Gigging equipment Fails - Go

[jazzyvee]

I just saw this video on basschat so wondered who has any unfortunate things happen on gigs.

[edwardofhuncote]

I could write a book... just from episodes witnessed in the last band I was in.


"The Self-Imposed Disasters Musicians Stage"

[jazzyvee]

A guy i sold my old peavey tour 450? bass head to, had it vibrate off his cab on his first gig with it. Cost him almost as much to get it fixed as i sold it to him for.

[garyhead]

The Classico fell against a post in my living room. The post with its softwood veneer has the gouge. The hardwood Classico headstock was relatively unscathed. All nicks & dings on the Classico were removed during the electronics upgrade of 2017-19.

[gtrguy]

I played a gig years ago in a school auditorium and after the gig a mom brought a toddler up to view my Mockingbird bass. I watched from 30 feet away as the little tyke reached out and knocked it right off the stand. Mom and kid scuttled right out the door. The crash left a dent in the neck. At another gig some drunk guy insisted on dancing with our guitar players wife and ended knocking her to the floor! He was ready to take the drunk down but kept on playing when she got back up unhurt. If it's windy or not secure I keep a pretty close eye on things these days.

[hammer]

Never had anything like that happen to my equipment. However many years ago I played in band with horns in which the drummer and horns were placed on a riser behind us and about 2.5 feet off the stage floor. In the middle of the percussion solo in Im a Man, our drummer adjusted his seat and went off the back of the riser onto the stage floor. Our trombonist, a Berkeley School of music grad who could play anything, grabbed a set of drumsticks and without missing more than a beat or two finished the song doing a very capable job while standing.

[gtrguy]

Yes, my stories can't compete with drummer tales! I used to play in a band where our drummer had been the house drummer for Jim and Tammy Faye. Boy was he a character! He told us he once did a gig with a band led by a husband and wife team where the husband up and died a little before show time. He remembered warming up while the EMTs were trying to resuscitate the guy behind the drum riser. They went ahead and did the show anyway... The wife told everyone she knew his health was bad and could go at any minute. I also saw a guy die on the dance floor once. Boy the bar sure looks more shabby when the house lights go up!

We once finished up a gig in a small town in Oregon and afterwards a little old lady scuttled up to one of the singers and whispered, "Get out of town, it's a trap". A couple of drunks also tried to steal out tour bus once in Aberdeen, WA (home of Curt Cobain) and we were still on board sleeping. I had to go forward and convince them to leave. Such endless fun and no real harm done.

[StephenR]

I was in one band where we actually discussed what we would do if our drummer either checked out onstage or collapsed and was unable to complete a show. He had a bad cocaine habit and was also prone to eating a bunch of valium when he got too tweaked. The discussion happened after a gig where we noticed the drums had kind of dropped out and looked back to see the drummer taking his pulse while trying to keep playing... he blamed it on someone in the audience supposedly smoking crack and claimed the fumes had wafted over him on stage. We had to fire him which led to a whole new level of hassle when he sued us claiming he owned the band name. Fun times being in a band...

[bigredbass]

So I'm playing with this local band on a once-weekly regular gig we had for a 'Singles Night' at a VFW.  One of those rooms with the stage in a recess into one wall, I hated those kinds of stages.

So they remodel the place, install a big new HVAC system, which eliminated one of those big set-in-the-wall window AC's behind the drums. Great. 

Except . . . when they rewired the place, they installed the usual double 110v receptacle and faceplate . . . . . without changing that outlet to 110v instead of the 220v that ran that old AC.

So we get there, set up, and we were using one of the old Peavey XR600 PA heads, set on top of the guitar players Twin Reverb, right in front of the drummer.  He hands Hank the cord and tells him to plug it in behind him.

He hits the ON switch, I hear this big BANG like a 12 gage, I turn around and see the most perfect smoke ring heading for the ceiling and sparks are shooting out of every empty jack on the front of this thing.  You can imagine what it smelled like.  Hank wrapped the cord around a drumstick and yanked it out.  Guitar players, ya gotta love 'em, he says, 'hey, if we flip the ground the other way it'll work?'

We went home early.

After some serious haggling and threats, the club bought him another head.  And they re-wired the receptacle.

