I have many, and I thought it might be cathartic to share some of them. And hopefully funny to others.

So here's one.
Halfway through a tour, not even on the last night, the lighting guys decided to have a laugh with the support band.
Backstage, up the steps to the stage, and at various places on the stage, they put pieces of upturned gaffa tape...
So after a few tracks, band members were chocked up a few inches from the floor with all the pieces of tape! Their confusion was priceless, as they were looking over at me on monitors like "wtf?". Nothing to do with me. And obviously they just had to play on. My boss and I were in stitches over talkback, and the lighting guys were crying on the floor!
You can bet the support band were real nice to the lighting guys after that! lol.

I have some embarrassing stories which involve me performing, and I'm just getting up the courage to share them!
Please feel free to share such stories here. Let's have a laugh in this place.

 

I was doing sound for a singer/songwriter at a venue in Greenwich Village when in the middle of a song her left boob fell out of her shirt when her acoustic guitar pulled down on that side of her shirt. Nobody in the audience said a word. I came up to the stage before she finished the song, and when it ended I stood in front of her blocking the audience view and gave her a moment to put herself back in. She was totally freaked out and couldn't finish the set and just got up and walked away and into the night minus her guitar which she left there right on the floor. She still had about 20 minutes left so I introduced myself to the folks on front of me and played 4 or 5 songs with her Yamaha guitar. Gosh, it was just a tit, and everybody loves ( . ) ( . ).

 

Mutha of all tech storys for you , doing bass tech duties for mega famous band one night , sound checking in front of 10.000 ish fans got a wicked sound and noticed other crew runnin about stressed changing canons etc front of house guys givin it large freaking out coz there is no bass coming through the PA , audience getting more an more impatient , im stood there sayin fuck all wrong here got a great sound , finally front of house yells full volume over the PA " is that fuckin thing even switched on mate" OH SHIT i hadnt switched the fucker on the wicked sound i was getting was my D.I. through the monitor rig hahaha , 10.000 of this dudes fans shouting "YOU WANKER" over and over in unison

 

I was turning sheets for a pianist once. I tried to follow along but at one point I got lost. I missed the cue and the pianist had to turn the page himself, he scoffed and looked at me angrily. After the concert he continued to look at me angrily. I've felt like a loser ever since. The end.

 

Omg @RiffMaster you've just reminded me of even more stories!

But here's my next one.
Private gig (thankfully), and I'm playing keys this time. Guitarist had just got a new addition to his arsenal, a Strat, and he'd been tinkering with it before we went on.
Some time through the set, I was hearing some real strangeness from the guitarist, like he was all out of tune and sounded like "weeooow weeooow", like a dodgy trem arm or something.
He's looking well confused, as he's wondering why he's suddenly playing really shit.
I look down on the stage, and I see one of those springs that should be in the back of his guitar! He hadn't put the plastic plate back on because he was in a hurry, and I think his belt buckle had pulled out the spring!
Awesome.

 

OH! And at the same private gig...
There was a lovely Downs girl in the audience, who outdid everyone else by dancing from start to finish.
Later on, in between tracks, she was shouting "Take me home! Take me home!".
I could see our usually cocky vocalist trying his hardest to not interact with her, but eventually he said on mic "You want to go home now, do you?"
To which she shouted "No! Take Me Home! Phil Collins!"
Everybody, band and audience, burst out laughing.
Shame the only cover we had was the Frankie Miller version of Jealous Guy.

 

@ Smoove Grooves lol its amazing how much strength you've got when your stressed and shit ya pants scared , you can annihilate a piece of indestructible equipment in seconds hahaha

 

Many, many years ago, my best mate and guitarist in my band used to work with a guy who was in a heavy metal band, he was always banging on about how good they were and how they'd make it big one day. He was a bit surprised when we asked if we could support them, we were playing sort of dreamy indie at the time, but agreed, probably thinking we'd get laughed off the stage.

My mate got a hold of their demo tape and we pretty quickly leant all their songs, come the night we went on and proceeded to work our way down their setlist. I think we lasted about three songs before they realised what was happening and kicked us off the stage.

 

What good stories, to tell only of course lol
I think there's a similar thread around here.
I've never been nowhere close to play in a gig but I'll also share my beginner embarrassing stories

 

Last edited: Mar 9, 2020

Private gig for Football team, at their grounds, in a huge reverberant bar/function room...with a 'stage' the size of a postage stamp.
I'd managed to get my best friend and his girlfriend in.
My younger days, and this band were rock/pop so my keys were a mix of Van Halen synths, some piano and organ. And we all had hair like Bon Jovi or Europe!
Actually, that's embarrassing enough, maybe I should stop.
Nah, "Ima let me finish".
For years I was asked to stand to play, legs apart, all dynamic looking (rawk!), but as the years went by, and there was more pedal work involved, I chose to be seated.
Sooo, I turn up late (we had our own 2k pa, so my keys and vocal channels are set up already), and upon seeing the size of the stage I realise my gig stool won't fit on this stupid little riser of a stage. Thanks for thinking of me, guys.
But wait! There's a practice combo in the van; I'll use that to sit on. Right?
So, halfway through a number, eyes closed, 'feeling it', (no doubt assured I look sooo cool), I suddenly feel a strange inertia. As I open my eyes, everything is at an angle...because me and the combo are falling off the side of the stage! That's how tight it was.
Everything slowed down like bullet-time, as I very nearly grabbed onto my rig but quickly decided it would probably drag most of us and the stagebox offstage. All I remember is hearing a terrible upwards piano glissando as I let myself flip off the 'stage', probably only 2 foot high, and barely landed on my feet.
I got back so quickly that the front man didn't know why I'd dischordantly (is that a word?) gliss'ed every key I had, and he's shooting me a BAD look.
But the funniest thing really was as I peered into the audience I could see my friend and his gf at their table absolutely pissing themselves with laughter. So i guess it was worth it.
Very humbling.
Phew. Thanks. I feel better sharing that.

