Worst stage disasters?

When we had our first band, just out of high school,we were playing a party at a friends house, of course the cops were called....after turning down, we played one more song before tearing down, "Police On My Back" from The Clash.

Last year, playing a local bar, two huge cops come in chasing after avery small woman, who ended up hiding under our merchandise table. This time we played "Jailbreak" (Thin Lizzy version).

Playing at a lounge in a Holiday Inn, the fire alarm goes off....we launch into "Smoke On The Water", didn't leave the stage, and by the time we were done they had killed the false alarm.

Month or so ago, I'm playing our last set, and my kick pedal feels funny, like its catching or something. I fidget and fuss and get thru the song, and then I discover that I had punched right thru the head. (I'm not a particularly heavy hitter, either.) I tried to switch over to the left pedal, which would hit a little bit off center on the head, and failed miserably. Fortunately there were only a couple songs left, and I discovered if I hit it softly, it wouldn't go all the way thru, so we turned the kick mic up some more and I babied it thru two more songs....

Once I cut my hand on my hats during an intense show. I was bleeding everywhere. Ended up giving my bloody snare head away at the show. Not much of a disaster for a metal show haha.

Last show I played, I didn't check the tightness of the tilters on my stands. Both of my crashes tilted away from me. Managed to get by with wide arching swings, barely.

I had a couple over the years, some self-inflicted and some helped along by others.
Early on in my gigging days I had terrible stage fright, probably to do with the fact that I was playing gigs with about six months of intermittent playing under my belt. I would have a few drinks before playing and it helped calm me down a bit. Eventually, the drinks began to escalate and I would have 6-8 beers in me before I hit the stage. One night, I made it all the way to our set closer, Deep Purple's (of course, what else) "Smoke on the Water" without screwing up to badly. We did the "Live in Tokyo" version with the big ending, and when I went to do the drum fill that Ian Paice did to end it, I leaned back too far and fell over backwards with an enormous clatter. That ended my drinking before and during gigs.
We played a real dive with no stage, forcing us to set up on the floor on another occasion and were witness to a series of brawls and fights. The capper was when two guys were wrestling in front of us and fell into our mic's and monitors and crashed into my two month old set of pristine Ludwig Classics. The stand that I had my 10" on was hit especially hard and the drum was slammed into my Paiste 2002 Sound Edge 'hats. It took a big chunk out of the side of the 10. I could easily have killed both of those guys at that moment. As we had had problems at that place before, I told the other guys that I wasn't coming back if we played there again. That wasn't a problem, because no one else wanted to come back either!

Some things that have happened.

Bass player pulled down the lights by standing on a cable and came within inches of getting decapitated.

I was playing on a rented kit once at a gig and there was a strip of tape on the bass drum head to cover a small split in the double ply. A couple of songs in, my beater started to eat through the tape to the other side of the gaffer tape, the side with the sticky glue. Naturally the beater started sticking to the drum and I was unable to play the pedal at all. Try explaining that with a facial expression.

For me, its got to be when a spur collapsed into my bass drum causing it to roll off the riser, taking along with it half my hardware

Been practicing with my new band for about a month and had our first gig this past Saturday. We play 90% originals. Needed this thread to remind me that while I felt part of my gig was a disaster, it really could have been much worse.

Overall set went really well, except for two songs.
1) the guitarist decides to just abruptly end the song before the 2nd verse. Which kinda saved me as I completely spaced what the drums did in the 2nd verse. Figured if nothing else I'd just play same thing that I done in verse 1.

2) last week the band decided to add a cover that they've done a million times but that I've never actually heard till then. Yeah...it didn't go well. Has a really simple drum part that I just completely screwed up on timing in the verses. I was fine during the chorus. But drums stop at beginning of verse and I just never could find the tempo for each verse. Should have just stayed silent during the verses.

Well I know I posted about the time I bled all over my kit after cutting my thumb on my cymbal before, so I'll leave that one out.

A more recent one, my band was playing one of the largest festivals in my city. Of course, the drummers, ones with the most equipment, get the smallest spaces to get things set up. Set change time comes up, and I'm maneuvering around crap just to get a simple 5 piece kit up there.

