Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives

Message board

* FAQ    * Register   * Login 



Reply to topic
Author Message Previous topic | Next topic
~Guest 227866
Metal newbie

Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 1:05 am
Posts: 154
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 3:00 am 
 

['


Last edited by ~Guest 227866 on Fri Feb 01, 2019 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Top
 Profile  
Commandaunt
Metalhead

Joined: Thu Mar 10, 2011 10:31 am
Posts: 572
Location: Bolivia
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 3:51 am 
 

I've only played one show and it went really smoothly, except that I forgot the point at which a certain vocal section started and did it on the first half of the riff instead of the second. Nobody woulda noticed, but it bothered(bothers) me :P Take a look if you want https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WarRqb2sraQ#t=143 - not really embarrassing to most, but I guess I have high standards for myself. Doing my first show with guitar/vocals at the same time in a couple weeks though with this new band of mine and the only person I have to catch my falls is another guitarist, so I'm sure there will be embarrassing fuckups aplenty.

Top
 Profile  
newp
Veteran

Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:07 pm
Posts: 2697
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 1:12 pm 
 

I've had plenty. Not embarrassing really because shit happens all the time, it's just about how you recover. If you fuck up a part, push onwards like nothing happened. If you have gear trouble, do what you can to work around it.

I've kicked out my mic cable in the middle of a song, that was a fun one. One time the second tier of my keyboard stand started to collapse as I was playing a lead, so I just picked up the synth with my free hand, held to my chest and kept playing. One time when we were playing a new song for the first time our vocalist just went blank. Like, not just forgetting the lyrics he completely forgot what he was supposed to be singing. My guitarist and I looked at each other and by silent agreement decided to just jam it out, we traded a few leads while our singer danced around and did a few 'oh oh oh's then we wrapped it up about half the length the song should have been. It certainly wasn't great, but it also didn't seem like we had completely fucked up and that's about the best you can do.

Top
 Profile  
ShaolinLambKiller
King Asshole

Joined: Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:10 pm
Posts: 13320
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 5:09 pm 
 

Yea had a few more so like CF. Not really embarrassing, but shit happens. Like playing in one song my kick drum I apparently didn't latch completely down to my pedal so while I was playing it was moving forward. Thankfully the singer saw it and propped his foot on it while singing to keep it in place. That's happened a couple of times.

I've had equipment totally cut out while playing due to cords or electrical in some shitty place.

Hell one of the best 'mistakes' was when we were playing in New Orleans. it wasn't the end of our set but right as we hit the last note and I crashed down on the downbeat the power cut off for the entire city block. And then stayed off for hours. We took credit. Just sucked for the rest of the bands cause we were opening. At least we got to play and make it a rememberable night for ourselves.

I remember when I first started gigging when I was playing guitar I actually backed right into my half stack and sent it and myself falling back, but I didn't stop playing and amazingly everything was still working so I didn't miss a beat rolled off while still playing and two friends ran up and set my half stack back up as we continued on. after we were done I had to go take the cab in to get the input jacks fixed but it finished out our set just great.
_________________
I just do more stuff than you ever will.

Top
 Profile  
Awblaster
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:07 pm
Posts: 617
Location: United Kingdom
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:20 pm 
 

I've had a few decent ones.

First metal gig I ever played, opening for Serpent Venom and Black Magician, with my ex-band. Really heavy Electric Wizard/Reverend Bizarre style doom. At the start of our ~fifteen minute long track, the spring for my right beater on my double pedal fell off (I used to run my pedals with a really loose tension, and hadn't checked to see if it was held on enough...). This wouldn't have been too bad, but this song involved loads of galloping double kick and a drum solo... I managed to make do with my left foot, just playing much more basic stuff. And we would have been alright, but then as we came into the super slow bridge section, one of the guitars suddenly cut out. So that guitarist and the singer ended up frantically switching out cables, unplugging pedals, and when they couldn't work out what it was they just plugged straight into the amp and we managed to get out of it, having just jammed on one riff in the meantime. Just as well it was doom, we could get away with it...

I once put my beaters through a kick drum skin right at the end of a set with my post-metal band, just as it came to the part that relies on the kick drum to speed up, then go to double kick, for a massive crescendo at the end. There was a spare kick drum for the other bands, thankfully, but it was a bit of a heart attack realising that I might have just fucked the gig for everyone...

