My Gig Horror Stories 

I played guitar in a metal band, we had a huge gig at a bar in Cincinnati, I had just had a wisdom tooth pulled and I was in massive amounts of pain, the guitarist for one of the other bands gave me a mystery pill, I didn't take pills and was completely unaware of taking a Xanax bar, I don't remember anything from 15 minutes after taking said pill, I woke up at like 10 am the next day in the drummers car, I was parked next to my car so I got up at drove home, when I met up with my bandmates I asked what happened, and I was told that we played and I didn't miss a note, at the time we filmed our performances and upon play back I watched a bone white version of myself sweating buckets playing a show I have no memory of.

I subbed at a fund raiser last minute, and mid-song I glanced at the guitarists' hand to get a reference, because he was playing a muddled chord- and he whips the neck away, and hisses at me "those are secret chords!"

Took the plastic guard of the back of my Strat and got my hair stuck in the springs when I tried to Jimi behind my head.

Our bass player broke my nose on stage once, we were both headbanding and we crashed each other heads

I sneezed into my Bari sax during a band camp concert, and made the section leader laugh while he was playing. For the remainder of the piece our entire section was off by about a bar and a half.

Oh boy, where do I begin? This is a long one, so buckle up. I was hired to play for this alt-rock band after their guitarist was fired (three weeks after the LAST guitarist was fired, as well as the guitarist before him, a la revolving door style). We get to the venue, which was this coffeehouse/bar in the middle of nowhere, and found that the stage could barely fit two people WITHOUT instruments, much less the five that were fully kitted out. While we're setting up, the lead singer gets into a very heated argument with their manager (who happened to be her dad), that resulted in screaming and shoving. She shoved him, he shoved her, she went right into my amp (a Line 6 Bogner stack), royally fucking my settings beyond belief five minutes before downbeat. Her entire family was there, including her five year old niece, so they stopped the ruckus relatively quickly. I'm not sure just how she killed all of my settings, but she utterly destroyed everything that I had saved. As the show was beginning, I had to do some serious tap dancing and quick finger magic to try and save my sound. My dirty was super quiet, and nothing near dirty, but my cleans were gorgeous...AND JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY LOUD. This is foreshadowing at its finest, folks. To continue on with the greatness that was becoming a Benny Hill sketch of a gig, about halfway through I was slammed in the back of the head by the lead singer's headstock, whacked in the face by a broken drumstick, and had a high hat fall over on me. To top it off, the lead singer was suffering from a scratchy throat, in addition to a pissy attitude from the argument with managerdad. At this point, I wanted alcohol. With the onset of the last song, I was giving sighs of relief and thanking God for getting me through the nightmare. I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. The last song was actually really beautiful, with a gorgeous clean guitar solo to finish out the set. I was definitely looking forward to it as the song went on. Like every vain and fragile guitarist, I looked to the crowd as I awaited the moment of guitar godliness, and saw the five year old niece hauling ass towards the stage. That's when it dawned on me: my cleans were unabashedly loud. Even turning the knob all the way down wasn't going to stop the overwhelming awesomeness that was this cacophony of beautiful clean tone, and I had zero time to turn around and dial it down on the amp. As I saw this tiny human hauling ass up to the stage, my inner parent kicked in, and I had a two second compound moral crisis. Do I keep the amp gained out and save the small female hobbit from blown ear drums, or did I go for it, sacrificing the little one for the sake of the greater good (and that amazing clean tone solo that would guarantee me an evening of guitar godliness)? Folks, to this day, I still don't know if I made the right decision. As I saw the poor, innocent, sacrifice running down the aisle, I made my choice and pressed my foot down on that channel button. I never really believed it to be true, but if you didn't know it, sound waves really CAN move a human being. As soon as I began the solo, that poor little half pint was hit with a wall of the most beautiful clean tone, with the perfect amount of delay, and just a touch of angelic reverb. She was hit so hard that her poor child self was knocked over like a bowling pin. This child was hauling ass, and the sound had leveled her to her back in a mere instant. Tears fell upon her face, while tears of both sadness and euphoria fell upon mine. I made my sacrifice to the musical gods, and they rewarded me. After the set was up, I leapt from the stage to pick the poor, barely living, child up from the floor. Wiping the tears from her eye, she smiled and gave me the horns. All was well. ...until loadout, where the singer and managerdad informed me that my services were no longer needed. I took my $20 cut and hauled my happy ass home, laughing all the way.

Yesterday, I sung Blitzkrieg Bop to a crowded tavern and everyone cheered by the end of it, and that was my first gig.

samurai this may be the weirdest thing you've heard in a while but i saw you on tv at the jets' game.

great video idea haha. My gig horror story was being told there was a cab i can use at the venue, but there wasn't. "yo bro can i use your amp?"

A friend of a friend wanted to sing Mr. Jones & Me at one of our cover gigs. It wasn't in our normal repertoire, but it's easy enough to learn. This guy didn't show up to any rehearsals, but assured us he knew the song and had sang it many times. At the gig he was piss drunk, could barely stand up, and didn't know any of the words. About 1/3 of the way through the song, he tripped over his mic-stand, did a 180 and fell forehead first into the steel rim on the side of the bass drum. Dude was out cold, on his face, and bleeding everywhere. I stopped playing (bass) and started walking over to him, thinking "Oh shit..." and then one of our guitar players yells at me, "Hey! Fuck that guy, just keep playing!" And so we did. About a minute later, a bouncer walked onstage, turned him on his back, and dragged him off the stage beneath his arms--to much applause.