[edwin]

So I'm playing with this local band on a once-weekly regular gig we had for a 'Singles Night' at a VFW.  One of those rooms with the stage in a recess into one wall, I hated those kinds of stages.

So they remodel the place, install a big new HVAC system, which eliminated one of those big set-in-the-wall window AC's behind the drums. Great. 

Except . . . when they rewired the place, they installed the usual double 110v receptacle and faceplate . . . . . without changing that outlet to 110v instead of the 220v that ran that old AC.

So we get there, set up, and we were using one of the old Peavey XR600 PA heads, set on top of the guitar players Twin Reverb, right in front of the drummer.  He hands Hank the cord and tells him to plug it in behind him.

He hits the ON switch, I hear this big BANG like a 12 gage, I turn around and see the most perfect smoke ring heading for the ceiling and sparks are shooting out of every empty jack on the front of this thing.  You can imagine what it smelled like.  Hank wrapped the cord around a drumstick and yanked it out.  Guitar players, ya gotta love 'em, he says, 'hey, if we flip the ground the other way it'll work?'

We went home early.

After some serious haggling and threats, the club bought him another head.  And they re-wired the receptacle.

I had a very similar experience where the outlets on stage were cross-wired to two separate circuits. Our sound guy also happened to be a licensed electrician and got the gig to rewire the place. They paid for a new Furman AR-15 voltage regular.

This biggest interruption I've had to a gig was in this video. 90 minutes of microburst hail with 70mph winds. Surprisingly, the only real casualty was a Mesa Boogie amp, but our guitarist was good friends with the guys at the factory and got it rebuilt quickly and inexpensively. Needless to say, everything was saturated.

[pauldo]

Wow!  Mother Nature, she has some power.

[fmm]

I was playing outdoors at the MN state capital.  One of our guitar players had his set list / lyrics on an iPad, but the way he had it set up made it difficult for him if we deviated from the set list.  This was quite annoying.  He also had the habit of playing mandolin on songs where it was not appropriate (AC/DC's All Night Long, My Sharona).  Both the mandolin and the iPad hung off of his mic stand.
A big gust of wind blew his mic stand over.  Sadly, the mandolin survived.

[cozmik_cowboy]

So I'm playing with this local band on a once-weekly regular gig we had for a 'Singles Night' at a VFW.  One of those rooms with the stage in a recess into one wall, I hated those kinds of stages.

So they remodel the place, install a big new HVAC system, which eliminated one of those big set-in-the-wall window AC's behind the drums. Great. 

Except . . . when they rewired the place, they installed the usual double 110v receptacle and faceplate . . . . . without changing that outlet to 110v instead of the 220v that ran that old AC.

So we get there, set up, and we were using one of the old Peavey XR600 PA heads, set on top of the guitar players Twin Reverb, right in front of the drummer.  He hands Hank the cord and tells him to plug it in behind him.

He hits the ON switch, I hear this big BANG like a 12 gage, I turn around and see the most perfect smoke ring heading for the ceiling and sparks are shooting out of every empty jack on the front of this thing.  You can imagine what it smelled like.  Hank wrapped the cord around a drumstick and yanked it out.  Guitar players, ya gotta love 'em, he says, 'hey, if we flip the ground the other way it'll work?'

We went home early.

After some serious haggling and threats, the club bought him another head.  And they re-wired the receptacle.

It was a dark and stormy night.  We had a gig in the Chicago 'burbs (Mr. Kiley's, if memory serves - not to be confused with the famous Rush St. jazz/comedy/folk club Mr. Kelly's).  Both the band and the club personnel were baffled and irritated that I was hesitant to plug into the outlets just because there was water running out of a gap in the conduit.......

(The light geek plugged it in, it worked, and nobody died - but I still think I was right.)

Peter (who has always felt that The Muppet Movie captured light geeks perfectly)

[gtrguy]

I once was playing an old Fender amp with a 2 prong cord at a guitar store and there was another one next to it with a 2 prong and I made the big mistake of shutting the 1st one off while turning the other one on. Let me tell you, 120 volts across the chest gets your attention real fast!

[hankster]

The neck of my upright came off while I was carrying it up the stairs into the auditorium for the gig…