Worst gig

[Ratrod]

I just played my worst gig to date. It was in a little pub about half an hour drive away. No dance floor, no stage, no lights, no nothing. A handfull of customers that weren't paying any attention to our music and would rather have us shut up so they could chat. Wihin 5 songs we were already told we were too loud. We were at really low volume already, my amp wasn't cooking . Everyone with a guitar knows how hard it is to play when you're amp isn't on 'working' volume. You have to drag the notes out of it. We only played two sets. After that, some people that were there wanted a jam. I didn't wanted to at all. So we ended that pretty quick too. The worst thing of such a gig is that it takes alot of your energy and you're not getting any back.

Anyone else want to share a 'worst gig' moment?

[Searcher]

Err, ok.  We were playing at an all-day concert thingy with a bunch of other people.  We were supposed to go on in the afternoon, but they bumped us from 4pm to 10am and told us of this a 9:45am (it ended up being because of an ego thing of a guy from another band).  I didn't even have my gear with me, since I lived nearby and was going to get it from home when I went there for lunch.  So I had to borrow gear.  I ended up using a Firebird instead of my Strat and that was pretty offputting.  The sound guy (we didn't have our own guy on the desk) was a complete jerk and gave us no foldback at all.  We were doing songs that the lead singer had written and he also played acoustic guitar for them.  Only thing is, he was helpless at staying in time and since we couldn't hear him we had no idea where we were in the song.

Messiest performance ever, and pretty much everyone I knew in the whole world was at that gig.

[38thBeatle]

Oh Ratty, I have had many like that- apathetic audience, low volume. I eveolved a technique whether I drift off into my own world and imagine I am playing Woodstock or something or I treat it as a paid rehearsal.Soul destroying mate but there will be great gigs to come I am sure.I have dozens of stories form the years I have been playing.

[_tom_]

My first gig was similar, although we got to play pretty loud, the people in the hall were cr@p and just wanted to talk and dance to the cr@p that was played at the disco!

[chrisola]

you should have gone all punk on them and told them to shut the feck up and listen.. then dived into the crowd swinging your guitar around wildly...

before jumping into your car and doing a huge BURNOUT around the car park of said establishment ;)

That'll teach em some respect

[PhilKing]

We were once playing an American Officers Club in Germany and they were more interested in the Baseball game on TV.  They kept asking us to turn down, so in the end I turned my amp off.  Only the guys in the band noticed  :shock:   The worst part of this was we were supposed to play three 45 minute sets and this was the first one!

[Searcher]

They kept asking us to turn down, so in the end I turned my amp off.

Oh, I hate gigs like that.  I've had a few of those, too.  Watched it oon video afterwards and the soundguy had me turned down so low that I might as well have been miming.

[jt]

:D The storys i could tell !! Like 38th i`ve been around a bit. The thing that really bothers me is why has someone bothered booking a band if they no noones going to be interested.  :roll:

Do what i do turn up the gain & go for it !! Zeps Rock`n`Roll tends to do the job  :lol:

 :D  8)

[gwEm]

just had one really bad gig myself, but it was enough. anyway i learnt something from it. never good to play it super hard all the way through the set. i did this and alienated the audience somewhat :? anyway, now i'm throwing a few ballads in there and their often the higlights of the set.

but yeah, it was a pretty bad feeling coming out of there that night.