I once showed up to a gig and the bass player didn't show up .... No one else could or wanted to play it so I stepped up and said I'd play bass that night 10 min later the frontman called and said he couldn't make it, by then we had about 60/70 at the venue all eager to listen to some live music... we thought about cancelling but once again I stepped up... I ended up playing Bass and doing vocals for 3 hours in a gig I'll never forget, was left with huge blisters on my fingers .... and some funny memories, I messed up here and there but overall managed to pull it off Unforgettable

One time I played a show where everyone had to plug into an outlet in a bar sign, which was powered by a lamp cord. Anytime anyone touched a mic, you’d get shocked. We told the show promoter we were going to quit, so he made some changes, told us he fixed it and grabbed two mics to show us... but then just fell on the floor convulsing from electric shock.

I played a solo acoustic gig at a tavern so nasty, there were these box-elder bugs crawling all over my microphone and amp. I was singing in anger and staring at these bugs all night. I sang for 4 hours. I got paid $50. Worst paid gig. I had to pass my tip jar around to make gas money to get the hell out of that town. So many other nightmare gigs...

In the 80's I was in a hard rock/metal cover band. When our drummer got married we played a few sets at his reception which took place at a Country Club. Apparently there were a few kids whose parents were members of this Country Club and they liked us enough to convince their parents to hire us to play their Winter Formal Dance. So we show up and jump into our set which featured Van Halen, Judas Priest, Rush, etc... We were hired to play 4 sets but at the end of the first set we were asked if we had any "danceable" songs. We said, " not really, we're a hard rock band". We were then told that hiring us was a mistake and our services were no longer needed and that they would just play music on a boom box so the kids could dance. We said fine, pay us our fee and we'll pack up and leave. They said, "we're not paying you, you didn't play all four sets". So we said, "okay, we'll keep playing, then". So we played the loudest, most obnoxious song in our set, after which we were presented with a check for the full amount and THEN we packed up and left.

I was once hired to play bass for an orchestra. It was kinda last minute, two weeks before the tour. The previous bass player apparently wasn’t cutting it and threw a fit. I was told we’d at least have 4 rehearsals before we headed out, so I wasn’t stressed. But all of a sudden the conductor comes down with hypothermia and all the rehearsals were cancelled. :/ If you’ve never played with an orchestra, let me tell you, it’s a different experience than playing with a band or solo. Despite what you practice on score, conductors usually (always) make changes: Cues, Tempo, Dynamics, Arrangements, etc. I had to collect all the notes from all the sections to see how this guy arranged all the scores. The day before tour, we have one dress rehearsal. The conductor returns. Halfway through the second run-through, he passes out on the stand. :/ For most of the tour, this guy was bed-ridden and heavily medicated. For the first couple of shows, he would drift off tempo and miss his own cues. Definitely a trooper though, made it through the whole tour without dying. Lol

This happened 3 years ago at a grad party. I wasn't anywhere proficient to where I am now with guitar but my ego at the time thought I was good. My friend said his dad was going to play at his grad party and asked if I wanted to play too, I said no at first and then he told me that he thought I was good enough just to follow along. These were the times where I escaped my blues roots and all I wanted to play was Metallica. I left and came back to the party with my solid state fender, my Schecter Hellraiser with EMG's and a Boss metal zone and his dad only had an acoustic guitar. I had no clue that all my gear was garbage but I plugged in and waited, and he starts playing johnny cash and country and I know none of the songs besides Folsom prison blues but he played it with a capo in A. He starts playing his set and I have no clue what to play or how the songs go and halfway he just yells out solo and I butchered this horrible blues scale with out of tune bends and afterwards I just sat there embarrassed to all hell, turned down the volume on my guitar and just pretended to play. Needless to say, it was a dent in the ego but it made want to learn music theory and get better so I guess it was a lose-win situation in the long run.

Weird the clarinet player got caught smoking weed, usually its the drumline or lowbrass smoking it out of their mouthpieces

For years and years I've have always been terrified of breaking a string in front of a large group of people. Fast forward years later, got a gig in Detroit, standing in front of a LOT of people. First song of the set, 20 seconds in, I break my low E and my floyd rose sinks and my entire guitar goes out of tune. Also, I only have one guitar. I was so embarrassed. I also threw up 3 times before the show. I felt so stupid that night.

My first gig was back in February. It was a Beatles tribute band with a guy I met at comic con who loves Paul McCartney and some mutual friends. For a righty who had just learned to play bass left handed a few months prior, his playing was very impressive. Our Ringo had been playing for years, so he was incredible as well. I’d been playing guitar since I was about 15 so there was no trouble there, not to mention I already look and sound a quite bit like George. But our John Lennon, despite looking just like his respective Beatle, was just awful. His rhythm was off because he refused to play with a pick and he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. That was when our leader (Paul, since we called each other by our respective Beatle names) learned a valuable lesson, worry about the sound before the look. We did a 45 minute set that kept getting interrupted by drunken idiots requesting Stairway and Free Bird, but like I said, the main worry was how terrible our Lennon was. Luckily we’ve moved past this and are doing just fine.

I started a band with a former friend called defectinyou. After many lineup changes and genre changes, I decided to quit the band to start a thrash metal band called Pieces of Hate with another 3 friends. Nearly a year passes and Pieces of Hate is ready to do full sets and we get an offer from Defectinyou to open up for them at a CD release for them since everyone in both bands we're actually good friends and I helped them write a portion of the songs. We show up to the show, start our set up, and during our set up the guitarist from Defectinyou gathers all the fans and he starts booing us, during setup. Understandably we're both confused and pissed at this guy now. We end up doing our first two songs, the crowd is obviously not into it, but we're told to play 5 songs, 30 mins max. Then in the middle of our set, the vocalist of Defectinyou tells my vocalist to shut it down. I was so pissed I threw my guitar on the ground. I later found out a few years ago that the band was actually pissed at me for quitting and intentionally planned this as an act of petty revenge. Needless to say, the industry is very cut throat and I'm not longer on friendly terms with anyone in that band.

