Gig Nightmares!, Share yours here! |
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Aug 14 2012, 01:11 AM
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I played an EMULATOR gig, as part of the ED Forman show this Saturday. The show is local comedy show, somewhat in the format of a (raunchier) Conan O'Brien show. So, when we play, we not only play our songs...we are the HOUSE band, and we play music to get guests up and down off the stage, etc.
Ok, that's the "show", but let me give some info on the day before which is relevant to my gig nightmare!  The day before, I moved. U-haul truck, a bunch of friends, sun beating down...a LONG, tiring day! Still, saturday before the gig, I had to make some runs between houses, restring my axe and practice before the gig (for practice, and to stretch the strings!). Sometime throughout this, I realize that I can't find my cat anywhere! I convince myself that cats are the "kings of hide-and-seek" until I see the bedroom window he was claiming as his perch...and the screen fell outside on the ground!! Gig time approaching, and I haven't found my cat, and a headache is creeping in, and I am TIRED! It's about 5pm and 6pm is load in. I drink water, and load in early. Good to go, soundchecked my gear, and had 30mins+ until full soundcheck. So I went and ate a delicious healthy (and light!) meal and drink a Viso (local vitamin drink with caffiene). Yum! About 10 mins to showtime, I'm talking to our drummer's gal, and it hits me.... "I think I have to puke" I tell her. "Go do it" she replies. And I do. Feeling "better".  For the moment, anyway.Show starts, and we rock a solid 30 mins of EMULATOR material. The ED show starts, and.... I creep offstage to vomit again. This happens all night long, inbetween EMULATOR song breaks. Lucky for me, "ED" prints out a "show-map" so I know when I NEED to be onstage for music. I am not only puking, but TOTALLY exhausted. But failure is not an option.  Also, the nausea is taking my mind off of my lost cat (later, I found out that he went in a little hole in the attic, and was sleeping in a pile of old insulation in the floorboards!) which I attempted to "zen" out of my mind. If my mind wanders during an EMULATOR performance, I make mistakes that I normally wouldn't and should never make. Right before we do our epic Contra medley (Intro song>Stage 1>Stage 2>Waterfall Stage>end credits music) I almost told them to switch for Tetris, so I could go offstage (they can do Tetris w/out me, but I have all lead lines in Contra) but it was right then that we started. I choke it down, and rock hard. After Contra, I go puke again and let them finish the last song as I pull my car around to the "no parking, taxi zone only" spot in downtown portland. There, I wait for them to finish (another 30 excruciating mins!) while I feel like death (not in the cool, metal way  ) and my wonderful fiance and her sister come to my rescue!! They helped me load my gear in 1 trip, and though my fiance can't drive a stick (manual trans) she was still my co-pilot and I felt much safer than driving by myself in that condition. I had a work meeting the next morning, and no option to leave car (plus...I had GEAR!! It get's stolen instantly if left in a car downtown) so I had to try and muscle through and get home.Show actually went GREAT, and those who knew what I was going through...had a laugh about it! Those who didn't, said it looked like I was having a great time! I tried to look that way, on purpose. No one wants to see a frowny-face house band at a comedy show! That was my gig-nightmare from Saturday. But in reality, it went well. I just felt awful. Anyone else care to share, their own "gig-nightmare"? --------------------   Check out my awesome Nintendo Cover-band, EMULATOR!! http://www.reverbnation.com/emulator Now.....go practice!! |
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Replies
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Aug 14 2012, 06:33 PM
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Funny you ask Ben....
As the next day and day after progressed, I seemed to have issues out of my "other end", so I'm thinking I caught a touch of food poisoning, mixed with the exhaustion. Feeling better now! Also (a walk down memory lane) when I was about 12 yrs old I got to play electric guitar with the mixed Jr High and High School marching band at the county marching band competition. But I injured/smashed my ring finger on my fretting hand a week before. Luckily, I was BARELY able to play...but I toughed it out. BUT, because it was so cold outside....my wound re-opened during the performance, and I was bleeding all over my fretboard, and down my white (fingerless/"modified") "Mickey Mouse" style marching band gloves. Also, the band director's assistant "accidentally" unplugged my Boss ME-6 (this was like, 1993 or something...) so instead of distortion/gain, I was "rockin" on CLEAN!!! But I was so young I couldn't pedal switch on the fly back then. So....that was gig nightmare #2. A Vintage gig-nightmare!! QUOTE (Ben Higgins @ Aug 14 2012, 01:38 AM)  I don't think anything really matches up to that, dude !! Sounded a bit like an ordeal ! Do you think it was the exhaustion from the previous day and that day catching up with you ? Or did you have a bug as well ? -------------------- Check out my awesome Nintendo Cover-band, EMULATOR!! http://www.reverbnation.com/emulator Now.....go practice!! |
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Aug 15 2012, 01:59 AM
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QUOTE (Ben Higgins @ Aug 14 2012, 10:39 AM) Oh... they didn't want a bit of distortion then ?? I guess not! Being the "conspiracy theorist" that I am, even at that age I found it no coincidence.... the band director's assistant didn't seem to like me much, kept giving me the "evil eye" and then he "accidentally" unplugged m' rig!! But in reality, he probably just accidentally stepped on the power cable, thus unplugging it, then plugged it in not knowing that it would set me back to clean....and I was so young and un-skilled, that I couldn't navigate my own multi-effects board well enough to get to a decent tone on the fly! So THAT is why you don't buy your 10 yr old a multi effects board!! They'll get LOST in it for years, and still have no idea what decent tone is. Get them a stompbox, and a line 6 amp with a few built in effects. That way, they'll focus more on playing the guitar, instead of tweaking 80 diff reverb options. -------------------- Check out my awesome Nintendo Cover-band, EMULATOR!! http://www.reverbnation.com/emulator Now.....go practice!! |
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Aug 15 2012, 08:38 AM
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It all happens to toughen us up !