With my blackthrash band, I started out our first ever set with lyrics to the wrong song. Thankfully nobody noticed, but I felt like a right tit.
_________________
Venomwolf - blackened speeding metalpunk - debut album Stormriding Power out now!

Top
 Profile  
FearTheNome
Metal newbie

Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2003 8:41 am
Posts: 201
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 9:03 pm 
 

Probably my worst is from a gig just a couple weeks ago. Over the last few months I've been trying to move around more on stage and put on more of a show instead of just standing there headbanging, and mostly it's gone great. But this particular time, I somehow managed to pull my cable out at the amp three times in one set, despite my cable being plenty long for the stage, I checked ahead of time. I'm going to need to invest in wireless at some point I guess.

Top
 Profile  
~Guest 293033
Metalhead

Joined: Thu May 17, 2012 8:16 pm
Posts: 483
PostPosted: Sun Mar 16, 2014 4:37 am 
 

I played bass for a grand total of one gig, so nobody ever noticed the mistake I made.

No joke.

Top
 Profile  
Smoking_Gnu
Chicago Favorite

Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:22 pm
Posts: 4797
PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 11:14 am 
 

Once while singing with my first band, I attempted to headbang but stumbled back a bit and almost fell over into our guitarist.
_________________
Hexenmacht46290 wrote:
Slayer are not as uneducated as people think, some of them did know how to read.

Top
 Profile  
Diamhea
Eats and Spits Corpses

Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:46 pm
Posts: 9275
Location: At the Heat of Winter
PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 5:13 pm 
 

I played a gig in a jam-packed basement once. Despite ample use of duct tape, my keyboard kept getting unplugged from people stepping on the power wire. Fvcking annoying.
_________________
nuclearskull wrote:
Leave a steaming, stinking Rotting Repulsive Rotting Corpse = LIVE YOUNG - DIE FREE and move on to the NEXT form of yourself....or just be a fat Wal-Mart Mcdonalds pc of shit what do I give a fuck what you do.

Last.fm

Top
 Profile  
newp
Veteran

Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:07 pm
Posts: 2697
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon Mar 17, 2014 7:16 pm 
 

Smoking_Gnu wrote:
Once while singing with my first band, I attempted to headbang but stumbled back a bit and almost fell over into our guitarist.

Ah yes, headbanging mishaps. I once headbanged my face right into my microphone, knocking it over. I suppose some might consider that embarrassing but I just laughed at myself.

ShaolinLambKiller wrote:
Hell one of the best 'mistakes' was when we were playing in New Orleans. it wasn't the end of our set but right as we hit the last note and I crashed down on the downbeat the power cut off for the entire city block. And then stayed off for hours. We took credit. Just sucked for the rest of the bands cause we were opening. At least we got to play and make it a rememberable night for ourselves.

Ha! That is awesome.

Top
 Profile  
Arkhane
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:39 pm
Posts: 1820
Location: South Texas
PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2014 3:20 am 
 

Posted this in a different thread, but I played an outdoor show where the entire PA was powered by gasoline generators. So, PA went out during our set and the only audible instruments were the drums and guitars (barely). Luckily it was a trashy bar and grill and everyone outside was already drunk at 5:30 pm.

During my first live show ever, I leaned my guitar against a wall after tuning it. It fell over while we were hauling our equipment to the stage, but one of the guys picked it up and didn't tell me it fell over. We also only had one tuner at the time, so tuning between songs didn't happen (though that's not an excuse to not give me the fucking tuner again). The whole set sounded completely ridiculous, as I was about 8 cents flat on all my strings, and not once did anyone bring me the fucking tuner. I almost got booted from the band that night, but we straightened up our act before the next show and went on damn good for a couple more years.

Other than almost falling off stage because of my habit of putting my foot on the monitors, that's all I can remember.
_________________
Follow me on Facebook

Top
 Profile  
Fulano
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat Jun 18, 2011 3:30 pm
Posts: 50
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Wed Mar 19, 2014 8:24 pm 
 

There was this time when we were headbanging on stage and the bass player´s hair got tangled with my headstock. I had to stop playing and fix the mess (meanwhile he kept on playing; fortunately we had another guitarist at the time, so we didn´t have to stop the song).