My first show was a couple weeks ago. In Norway were I live we have something called the Thanks Jimi Festival were we play Jimi Hendrix and other classic rock songs, and I got to have a two minute long guitar solo. Mind you I started this Christmas and I did much better than I expected I would. Even though I was shaking in my boots.

Had one show. We were told, we had 15 minutes, so we jammed our set to the brim with songs. Then half way through the set the guy putting it on gestures to me and he whispers to me "your getting 10 minutes not 15...". So we thought we had 8 minutes left. Now it's 3 minutes... So we played our last song at like half speed to spite them. What pissed me off is one of the bands that hated us for some reason then played a full 15 minute set then an impromptu encore followed by them literally begging the guy putting on the show, in front of the audience to do one more song, and started getting the audience to boo him when he originally said no... But what do you expect from a band that claimed we ripped them off because our hard rock song has a triplet on the ride... Literally a thing they got pissed at us for... A triplet...

I once joined a band whose guitar player had just quit. There wasn't time for a rehearsal as the band was booked in Lafayette, LA that weekend. I rode down with the band leader who played me tapes of the band with the old guitar player - who turned out to be Shawn Lane. I survived the gig, barely. Good stuff as usual, S.G. Be Cool.

Just wanted to say thank you for playing at a hospital, even if they didnt say anything Im sure it meant very much. When my son Ian passed away (08/13/19), a harp player played in the room, it meant everything to me.

My first time I played guitar live was playing Dream On at my school's talent show my junior year. I wasn't too bad at guitar, but the girl who asked me to play told me I would be playing the second guitar parts, that I didn't need to worry about it, and I could pretty much show up to the first rehearsal I went to (a few days before the show) without practicing. After I got there I found out there was no vocalist, the "lead" guitar player was actually a bass player they put on guitar because the other friend they wanted in the band thought bass would be quicker to learn, and the drummer didn't play kit, he was a percussionist from band who specialized in mallet instruments. I ended up getting put on the intro solo, a few little fill solos and then the super exposed arpeggio section, which I could flub my way through convincingly by the end of our last rehearsal. The experienced musicians here know, however, that when playing live you almost never rise to the occasion, but typically fall to your level of practice. This being my first show and only having practiced about 3 days (with school, marching band, and homework), I can assure you it did not go well. Also the tech kids forgot to mic the piano that was playing the vocal melody, so all you could really hear was my guitar, the drums, and then the "bass player" and other guitar player trying to keep up. Later that year there was a gig I was much more prepared for, but as I was counting off the first song the other guitar player looks up with terror in his eyes, so I stopped counting. Apparently between the rehearsal a half hour before and the show, the input jack of his guitar had broken and we had our friend run around asking if people had a guitar we could borrow. In the meantime we told jokes and did our best to entertain the people there, and eventually got a round of applause once we got a working guitar. Actually sort of a fun memory. At my first paid gig I was playing with a little band my older sister's friend put together to support his church's youth choir. We practiced twice and all the other members were music majors, so we sounded pretty damn good (very little thanks to me). We learned all the songs from the recordings the choir director sent us, and things were going well. That is, until halfway through the third or fourth song when there was a fun modulation we practiced in rehearsals. The children's choir did not rehearse this apparently, something the director happened to leave out. Transposing that whole section back to the original key on the fly was fun. On that same gig, my guitar was buzzing a lot so I borrowed the bass player's Dad's stratocaster that was shielded. My goodness that thing reeked of stale cigarettes, which was a fun first impression of me (a 17 year old at the time) for all of the church goers. Also my senior year at the annual talent show a year later I played Little Wing, but actually practiced and had a band together, and it went well! For anyone out there afraid of playing live; it gets easier! The more you're on stage the more comfortable you get just vibing like you do in rehearsals, instead of overanalyzing everything. Also, usually no one at the show is there to see you play poorly. The audience is on your side. If things don't go perfectly, keep going and maybe joke about it or find a way to make light of the situation. Every musician who has played live can tell you at least one story of things going poorly, but you'll never get better at it if you're too afraid to just do it!

My first really horrible experience was playing with a group of friends. One of them had brought someone i didn't know, and like I usually did, I bragged about being a guitar god. The new lad asked if he could burrow my guitar after I'd strummed G-D-C-F for an hour straight, and played a, note for note, cover of Joe Passes take on All the things you are. I wanted to strangle myself with a bass string at that moment

My second gig ever: My friend breaks an A string 2 minutes in. He restrings. We restart the song. I break an A string 2 minutes in LOL no joke. We couldn't stop again, I just had to tough it out. My guitar instantly went out of tune, and I was playing without an A string. The song we were playing was in A minor., hahhaaha. Terrible. I'll never forget the look on some of the faces in the audience. I don't recommend this experience to anyone.

During a shared night with another band, we opened, then they went on, they we did....etc. SO...we wound up bringing more people to the venue then they did, though they were the top bill. After our first set, which we rocked......everyone was buying me shots (tequila was my thing) and congratulating me/us on 'blowing them away'...and being so much better then the top bill. They played their set, then we had to go back on. Remember all the Tequila shots ? ;) We opened our 2nd set, with me on a stool....doing 12 string "Babe I'm going to leave you" in a solo arrangement. The plan was for the band and singer to come in on a 2nd verse sort of.... I played about 2 measures, completely blanked to the point I didn't even remember what song I was playing..... and promptly said to the crowd 'thanks for the shots, I'm fucking wasted'. Standing ovation....and we kicked right into our 2nd song. :) Rock and Roll !!!!

