We turned up though and there was some band made up of several teens, the room half full of pushy parents and obvious family members. I still remember the hook in the last song, which the crowd gleefully sang along to – “2, 4, 6, 8, she’s with me mate!!”. Afterwards, pushy dad 4 was telling me how they were going to be Donny’s answer to the Arctic Monkeys, and didn’t I agree?? What made it one for the books, was that the drummer didn’t turn up until halfway through the first song as he was stuck at work. It’s the only time I’ve ever been angry whilst in the band really. I remember a heated phone call stood in the darts room saying if we had to endure this crap, he wasn’t getting away with it. He jumped in a taxi shortly thereafter.

  • We played with a Christian metal band in London. Our drummer popped their kick drum skin through during our last song. It was an album or EP launch or something for the headliners. Admittedly it was a crappy move on our part, but we did offer to bring our own stuff, and they insisted on us using theirs. Anyway, we just about managed to patch it up for them, but they roughly hustled us off stage, backstage the singer went NUTS at us, screaming we’ d ruined the show for them, effin’ and jeffin’. First song the singer whipped his top off and had a massive tattoo of JC on the cross on his back. The moral of this story is always listen to the other acts on Soundcloud before agreeing to a gig.

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Ha, I got into a fight with the Dad of a guitarist from a Christian metal band at a school in Harpenden. True story.

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Spoilers supported a Danish band who had just come off a tour with Royal Blood in a shitty wee pub in Bedford which we had organised with their UK tour booker, who I had recently split up with. Show wasn’t rammed but not dead either, but the sound was pretty terrible and my bass somehow just fell apart while playing (i.e the bridge came dislodged) and I ended up just lying on the “stage” (floor) being played at during our last song which is meant to be a long kraut-rock section while the rest of the band danced around me. Wanted the floor to eat me up tbh, was completely humiliated

That first story fits with my oft-quoted phrase “bad things happen in Crewe”.

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Never again

I think my least favourite is when the sound onstage is so terrible that you basically cant play, then when you say something look like a total dick for complaining, due being a shitty band playing to 7 people.

We played one in Brighton, at a supposedly pro set up, where the sound desk was miles back, and they had a colleague with a headset standing in front of the stage relaying comments from the band. It went like this during the “line check” (I’ve never really understood those):

Us: Sorry, we cant hear the guitar amp at all, can we turn it up, or get more in the monitors?
Lady into headset: They cant hear the guitar at all, can they turn it up?
[mumble sound]
Lady into headset, to us: It’s up full.
Us: No it isn’t, look [turns up amp]
[mumble sound]
Lady to us: The soundman says its too loud, please turn it down.
Us: Can you not turn up the monitors?
Lady into headset: They want the monitors louder
[mumble sound]
Lady to us: They are up full.
Us: No, they clearly aren’t turned on.
Lady into headset: They say they aren’t turned on.
[mumble sound]
Lady to us: They are up full.

This was in front of the paltry audience, so we looked like dicks, then decided to just crack on, and it was wretched. Had to just wang the amp after a while as couldn’t hear it, then the sound man walked off in a strop and we bundled through a shit show. I threw a strop after at the returning sound man, and threw my cymbals on the floor in front of him. I then felt like a MONUMENTAL dick, and went round apologising to everyone.

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In Bristol, supporting a band I was a really big fan of. Our drums were on a backing track but the sound guy just didn’t seem to get this at all, at no point throughout the gig did the drums come through any of the monitors and we had never played without hearing our drums before. We were completely out of time with each other and the whole thing was just a complete embarrassing disaster in front of a pretty sizeable and previously enthusiastic crowd. The headline act looked really embarrassed for us too and one of them said to me “Yeah, these things happen” :frowning_face:

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The band we supported ended up staying at my house and we had a great night so that was some consolation :slight_smile:

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Hahaha! That’s amazing. That’s what you get for playing to a backing track though, ey?

I was at this show, yes?

@Owensmaterob to thread

Yeah you were! Are you here to tell me it wasn’t as bad as I remember?

I know it wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t as bad for the audience as it would have felt as a band tbf.

Playing a gig on a bowling alley lane (so much echo) to a bunch of pissed up farmers who were waiting for the headline act, local heroes The Surfin’ Turnips, was just one of many ‘unforgettable’ experiences I had playing in a rockabilly band.

Same band also played a gig at a primary school fete, although tbf the kids were well up for it and much more fun than your average local gig crowd…

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A lot of these so called sound guys don’t seem very sound at all

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