Then there was this other time when it happened again.

I never played near him again, that´s for sure.

Top
 Profile  
Arkhane
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:39 pm
Posts: 1820
Location: South Texas
PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 12:46 am 
 

Ha, that sucks. I would always treat my headstock like a gun and never point it near anyone, otherwise someone will be getting a black eye or a bald spot.

I just remembered another time when our lead singer got drunk on stage. Our bassist was headbanging pretty hard, and the singer just decides to catch his hair from the back and yank it on a down beat. I looked over just in time to see our singer get shoved all the way across the stage. Thankfully there wasn't a brawl. This same gig, the lead singer from a classic rock band kept kicking the mic over and catching it back with his foot, only he would always drop it and it nearly hit several people in the audience.

Man, this thread is great!
_________________
Follow me on Facebook

Top
 Profile  
thrashinbatman
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 6:31 pm
Posts: 1534
PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 9:26 am 
 

Once during a gig, at the very beginning of our set I nearly knocked over my mic stand. The stage was about the size of a pack of gum and hard to maneuver around. Outside of that, it's only really been pick drops and near-pick drops.

Top
 Profile  
somefella
Veteran

Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:57 pm
Posts: 3134
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 1:13 pm 
 

Once I sessioned in a pop-rock band playing bass and for one song, the guitarist played the solo 2 times, I don't know why the fuck. Fine, everyone should be able to catch the mistake and adjust accordingly. It's just some stupid 4 chord song, how hard can it be, right? Wrong. Because the chick singer is oblivious to everything else and decides to begin singing and then everything is a massive train wreck. Thankfully it was the last song of the set, so I was able to grab my bass and hightail it out of there.
_________________
http://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/the-grea ... of-nothing
OSHIEGO (SGP), death/thrash.

Top
 Profile  
hots_towel
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 2:19 am
Posts: 426
Location: United States
PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2014 1:44 pm 
 

my last band played a grand total of three shows before i left. And in those three shows, we only played 3 songs (each one just under 5 minutes long). we messed up just about every song, but played through it. im so glad no one knew how they were supposed to sound. We never practiced stage presence, so as son as those guys started trying to do tricks and headbanging and such, we lost tempo.

on top of that, one of the guitarists liked to play an atmospheric syth into from his ipod before we went into the first song. everyone else was on board with it, but i thought it was pretty facepalm worthy

the only other time i can remember was our second show, our drummer's pedal came loose right in the middle of a song. we all stopped and let our instruments ring for like 5 or 6 seconds while he tightened it down again (i have no idea what happened exactly. I dont know drum sets, but i know he was complaining about it weeks before hand). it was really obvious that we had no idea what to do while we stopped playing for that moment

Top
 Profile  
TheUglySoldier
Metalhead

Joined: Mon May 12, 2008 3:44 am
Posts: 1687
Location: Australia
PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:23 am 
 

My band's first gig we got there early. I set up, had all my gear on the amp and realised it'd be awhile before I could do anything. I went off and grabbed a bite to eat (as did the rest of the band) and came back to find my tuner had been swiped. Normally not a real biggie, but I spent more time looking for it as opposed to just tuning by ear and ended up a bit out of tune for the first two songs. Got into tune for song three so all was good, but I was fucking livid at that point - I think it really affected my performance. When the bass it outta tune, everything sounds shit.

I also made the big mistake of going "Lol guise I'm out of tune haha sorry". I still cringe about that.

But hey, shit is only embarrassing if you let it be. Our next gig I went into the next section about a bar too early. It was noticeable, but I kinda thought "Eh, fuck it, this is a new song, no one knows it yet," and just adjusted it a bit. It didn't sound fantastic, but sounded more like a "weird" section than a mistake. I find if you stuff up and own it, its all good. Things are only really embarrassing if you let them be.
_________________
Blacksmith - Heavy Metal/Hard Rock from Sydney

Absolute Power: heavy metal and pop culture news, analysis and commentary

Top
 Profile  
somefella
Veteran

Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:57 pm
Posts: 3134
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 2:46 am 
 

Absolutely. Just wing it and make it part of the show and it's all cool. Unless you are playing the Tornado Of Souls solo or something and everyone in the room is scrutinizing your every bend, any mistake is barely noticeable.