I was on a mission for my church and we would go to a retirement home, every Thursday at noon, and play songs for whomever got rolled in the rec room. One guitar and three pianos along with a very vocally challenged kid. Mostly country or 50s music is what we played. During the song Stand By Me an 80ish,maybe 90ish, lady pulled her dressing gown over her head and showed me how wrinkly a body can get. Stand By Me is not, nor will it ever be, on my playlist.

Good vid! Yes, I got a few stories. Been recording and playin' pro since '69. Polka, symphony, pop, metal, blues, big band, mostly jazz, etc. I play Saxes, flutes, Bassoon and bass. In '71 we booked a private gig on a Miss. paddle-wheeler. After we set up the drummer realized he forgot his sticks!! He convinced the Capt. to hold the boat, he could get back to the gig in 5 minutes. Well, it took 45 min. The crowd of 200 were on the mezzanine floor booing him as he walked up the gang plank! Played a big band gig on New Years Eve, '73. Koehler Hotel in Rochester, Mn. We all met at a wayside just out of town, parked our cars there, and took in 2 vans so we wouldn't have parking issues. Like many NYE gigs I played, it started to snow,....., like REAL bad! Gig went good. When we got back to our cars it was snowing so hard we could barely see. The lead Trumpet man went to start his car first. The engine flooded, then caught fire. We were all throwing snow on it to put it out. It took 6 hrs. to make the 1 hr. drive home. Played an Elks Club gig in the 80's. We were in the middle of a tune with a crowd on the dance floor. Fireman came walking through in full gear with a hose. We kept playin' and the crowd kept dancing. 10 min. later they walked out and the crowd cheered. THE KITCHEN WAS ON FIRE! But the show went on. I got lots more stories if anyone's interested.

My worst gig was when I played in a bar and the bassist’s amp blew up and the rhythm guitar player didn’t bring strings and his A string broke which means no power chords, the drummer broke the drumhead of one of his toms and I also cut my hand open on the bridge of my guitar and then just decided fuck it and played eruption then smashed the ride cymbal with my guitar and then we went home

Hi Sam (!) ! I lvery much like what you do on youtube, and I appreciate it higly. I've had som bad gis I won't bother you with, only stuff like forgetting the piano's ac/dc adapter and having to borrow batteries, and earlier on the same, borrowing a guitar with only 5 strings left. There is one: We were playing for about 30 people when there was an emergancy one of us had to take care of. The singer starts complaining INTO THE MIKE about it. My best experience was when a jazz bad I was in was playing, and after Fly Me To The Moon the singer said: "This audience is not into jazz! Play some funk! Nobody made a sound. She started singing. We followed and played for 40 minutes, and the croud loved it. We had only prepared our jazz set, so we had to improvise, and it sort of happened, because of the singer. She is just great. Unschooled, intuitive, beautiful.

1st gig, we had to play a metal show during a power outage.... I learned that playing grindcore acoustic with no outlets is missing something important.

There's a venue in philly notorious for double booking, but we didn't know about it. They are next to a School Of Rock, and when we showed up at 7 pm for 9 pm gig (doors at 8), the SoR show was still going. Normally when shows run long the bands just have their sets cut short, but the school of rock kids all have parents in attendance that paid a lot of money, and this gig was the payoff. So the show, as poorly organized as it was, was going to go on. Meanwhile, the venue informed us that their door person has gotten drunk and had to be driven home, and the promoter had decided not to leave New York that night. Our fans had already showed up and were patronizing the bar. We negotiated with the owner to wave ticket prices in light of the massive let down on their part. The first band didn't end up taking the stage until 11pm, on a Sunday night with an expected 9pm showtime. Amazingly, most of the fans and family stayed, we put a collection bucket at the front of the stage, and we ended up making more than we would have if it had worked out the way it was supposed to. Still, it was quite a fiasco, and though I'm not proud of it in hindsight, it wasn't the last time I played a gig there that was double booked. You live and and you learn... eventually.

The drummer for the band I was in managed to get us a festival slot, he assured us all that it was all taken care of and we hadn't played a show in months so we were mostly just stoked and didn't ask any questions. so as we hadn't performed in a while we go into a season of heavy practice before the fest. The day of the festival gets there, we pack up all of our gear in our tiny ass cars and drive 5 hours away and mostly sit around and watch the fest while we wait for our slot. About an hour and a half before our slot someone from the festival comes up to me and was like "hey are you in * insert band name here *?" After I say yeah he hits me with "well you guys didn't sell enough tickets, you can't play". I went on an immediate manhunt for our drummer who's only excuse was "well I figured once we were all the way out here with all our gear they'd let us play". They did not let us play.

ok, so about 25 years ago, the band and I were playing a high school PROM ( as DJ's ) there was a group of students that were all about headbanging and found out we were a heavy metal band and requested us to do a live performance of 1 song, to break up the endless string of pop/dance songs... so... we did, before the song was done, all the lights came on in the auditorium and the principal was front & center, arms crossed and he wasn't happy....luckily, we finished out the night with the standard dance tunes of the time ( 1990's ), still got paid, and didn't go to jail...….

You have some nice stories there! Definitely enjoyed that video and keep it going, I love your content!