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Aug 15 2012, 02:08 PM
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Definitely!
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Aug 16 2012, 08:52 AM
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My personal nightmare gig was at the Bloodstock Open Air in 2009 (I think it was 2009 ;-) ). We played a song called "Sacred" (what later turned into "Sacred Worlds" on our latest album) which originally was written for the computer game Sacred II, it was only the second or third time that we played that one live, so the "autopilot" was not really working yet... After the first chorus I somehow messed things up by jumping into the part that was supposed to come only after the second chorus, and this triggered the nightmare... Normally if one of us gets lost we just have to look at each other, see what the others are playing and we are back in track in a matter of seconds, but my little mistake caused the whole band to lose track, nobody was sure about which part was the right one and suddenly you had six guys play six different things. It took about 45 seconds for us to find back into the song and I guess I don't have to mention that those 45 seconds felt like a lifetime, but well, we survived. I even found a clip of this performance on youtube where people talk about this awesome interpretation lol
-------------------- Guitars: various Gibson Les Pauls / Gibson J 45
Amps: Mesa Boogie Tripple Rectifier / Triaxis / 2:90 Poweramp / Rectocabs Effects: Rocktron Intellifex / Rocktron Xpression Homepage: www.marcussiepen.com www.blind-guardian.com Check out my video lessons! |
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Aug 16 2012, 02:10 PM
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I didn't bookmark the link, I just saw it back then, sorry ;-) Look for Blind Guardian Bloodstock Sacred, should do the job
-------------------- Guitars: various Gibson Les Pauls / Gibson J 45
Amps: Mesa Boogie Tripple Rectifier / Triaxis / 2:90 Poweramp / Rectocabs Effects: Rocktron Intellifex / Rocktron Xpression Homepage: www.marcussiepen.com www.blind-guardian.com Check out my video lessons! |
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Aug 16 2012, 06:28 PM
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QUOTE (Cosmin Lupu @ Aug 16 2012, 04:46 AM) ..... even if it was still him, the one who nagged us NOT TO FORGET  It never fails!!
-------------------- Check out my awesome Nintendo Cover-band, EMULATOR!! http://www.reverbnation.com/emulator Now.....go practice!! |
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Aug 19 2012, 11:34 AM
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Of course things go wrong from time to time, we are only humans, we have good days, we have bad days, there might be technical issues... and after all there is Murphy's law!
But to be honest, those things can be funny too, and they tend to become the things that we remeber forever. We once played a show in Madrid (I think) and people started yelling for Majesty... well, it is no big secret that this is not really our most fave song to play, after playing it for 26 years But people wanted it, so we played it, but Hansi anounced it in a funny arrogant way (not ment seriously of course), saying something like" bla bla bla we played that one a million times, but since you want it, here we go..."And what happened? EVERYTHING went wrong  First our keyboarder hit the wrong sound at the end of the intro, there was supposed to be an explosion ( in the 80's you HAD to have an explosion on yor album when you were a metal band!), and what we got was a pröng^^ The Andre started the intro riff, but his Amp was switched to the clean channel, not the heavy one. I bursted out laoughing and completely missed my starting point and played in a parralel universe, and our drummer was so confused by the chaos that he also played... well...something....anything But at the end of the intro we found back into the song, and that was the moment when our Singer forgot the lyrics lol perfect performance ^^
-------------------- Guitars: various Gibson Les Pauls / Gibson J 45
Amps: Mesa Boogie Tripple Rectifier / Triaxis / 2:90 Poweramp / Rectocabs Effects: Rocktron Intellifex / Rocktron Xpression Homepage: www.marcussiepen.com www.blind-guardian.com Check out my video lessons! |
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Aug 19 2012, 12:00 PM
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Hilarious story Marcus!
I thought your nightmare is that the audience just keeps on singing Valhalla like in Düsseldorf 2010
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Aug 19 2012, 03:03 PM
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Marcus, I totally understand the feeling you got when the audience is craving for a certain song and you would like to play the new stuff which you're obviously so excited about
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