There's a video on YT of Megadeth playing 'Lucretia' at the Hammersmith in 92, where Mustaine slides up to the wrong note (which leads into playing up the scale) but he plays up the 'wrong' scale first and shifts into the right on subtly while ascending it and even if you know the song very well it's nearly impossible to detect. Mastering your material will allow you to fix any mistakes easily and with style.
_________________
http://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/the-grea ... of-nothing
OSHIEGO (SGP), death/thrash.

Top
 Profile  
ShaolinLambKiller
King Asshole

Joined: Fri Dec 07, 2007 6:10 pm
Posts: 13320
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 9:19 am 
 

Like what you described with Megadeth is stuff I'd do in the band I played bass in for so long. occassionally in thrashing around I'd hit a wrong note and usually with our stuff my basslines were either one long pieces meaning for the 4 times the guitar is playing a riff I'm playing something different as one long single section...I'd work the mistake in with similar 'wrong' notes or if it's something I'm doing following the guitar since I know the section is 4 times I just repeat the mistake as if it's supposed to be part of the section and just move on. no one ever noticed. all they noticed if I was jumping off amps or thrashing about like dillinger escape plan.
_________________
I just do more stuff than you ever will.

Top
 Profile  
hansgrinder
Metal newbie

Joined: Sat May 16, 2009 1:43 pm
Posts: 68
Location: United States
PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:25 pm 
 

oh man...i've played a good number of shows at this point and have plenty of stories like these. some standouts:

-my old thrash band was playing a decently big show at a warehouse in providence, RI. at one point during our set our singer picked up a traffic barrel (one of these) and threw it into the crowd. everything proceeded normally after that. however, when we were finished and the lights went on, there was an audible gasp and a "what the fuck?" from the crowd. it turned out that the people who were living at the warehouse had been emptying their litterboxes into the traffic barrel for months. our singer had unwittingly covered half the room in old litter and cat shit. we were referred to as the "cat shit band" from there on out. our singer, who had a huge thing for GG allin, was so disgusted with himself that he stopped listening to GG forever (which i thought was hysterical because that was probably the most GG-esque thing he possibly could have done). i proceeded to get wasted and yell about dumb shit because, hey, we already made fools of ourselves!

-same band played a show at this shady bar in south philly. one dude in the crowd was wasted and enthusiastically moshing in this tiny little venue, and proceeded to mosh directly into my guitarist's stack. he knocked the whole thing over and destroyed a number of cables...thankfully didn't do more damage than that. my guitarist was usually a really nice and chilled-out dude, but he looked like he was about ready to murder the drunken mosher. the dude was very apologetic (it turned out to be the guy who booked the show) but we were all pretty pissed. don't think we played there again after that.

-same band played a house show in Lima, OH to literally two people. apparently the band 38 special played a secret show that same night and most of the locals were there. guess it was a little embarrassing but it still turned out fun. the place had a separate floor of the house dedicated to rehearsal/performance space and a place for touring bands to stay. there was funny porn all over the walls, as well as a 5 foot tall bong and a grass mask. they also made us a big barbecue meal before the show so it was fun overall. it's kind of disheartening to play a show to no one, but i feel as though every band has to do it at least once.

-same band, same tour, but played at a sports bar in galesburg, IL. the bar was plastered with posters from the band psychostick who i guess had played there at some point and the proprietors were very proud of the fact. anyway, the show itself was fine, but the crowd was one of the weirdest i'd ever played to. it seemed like 2 or 3 people actually were into the music...the rest of them were dancing to the music like they were in some night club or something...ladies in heels and short skirts bumpin' and grindin' with dudes in flannels and overalls while we played pretty speedy thrash/hardcore/crossover stuff. after the show was over they offered to let us sleep on the venue floor, but not until everyone was done partying at 5am. that was the only night of the whole tour we paid for a hotel room. embarassing more for the crowd than us, i suppose, but it was still an odd experience.

-same band, same tour, we played a backyard show for some teenager's birthday party in suburban long island, NY. wound up being us playing our thrash set to a bunch of high school kids more interested in bro/beatdown hardcore, set up under a tent playing right in front of the family's pool. guess that was pretty embarassing in its own right, but i recall it feeling more surreal than anything else.