I just came back from work lol love gigging stories. Thanks dude😄

Dude! You went to SJR? Me too! I was in John Einarson's Canadian Studies class in Grade 9, and participated in the rock show 3 years running (Summer of Love 1967-97, Oh What A Feeling*, and Woodstock '99, my graduating year - I got to play "I'm Going Home" by Ten Years After...let's just say the song stretched my abilities as a guitarist, but I think I did a passable interpretation**" And just fyi, I actually ALMOST got banned from the Woodstock rock show due, not to pot, but some illicit computer manipulations I did and for which I got suspended 1.5 days (and I had to paint the school's speed bumps yellow in detention...fun times). I heard about the marijuana exploits of the school band third-hand - SJR took that stuff WAY too seriously. You can be glad there were 18 others who shared the burden with you - in my grade 10 year, 3 people got caught smoking pot on the ski trip, and one of them was actually expelled (the other 2 were suspended and given mandatory counselling...like you were). A different world today, I think. *I broke my leg on the school ski trip that year so I wasn't able to perform in the concerts, much to Einarson's dismay...he moved Rock Show to the spring months to avoid similar incidents in the future. Also, I think I am indirectly responsible for the school deciding not to hold ski trips...and I may have inadvertantly let everyone know exactly who I am by this comment, but I don't care. **Here's a link to the original song as performed at Woodstock...no youtube in 1999! It's absolutely wild. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bW5M5xljdCI.html

was studying music performance at college, and had a night where the bands we all made together would perform as like a small concert.T he place itself was a bar with a large (ish) underground wine cellar that had been converted into the live music venue itself, so a pretty place. now, there was this one guy who played sax, but loved muse, so he essentially wrote a muse song, changed the lyrics, and spun it off as his own and played guitar instead; problem with this being that he couldn't sing, play guitar, or memorise his lyrics, and no one wanted to play with him and he was supposed to be on right before my group (which was the last group of the night), so out of kindness our drummer volunteered to go up with him and provide a beat. up to this point the other groups managed to fill up the cellar with about 80-90 people which to us was mental, and he came on and played, which then reduced the room population to.....3......me, his mum, and dad who after about a minute left, leaving me and his mum stood there (I didn't leave because I'd feel bad). within the space of almost under a minute, this guy had managed to disperse 80 people quicker than a french riot squad with only a guitar and his phone of lyrics, thus leaving me and my group to play to his mum in the hopes of getting people back inside for the very last band.....also our bass player got wasted and put on a tin foil hat because he thought it would be funny, I just wanted to die there and then

30 years gigging? You do not look like you've been gigging for 30 years man! Are you a vampire?

The last one must have been really fun ! Improvising an entire song is already great (as a player), so I can’t imagine how much fun it was to improvise a whole show ! :)

My first show was a couple of years ago in my school. Me and the band were ment to play American idiot but the technician forgot to turn on the plug sockets. We played the first bar acoustic and everyone laughed. Now we play all the time and the technician let's us set up 👍

I think it was 1960 ,before I started learning guitar,and my friend Warren had signed up to lip sync a song. This was junior high. He drafted me at the last second and we sang ,or synced Peggy Sue. There I was,didn't know the first thing about playing so I improvised! A star was born ! Hahaha ! I finally forgave Warren.

Yeah, the first time we played in high school at an assembly. The other guitarist was using his friend's lefty, flipped around, and the cord came out the top. He went to throw the cord over his shoulder, and it unplugged and whipped around and broke through one of the drums. We stopped playing and the gym teacher had to seperate us when the arguing got heated. We didn't play together again.

"Everyone was at their cabin for the summer" I really envy the Canadian lifestyle

the annotation at 1:38 was tasteful and important. you're really good at this youtube thing

So hilarious! Thank you for sharing these

Worst ones for me: Playing Perth, Western Australia. To save money we took earlier flights, so had a lot of time to kill. Being a metal band, we naturally filled the time with drinking. Once we'd all had a skinful, we decided it would be fun to have some mock wrestling matches. Yours truly mis-stepped, fell, and smashed my face on the edge of the coffee table. Had to go on stage 3 hours later with a swollen face and a black eye. Playing New York City. Rented guitars, told the place we needed guitars that could handle B-Standard tuning. They gave us a Strat and a Tele. After re-stringing they were workable (but sounded awful) and on top of that both our guitarists came down with a terrible stomach virus and it was all they could do not to vomit or shit themselves on stage.

I played several churches when I was homeless in the band, I played for homeless people at The Urban Goatwalker, it was great except I had to borrow a guitar because of the pawned guitars I mentioned before, and someone had it tuned really high, they all loved me and wanted an encore. I played a Twice told cafe' before it got shut down for people doing drugs there, and i played at the mall at willis music before it went out of business. I've done impromtu concerts in the park and at guitar center that were fun

I once played a "show" to the headlining band. They didn't promote at all, and the very limited promoting we did around our high school had no affect. We played a Ramones cover, and when they were up, they played another Ramones cover just to, what I could only assume at the time, either show us up or rub it in our face how bad we were. During one of their songs, I tried moshing with the members of my band, for my guitarist/vocalist to hit me in the face. We broke up shortly after that to get back together a few years later. We played one show when we got back together. We were playing a benefit show at someone's shop at their home to try to raise money to restore an old venue. All of the other bands and fans there were metalcore bands and fans, with the exception of like one indie band, we were a Tom Petty-esque rock band. I wasn't quite expecting that turnout, since said venue had hosted a huge variety of different bands of different genres. Pretty much everyone in the crowd went outside during our set. Again, the bassist and I left that band to start a new project that didn't last.