 

Yep stage crash stories (getting your wings) are always the funniest , done em all ,fallen up em ,off em ,on em ,even fell through one once when i deliberately left a gap between risers to stash me beer , i mean who does that right ? yep knob head and still ended up on me arse soaking wet with yet another set of wings and no beer lol

 

More embarrassing than funny....Again doing sound, for the first time for best friends (World Music awards outfit) who are playing at this beautiful big church up in San Francisco (after the soundcheck that afternoon I waited till everyone had left, figured out how to power up the organ and proceeded to push some deep, deep air with those big old pipes which also was WAY loud...one of the coolest experiences of my aural life). I had to run an electricity line from the front of the room to the back of the church where I set up the board, and since what I had wasn't long enough had to go to an electrical supply house and buy a wee bit of an extension which I coupled under a rug that the band was playing on. I gaff taped the line all the way from front to back so nobody would trip or move it around, but what I didn't do was to tape the connection of the extension. Of course somebody in the front row got up to take a leak about 15 minutes into an hour and a half set and dislodged it as they walked over it. The whole place got real quiet real quick but not nearly as quickly as my heart rate or the pace of the sweat pouring out of my body like a freaking hard summer rain. I looked at the dead board, nothing I had done...the lights if the house were still on, so, with the entire house of about 500 eyes on me ran along the electrical path and pulled up the rug and low and behold! I had the tape on my wrist, bit off a good foot of the grey stuff and wrapped it around the connection. My friends weren't pissed looking but rather looked like they were going to laugh (not the kora player though, he seemed to want to bonk me one). I gave a big, "Sorry" to the audience and bowed to the band in contrition. The show went on.

 

Setting up at The Marquee in London for biggish early '70's Celt-Rock band. Very small stage, so boss was supplying monitor mixes from foh aux's. All I had to do was lay multi-core and set up stage mics and monitors. Just as well as it turns out.
The venue's smoke machine (love the smell of dry-ice!) was on stand-by or something, and would puff out a little bit, every few minutes.
Was feeling a bit strange, and thought I could feel brain cells popping or something.
"Who wants to go out and get some pizza and coffee for us all?"
"ME!" (Gotta get out; feel strange.)
I go outside and everything's large and weird and I nearly get runover. Wtf?
I get back and tell the guys I feel weird, and they're all laughing at me!
Turns out the night before there had been 'a Rave'. Remember them, from the late '80's/early '90's?
There was Amyl-Nitrate in the smoke-machine! LOL.

Bonus Fact:
After setting up, went out again to chill out and check out Virgin Megastore, which was more packed than usual.
Trying to avoid crowds, I step through a small gap between 'walls', or temporary fittings. Which I thought was a bit strange in itself.
Suddenly I'm on a sort of stage and bump right into Lenny Kravitz just about to do a signing. "Oh, Hi. Sorry!" We both laughed.
For some reason, just like Prince, I remember how he smelled. As a synaesthetic person, I can tell you he smelt Purple/Orange, and 7 or maybe 9! Haha. Kind of joking here. But not.
Later on, back at the gig, I'm jumping off the stage after doing whatever, and who should I see? Lenny Kravitz.
We both point at each other like "Whu..?" and laugh.
Life just can't be scripted. lol.

 

@Smoove Grooves

Nice thread - and thanks for sharing these stories people.

 

I was a young punk backstage at that HUGE summer of '81 Simon and Garfunkel concert at Sheep Meadow in Central Park and got there because a friend's dad was a huge DJ for a rock radio station in NYC. The sea of 500,000 people was insane, the show epic. When the concert was over I grabbed a Budweiser from a table that was set up for the crew and figured since I was just standing about to wrap cable to help out. Well, the stage manager huffed over to me, knocked the beer out of my hand and told me to "Get the fuck off My stage. The beer is for the crew and your fucking up the cable by rapping it around your fucking arm".

Oh.

 

Another PA related one.

1. Artist won't walk 50 yards from tour bus to venue get-in. Too special for that.
2. Artist makes trumpet player cry in soundcheck, due to his nasty, overbearing vibe.
3. Artist enters stage for performance, sits down at piano and promptly rips the seat of his trousers. Crew and audience laugh. Almost instant karma. Artist storms off stage!

So yeah. Fuck you, Van Morrison!

 

This one will be short...

I got so drunk at a gig once that I had to read the lyrics from my notebook while singing the songs, often being unable to find the right lyrics since you know - it's a messy looking notebook. Thankfully it was a very VERY small place, and the audience was quite pissed, too. And nice. A good portion of them [about 50?] were our friends or acquaintances. It turned out well in the end, but I felt so embarrassed... afterwards, when I sobered up, of course. :P

It was my first gig as a frontman singer ever, of course. I was just so nervous before it, and the beers just kept coming. Next time I only had two beers, and it was a massively better gig with 100x more people, too. whoosh. It was a success.

To this day I think I needed that first one precisely the way it was... to never repeat that mistake again.

 

Last edited: Jun 5, 2020

I guess you've learnt how to wrap the cables properly since. Ask Steve Albini, he's an expert. [No joke]. Gosh I love that man.

 

What crossed my mind reading your story is... if my dick had fallen out at my first gig, I wouldn't even notice since I'd be sifting through my notebook looking for the right lyrics... But also since I'm not a shy person and I was properly smashed, I'd probably make some joke about it...

Great thread, people. Keep going!

 

Damn, I envy you...