-same band played a basement show at a notoriously rowdy punk house in new brunswick, NJ. this place was well-known for ignorant moshing and other shenanigans (this was at America if anyone's familiar with HCHC circa 2008-10). always enjoyed playing there because we usually elicited a good crowd reaction, but this time they went a little overboard. basically the entire crowd rushed our singer and piled on top of him, landing on my drumset. somehow the crowd managed to bend one of my bass drum spurs almost to a 90 degree angle (and this was not one of the really thin ones...we're talking a steel tube almost an inch wide). we just stuck a concrete brick in front of the kick to keep it in place and finished the set. eventually my metalworker friend managed to mostly bend it back into place, though it never worked quite as well again after that.

-my deathgrind band played a show at an outdoor stage at my old college's spring festival type deal. it was pretty hysterical because it was meant to be a day for families and their kids to come out and have fun/do activities/etc, so when we got the offer we accepted quickly. we got up and played to a pretty big crowd of people from all walks. the parents/kids walked away as soon as we hit the first few notes. the drunk bros saw our friends moshing and started to follow suit, but did so very ignorantly and violently. i looked up and noticed several cops gathering on the far end of the crowd, looking nervously at the mosh pit. we ended up getting shut down about 10 minutes into our set by said cops because they said we were creating a safety hazard...when we played the festival again the next year we explicitly asked people not to mosh so we could actually get through our set.

-...that same show the next year i managed to sprain my ankle literally 10 minutes before we walked onstage (climbed a tree and fell out of it). i still played and gave one of the worst performances of my life, aside from making what was probably a small sprain much worse. wound up getting a ride home after realizing i could no longer walk on it. at least we actually got through our set!

-deathgrind band played a show at this cool bar in asheville, NC. at some point something came un-soldered inside my guitarist's guitar and half of it cut out (we are a 2 piece so it was pretty noticeable). what we SHOULD have done was continued to play, but we stopped, announced it, and took a sec to fix the problem.

that last one was especially embarrassing because it broke the most important rule of fucking up onstage: play it off and keep going as much as you possibly can. i'd wager that 8 times out of 10 the people watching you play will not be able to tell the difference whatsoever--stopping and making a big deal out of it is what creates most of the embarrassment. always be confident in what you're doing, because more often than ont your audience won't know it's a mistake unless you tell them. as a drummer i've dropped my sticks mid-song more times than i care to admit, but i've learned to keep going with my other hand and feet til i can pick a new one up. i think it's an invaluable skill that any performing musician needs to hone.

hmm...reading back not all of these were "embarrassing" per se. some of them are more ridiculous/crazy than anything else. oh well. it was nice and nostalgic to type em all out.

Top
 Profile  
Funeral Frog
Metal newbie

Joined: Thu May 30, 2013 9:04 pm
Posts: 228
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 11:19 am 
 

^That was definitely interesting to read, though!
_________________
beyondtheblack, in the voice of a stereotypical eastern European, wrote:
it seems I am male gay

Wintermute (black metal, death metal, dark ambient)
https://wintermuteband.bandcamp.com/album/wolven

Top
 Profile  
Smoking_Gnu
Chicago Favorite

Joined: Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:22 pm
Posts: 4797
PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 2:36 pm 
 

Yeah, Hansgrinder wins the thread so far with the cat shit story.
_________________
Hexenmacht46290 wrote:
Slayer are not as uneducated as people think, some of them did know how to read.

Top
 Profile  
iulian003
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Mon Mar 24, 2014 5:42 pm
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Mon Mar 24, 2014 5:44 pm 
 

My guitarist and I looked at each other and by silent agreement decided to just jam it out, we traded a few leads while our singer danced around

_______
Iulian

Top
 Profile  
Arkhane
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2010 3:39 pm
Posts: 1820
Location: South Texas
PostPosted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 3:26 am 
 

iulian003 wrote:
My guitarist and I looked at each other and by silent agreement decided to just jam it out, we traded a few leads while our singer danced around

Fucking epic storytelling there, bro.
_________________
Follow me on Facebook

Top
 Profile  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Reply to topic


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

 
Jump to:  

Back to the Encyclopaedia Metallum


Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group