I played a whole gig one time with my fly down............ lol

Jesus do I have some horror stories. Ugh. Between a gig where half of the already small bar being closed off because the former guitarist of the band Ra was playing with his band and wanted "privacy", and that resulting in having 5 minutes to load in all our gear from outside.. in the winter.., and another show where we were threatened by "actual vampires", no really, these people believe they're vampires... you might think it'd be hard to pick just one. NOPE. My band set up an all day local festival at a local rundown kinda spot. The proprietor was never at these shows, instead this skeeze bucket that was renting the attic was comped rent by the guy for "running" shows. Load in was for 1pm, and us being in charge of the whole thing, we were to be there at 11. We get there, place is wide open, no ones there. Now, at the time, we didn't know this dude was living upstairs. Around 1230, after numerous frantic phone calls wondering what the hell is going on, this total trash of a human saunters down the stairs, and with all the grace of Jack Sparrow's drunkest, stretches and says "Ahhh, man. What a great night, I'm never fucking anyone over 16 again." Yes, you read that right. This man was like.. 30. Cue the casual follow-up, "You guys want some coke?" .....fuck my life. The day proceeded pretty much as to be expected when run by people with little experience, bands showing up late or dropping last minute, bands showing up that didn't tell anyone about the show, sets being moved around at the drop of a hat. At one point I drew the short straw and had to go up to this dudes room to get him for some reason. I head up there, and there he is, with a couple girls, very clearly in their teens, sort of out of it, coke on a mirror, and again, he's all very casual about it, offers me coke. I mentally pondered that maybe being kind of frumpy was a good thing and went back downstairs. Somehow or another our set got pushed back to last, and since this was in a residential area with a noise ordinance, we're on borrowed time. However, despite being told how long we had, and confirming that with the actual owner of the place, this piss stain of a human cuts all the power to the stage in the middle of our first song. Needless to say, we're furious. He gets all apologetic and says that the owner called and chewed him out for letting the show go so late. We clear the building and whatnot, and he's rushing everyone, being a real dick about the whole thing. Finally, the rest of the bands left, and he goes "Okay I gotta be real with you, someone called the cops." Not for anything _he_ did, no sir. No, apparently none of this was above board in the first place, and we'd been lied to by multiple parties. The thing is though, that wasn't true either. Not only did the cops never show up, but we ended up finding out from the owner quite some time later, after scuzboy had been arrested for an unrelated sexual assault, the real reason he kicked us out is because he wanted to go to bed... People are fuckin weird, man.

i actually can’t see you smoking weed

fuck this shit...why did i not find this amazing channel earlier, i like it how you renew my soul everytime i listen to your advices, for me who's trying to learn all this music theory by myself it's really helping special when I'm having information overload,being confused or simply about to give up, how you show the right path is the real deal, keep it up sensei

First big gig I stepped on my cable and fell

With 11 years I failed my first onstage experience. I was supposed to play silent night for the school's Christmas party, but my guitar was totally out of tune and it took me to much time to get my fingers in the right positions for the chords. So my 11 year old me ended up playing a christmassong slower then normal, on a clean electric guitar which was out of tune, in front of about 700 people. Since then I never played again in the school even though I improved a lot. 😅

I played an open mic with a live mic. And by "live" I mean electrified. Somehow, the drum kit was also electrified, at least the cymbal stand was. Meanwhile, the sound guy had the guitar and vocals turned all the way down in the monitor, but turned all the way up in the house. I couldn't hear myself, shocked myself on the mic, screamed, jumped back, got shocked on the drum set, back and forth like ping pong. Between every song I'd tell the sound guy and he'd say "well, stop eating the mic." We finished the set, though.

Interesting, maybe I should relate some personal gig tales, including beer bottles, high heel shoes whizzing past my ear, guns & M80s on the dance floor, murder, knives, punks with chains, "mystic disappearing musicians", police raids(w/ dogs), $500 contract on our lead singer, 6-7 hour gigs 4 nights a week for 18 months, catching my face on fire, & that's just the beginning!:)

Ooo boy, do I have some stories. Like the one time the drummer got so drunk before a show he played every song slower and slower for the whole 10-song set. He ended up essentially falling asleep on stage. Or the time when it turned out that the lead vocalist couldn't attend an already announced show about 2 weeks in advance. And the replacement vocalist hired couldn't learn the songs or hit a single note, so we ended up playing instrumental for most of the set. Or the time when we had full house at a bar but everyone was just sitting down and eating for the entirety of two 1-hour sets. At a rock concert. Or the time when the lead singer and bass player got too high during a show and started randomly skipping lines or even entire verses. One of the songs was literally half a verse, a chorus and done. This one's actually pretty hilarious. P.S. You should also do some awkward backstage / road trip stories, that's where the most weird crap tends to happen.

You gave me flashbacks of my life. A quick funny one.I played a gig where some random guy took over my drum kit in the middle of a performance. Just after I had stepped away to adjust my equipment. When I asked him what he was doing, he just ingnored me and kept playing. Mind you my bandmates were baffled when the quality of musicianship shifted quickly and were confused, looking behind them to see a huge drunk dude just pummelling away. I dont even remember how I got him to leave. He was twice my size. We all laughed about later. Im sure when he sobered up he felt kind of embarrassed. Besides everyone had a blast that night. Except our bass player getting hit in the head with a skateboard an hour before we went on stage.

Once I did a U2 cover show but every guitar was tuned to drop D and the singer forgot a verse, and then afterwards we found out that we were 30 minutes past our time slot. Luckily I went up to Canada the next morning and got those sweet 2/$1 deals on donuts from Tim Hortons. 🍩🍁

My biggest Gig Horror Story was when my band got to play at the house of a famus Ghost Hunter that had a tv show and today he is making a Netflix series about his haunted house. I was already out of the band because the Drummer had a serious drinking problem and the singers were shit!, but they came to my house and asked me to play once again because this was important. Anyway, the bass player cancelled at the very last moment, the drummer got so mad he started drinking... like... a lot!. We got a replacement for the bass player, but the keyboard player refused to change the playlist for him, the bass player warned us that it's been a long time since he last played those songs, but the keyboard player (who, by the way, was the director of the band) insisted!. So we jumped on the stage, a cover band playing music from Chicago, Donna Summer and Toto with a bass player totally out of shape, a drunk drummer and a trio of very nervous shitty singers. The whole thing was streamed live through Facebook and National TV, but only through their Facebook page, so I hope not much people watched that shit show.

