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.