Tour Talk

Yeah, we like to joke around and make faces and try to get the others to laugh while playing, as long as it doesn't affect the sound, but I had a bass player who used to get a little carried away about messing with us. One night we were playing a gig and I was in the middle of a guitar solo, eyes closed, really getting into it and all of a sudden, my sound went from overdrive to clean. I looked up and my bass player was laughing as he had stepped on my pedals and changed them. I told him not to be doing that because it messed up our sound. Later, he did it again while I was in the midst of a solo. I said, "Man, that's not cool. Don't be screwing up the sound." Well, later I was doing another solo and pretended to have my eyes shut while actually watching him out of the corner of my eye. As he stepped over to step on my pedal again, I reached out, grabbed one of his tuning keys and detuned his bass. He never messed with my pedals again.

LOL that's one of the funniest things i've ever heard. i'm at work reading this and the guy at the computer behind me is giving me an odd look for laughing so hard

Oh man, your band is like little kids haha, but tell you what.. it keeps things fun.

In 1996 we open for George Thorogood and The Destroyers in a 8000 seat venue on New Years Eve, this was the 2nd time we had open for George. We did our sound check around 2 pm and headed back to our hotel to relax, have supper and get ready for the show.

Around 5pm it starts to rain but it's freezing rain and by the time we are ready to leave the hotel there's a inch on ice covering everything ... there were people skating down the main streets in town. So we jump in our van and drive the mile or so to the venue and it takes us almost 1 1/2 hour to drive the mile ... it was hell try to keep the vehicle on the road even at 1 MPH.

This show is sold out ... but when we get inside there isn't a soul in the place. George and his band are hanging out in the dressing room, they arrived in their tour bus before the ice strom and were parked at the venue, so we join them and start bullshitting with them and wondering what to do about the situation with the promoter.

By 10 pm there was maybe 50 people that were in the building, the show was to start by 8 pm, so needless to say the night was going to be a bust.

At that time I was playing in a 8 pc R&B band with a 3 peice horn section and a chick BU singer. Well after going around and around on what to do, we were pretty much struck there for the night. George sez "Well ... lets jam" meaning both bands at the same time playing some of his songs and doing some of ours and lots of covers, 2 drum kits, 4 guitarists swapping leads, bass players traded off between bass and guitars, 3 pc horn section, Hammond B3 and a chick BU singer ... wow and all through a great sound system.

There was lots of drinking and some 420 going on and we had a great time playing for our own entertainment and the 50 people that showed up. George loved the horn section ....

We had a great time but the promoter lost his shirt.

Sorry, Prevost, but that doesn't sound like a "bad gig" to me, unless YOU were the promoter! (Hell, you said it was sold out, so it prolly wasn't even that bad for him!)

This sounds like one helluva lotta fun, & I'm sorry I missed it.

Sounds like it was one of those unforgettable moments that was so frikken cool, & makes up for the really bad ones.

Nope - no sympathy here for this one!

LOL

Well.....had lots of nightmares playing gigs where you are coming home at 4 am in a crappy band van with holes in the floor, loaded to the hilt with gear..in a snowstorm so bad you can't see 2 feet in front of you and it takes 4 hours to get home or the van breaks down on the way to the show and it's 2 hours past when you were supposed to have gone on and the sound man and the gear hasn't shown up yet.

Had some gigs where we blew the lights out of the place and played in the dark with candles.... had a few shows where the owner stiffed us....but we got our money's worth out of the place ...someone would have to die or crap their pants on stage I guess to make it really bad, flying beer bottles are always bad, but luckily the old Shure Microphone makes the block.

Once had a keyboard die on me on stage years ago...now I always have 2 just in case if I'm playing keys.

Greece was our worst gig. Actually, probably not THE worst... but one of...

No pay (nobody came... just two people, who were also a band). No time for proper promotion...
And I felt sick. However, that being said we have had worse gigs. Like the time in Berlin where we had (actually) a wonderful gig, but I had 2000 euros stolen from me right afterwards...

OH, and in France. Marseilles. The shits just kind of walked away from the stage halfway through, because the bar was on the other side of the long room, so we played to three people... I quit. Right there. Professionalism or not, I didn't care... and it felt good.

Worst gig is a gig where there is no audience.
Had it happen once. Pretty dismal evening.
Club paid us before firing us, which was nice of them.
Oh the fun of getting started!

Worst gig ever would have to have been in Paris. We got to the club, and they were just finishing up painting it from floor to ceiling (including the floors AND ceilings) in an oil base paint. The place was so hot and humid, and the stench so bad, we all felt quite terrible. To make matters worse, the "dressing room" was a heavy velvet drape, sectioning off a pie-shaped area, and a red Parcan light above it to light the area. The heat and humidity got SO bad back there, that everyone's guitars and basses went MASSIVELY out of tune. As the first of the touring bands, we got to find out HOW much out of tune they went...not to mention, as the cooler (somewhat) air got to our strings and necks, they all went sharp on us...first 2 songs were a complete NIGHTMARE!!! Atleast the other bands got warned...take your axes out NOW and let them acclimatize.

Cheers!

This wasn't the worst gig ever, at least for me... the guitar player might beg to differ. Getting electrocuted by your equipment wouldn't make for good night.

We were playing a show at a now closed dive bar in Oakland Cali.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSVUnwcZ3k8

Our manager booked us in 2 clubs on the same night Milw and Madison, and you know if you cancel a show you're done... so we told him to book us at the same club for another night as a different band, we thought he'd use one of the names we had talked about earlier that month. HE Forgot, and when pressured all he could come up with for a new name was "cum's in Chunks" WTF---we aint that old.. so we showed up but we couldn't figure out what every one was laughing about. Until we saw the Promo Poster, What a Weasel Fetus.We Fired him....@18%