The first gig my longest running band played was pretty brutal. We wanted to play for a crowd so bad we hopped on board this brutal talent show contest called supernova. Im sure some people remember those scam artists. Anyway, they usually had like 20 bands on the bill and the shows went from around 2 pm to like 8 pm. All ages so no booze or anything. So we got our first gig through them at the graffiti gallery in Winnipeg. Its basically an art gallery for urban/graffiti art. The PA was tiny, my drums were not mic'd, none of the amps were mic'd, and there were no monitors. Also it was a house kit so not even my own drums. First song i quickly realized i couldnt hear a single thing anyone was playing or singing, so i played the entire show to music in my head. The crowd was a bunch of 16 year old kids with their parents. After our 20 min set we couldnt wait to get home and drink the memories of that gig away.

Being a winnipeg musician myself, everything you've said here. Is the exact reason I'm moving to Montreal. 👍 Gotta love the winnipeg music scene and our constantly dying venues. I kept hoping we'd bounce back. Maybe I'm still holding onto that hope, since I'm still here. But... after playing the Garrick Hotel a few times opening for touring bands, I don't know man. I just don't know.

Really enjoy your videos because you really put a certain type of real-ness that makes them quite interesting! I think what got me turned off to playing in restaurants was one day I had my son at a play park he was quite young! I was playing Classical Gas there and met a man ,he mentioned he owned a restaurant in Sausalito, Ca. He liked what i was doing and invited me to play there for tips! I know i played quite good but i ended up getting only a dollar! From then on I lost interest in playing when nobody cares if you’re there or not. But I understand there are a lot of guitar solo players that have a thick skin for that type of thing!

Hahaha that unplugged performance with guitar not fully plugged in... Hahahah cheers that was really good :)

If those are your worst gigs, you did great! The band I was in experienced belligerent drunk hecklers, fights with KKK members, playing in makeshift brothels, having to play for 5 hours because the other 3 bands didn't show (we were the opening band with about 10 songs down), some guy brought a machine gun to a multi band festival and accidentally pulled the trigger while we were playing and of course the dummy booking person that hired us to play for a bunch of middle school kids who had no idea who we were and hated us. All this and the usual equipment that was either missing or DOA, blown house speakers, stolen guitars, etc.....

I once was playing bass for a jam, completely jet lagged from a day of travelling. I was sitting down, playing some rather dull blues, when I fell asleep... woke up a few seconds later to a drum stick hitting me in the back of the head lol

GASP!! You threw that guy's shoes onto the roof of the building?!? My GOD, you Canadians are a mean, aggressive lot!! 😂😎🤘🏼

Our bands album release party had 20 people in attendance, including one way to drunk guy that tried to fight some out of towners Then at the show we just played, my guitar cut out in the middle of a song, and I couldn't find why, so after a good 15-20 seconds of the band covering my ass while I try to figure out what's wrong, I ended up just yanking my main patch out of my pedal board and just straight amped it for the rest of the song (a cover of Joe Walsh's rocky mountain way, so obviously the talk box solo was a no go) Then halfway through the next song (an original) I realized that the patch that was running from my pedal board to my amp was actually slightly unplugged from my pedal... for the last song I plugged everything back in and it worked as it was supposed to

You are such a good human being ❤️

As a Musician myself.. I've only had a few bad experiences.. the one that sticks is with my former band, we went to go play at a Open mic (which was our only spots to petform at).. we brought along a friend of ours to do some video recordings of us playing, we were very pumped up & wanted video clips of us performing, I was a guitarist that used lots of pedals & effects to our songs (which sounded great).. so I had all my pedals & was using a Digitech machine pedal that had all my effects in it, unfortunately I forgot the damn AC plug in cord!! So we went on & played, I had to just plug my guitar straight to a Peavy amp they had on stage for anyone to use & i was not a happy camper!! The video was about 20 mins long.. I wasn't happy, trying to play along with my bandmates.. thank god I got a good ear & could easily play along to whatever they were, so yeah.. it happens!! Lol

Damn our old sjr rock show has changed. This was my first year and I LOVED it

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Didn't happen to me, but at a music festival in Boston I saw this good band called Royal Blood. Just two guys, a bassist/singer, Mike, and a drummer. Halfway through the set, Mike suddenly goes off stage and the drummer goes into a really long drum solo. Mike comes back and finishes the set -- I found out later that he had broken his foot onstage. But he came back and completed the set with a broken foot, a true professional.

Nice to see the Samurai smile at once! 👍🏻

I've played the Pyramid lots back in the day! Great place. Big stage. If we do a prairie tour I'll definitely try and book there.... seeing how the Zoo is gone from what I hear. We usually run a couple covers through our set to fill time, so one night we are doing our thing and we decide to bust out Want you bad by Offspring......aaand I hit the wrong power chord....twice......in the same spot lol. I've been playing that song since it came out. Haha. Oh well. Go Jets go!

1:42 right there with you.... got popped at a b-ball game , lost the lead in 'bye bye birdie' senior musical and was banned from on campus events for 10 YEARS!!!

My worst one was for a rodeo in our drummer's home town. We, a punk rock band, were going to play during the break of the country band playing for the dance at the end of the rodeo night. The drummer went to high school with all these guys and had played in bands with them in the past, and he said it would be fine. We weren't sure. So we show up (the gig was four hours away and unpaid, but we did it for him) and it's just as we feared - cowboys everywhere, the alcohol was flowing, and the band was about as classic country as you can get. So I tell everyone - "Make sure you've got 'Sweet Home Alabama' in your back pocket." It was the only pseudo-country song that we knew. The band onstage steps up to the microphone and says, "Hey, y'all, we're gonna take a break, but make sure you stick around for our hometown boy's band during the break! But we've got one more for ya..." And they launch into Sweet Home Alabama. We instantly start replanning - we were originally told we could have as long as we wanted and were planning (on the drummer's insistence) to do an abridged 30 minute set. I threw that out the window and declared that we were only going to play three songs. I didn't honestly know if we'd get that far. The drummer, seeing the reality of the moment, agreed. The band ends the Skynyrd tune, and we start to climb up on stage. Since the gig was far away, we were just going to use their amps and drums. So I set down my pedalboard, pull out my Les Paul, and plug into the lead guitar amp. It's set up for chicken pickin' Telecaster tone. Bright as can be. My own amp is fairly dark, so all of my pedals are run fairly bright. Painful. Bass amp was set for country bass, so it was a lot softer than we usually run it. We don't want to mess up their amp settings, though, so we muscle through. We launch into our first tune - punk rock, remember - and we quickly get into the groove and the nerves start to melt away. We might actually pull this off! Then I look into the crowd and see the cowboys starting to cross their arms. The song ends, and the biggest dude says, "Do you know anything country?" We panic. Thankfully, we were rescued by a girl right up front who called out, "Do you know 'I Want You To Want Me'?" We had a quick band huddle and played probably the sloppiest version of "I Want You To Want Me" anyone has ever heard. When it ended, I shouted a quick, "Thank you very much!" and got the heck off of that stage. To make things worse, we were supposed to crash with the drummer's family that night, but they wanted to stick around until the end of the dance, so we just took off and drove the whole four hours home. I was so tired that my girlfriend had to drive - I learned later that she was so tired she was worried she'd kill us all, but she was afraid to say no when I asked if she was a good night driver.

I love the honesty 😂

I like how he’s actually honest with what he did

Its always important to remind new musicians that no matter how much you think you’ve fucked up your shows, everyone’s been there, and its pretty normal. The huge factor that separates those who make it and those who don’t is determination. If you think anything could potentially knock you down to the point where you won’t get up, you don’t have enough determination.

Sorry to hear that happened to you at the pyramid, being a local winnipegger I love seeing the acts that come into that place.

My mother sent my younger brother to a legit drug rehab after catching him smoking. Not weed. Just cigarettes. You just reminded me of that. I can’t even imagine the sort of lies she told them in order to accept a tobacco addict

I’m still learning, I haven’t played for anyone yet, but let me give you a hot and fresh indoor track horror story: So where I live we have 1/4 of an inch of frozen snow on ALL THE RUNNING I did today. Early in my run I slip on ice, proceed to slide on all fours going right into a steep hill. The small embankment at the bottom knocks my arms out, sending me face first into really sharp snow. I didn’t think much of it, getting up, shaking it off and continuing my run. About 30 minutes later, I slip and fall AGAIN. This time I almost cracked my head open on the side of a building. Realizing if I kept running I would’ve ended up in the E.R., I stopped my run short. After returning to the gym one of the girls on the team who is injured at the moment addressed me, asking about what happened to my face. Not knowing the sharp snow had given loads of scratches, I checked a mirror and I wasn’t lookin so good. The ice from earlier had partially frozen on my face along with plenty of sweat, which began unfreezing, hurting like a female dog. Yay indoor track but I run outside for distance!

Ohhh my gosh 😬 thanks for sharing man

Once the lead guitarist got knocked out by the bass player’s headstock when they were jumping around on stage. Guy got a concussion.

My first gig was also through my highschool. We were decent, and could play the songs through no problem. The issue was when the drums flaked out 2 days before the show. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but coming from a small town, only 3 other guys at the school claimed to play the drums. Two of which were already in bands playing the same show. I call up the third and he said he could do it easily. No problem. The rest of us had rehearsed enough that he should be fine. I couldn't be more wrong. About 6 hours before the gig, I get a text saying he hasn't learned the songs yet. I tell him to learn them well enough and went on my way. The show starts and he shows up claiming he knows them. Lo and behold, he did not. We get on stage and he has his earbuds in trying to learn them AS WE TAKE THE STAGE. The bassist and I did well. But everything else was a train wreck. He was out of time, missed whole verses and later confessed that he really didn't know how to play drums. We would've been better off as a strong duo. but hey, no one ever said you'd start off playing great.

Thanks for sharing...lol. Can't escape real life experience.

My first gig was an anti bullying play. Then a book report then a talent show

1:36 I don’t know why but you laughing at that situation is hilarious.

Two of my bandmates got into a fist fight on stage after a gig while we were packing up our gear. One had to go to the hospital. The other had his mandolin thrown twenty feet off the back porch onto the parking lot below.

My first show at highschool was a disaster. I still dream about it sometimes if I don't have the songs ready before the weekly practice day. 😱

the resolution with the shoe guy is so satisfying

Genuine and honest. Thanks for sharing your experiences. Happy Victoria Day. Sorry about your Jets.

I went on a musical trip when I was in the school musical, and funnily enough, also got caught smoking pot and got suspended, they also tried to push a very intense rehabilition service on me, they couldn't kick me out of the musical though because I was the lead, lmao. Gotta love that plot armour.

Super enlightening! My only gig horror story is that I can't find one...I can't even find a local band to play with :P. I don't have much of a music network :/

The good ol pyramid. You ever play at the legendary Zoo! Nice seeing another pegger on here! BTW, you remind me of my cousin.

I remember seeing you in Brisbane! Damnnn