The only problem with this was a huge monitor to the left of the drum riser was about a foot from the back of the stage. I get almost everything up there, using this narrow walkway or going around front and dodging an obstacle course of mic stands and cables. Snare drum and stand in my hands, I got to the narrow walkway and misjudged one step with my large feet. Well, a foot slides off the back (which also had a tarp going to the top). I quickly think to kinda toss my snare up onto the riser and grab onto something to catch myself. People make sure I'm okay and gave me props for one hell of a save.

Our bassist was behind the stage at the time and just sees my leg sticking out of the back. Bruised and cut up my knee, thigh and ankle pretty decent, but the show must go on. We had two sets that day and halfway through the first, my bass drum leg went numb from the injury. I still had control over my ankle though, so I played surprisingly well.

That was my last huge disaster, and I don't plan on doing that again.

None myself but have a story from a friend. My friend Spike plays upright jazz bass. I've met him though acoustic open mics. He had quit playing for awhile and started up again after moving back to town. we live in a seaside harbor town and there is an old hotel building on Main street. It is apartments now but years ago it was still the old Thorndike hotel. They had a ritzy style bar and lounge on the street level right behind the main lobby i've been told. My friend Spike was playing in a jazz combo there, regular gig for him at the time. The lounge was old and had seen better days and so was the regular drummer. lol.. he liked to have a drink or two or three or more as the night went on. After a first set they took a break and then came back. The drummer had just finished off his last drink too many and got behind the drum kit. As they gear up into an uptempo number he passes out. Goes right over. Hard. Over the hi hat stand. As Spike told it to us he points to my hi hat rod. "See this? We thought it had impaled him!!" They all freak out and the horn player slowly walks up and rolls him over in horror. To their relief the hi hat rod had not impaled him, but had bent into a 90 degree angle under his girth. They threw him into a booth and called up another drummer. He came and played the rest of the set with the bent rod aimed right at him poking him as he moved and did hi hat accents. You can't make this stuff up!

I’ve never had any stage disasters luckily - that I can recall currently anyway, nothing relating to sickness/equipment breaking/falling over or injuring myself I have however had a horror of a gig about 10 years ago in my early 20’s which was self-inflicted and relating to booze. Learned a valuable lesson that evening and haven’t done it since.

We were booked to play a venue in London and we were the headliners. Our set time was around 10pm and all was fine to begin with but as soundcheck progressed more and more bands kept turning up with gear and it became apparent that the organisers had seriously overbooked bands. We were pilled with drink from the promoters as means of saying sorry as we were told we'd likely be going on stage delayed to which was greatly appreciated by band members but we were in an area of London there didn’t seem to be anywhere open to buy food and we couldnt wonder too far unless we were called on stage, so of course the drinks started to go to my head with an empty stomach not having eaten since that afternoon.

10pm came and went and I think we eventually went on around midnight, by this point I was seriously wasted and could hardly drum.

It was a horror show of a gig, so much so I wanted the ground to swallow me up as I was up there. Had trouble even setting up my gear and nearly fell off the stage a couple of times when moving stands..etc. The band I was in at the time played very fast, hard rock and roll and I was all over the place, kept speeding up and slowing down with no balance whatsoever. Shocking playing.

After the gig a friend had to rush me fthroigh London to London Waterloo train station in her car as I promised the other half I would be back home that evening and wouldn’t stay over at one of the band members flats in London as I’d been away from home with the band a lot that month up to that point and I was determined not to let her down.

I made the last train home by seconds, sat down for the journey and next thing I knew I was being woken up a couple of hours later at a train Station on the coast by the station manager where the train terminated and the station was about to be closed (30 miles away from home) until morning services resumed.

Went outside and thought no worries I’ll spend the next few hours sitting outside the station listening to music until it reopened for the first services as I was short on cash and my phone battery had by that point died. At first it was fine, was watching people leaving nightclubs and I had a full battery on my iPod and lots of tobacco. Then I fell asleep again and was woken up by a little old lady some hours later asking me if I needed to be anywhere.

Luckily no one stole anything as I had thousands of pounds worth of gear on me. How I survived with all my gear/iPod/Phone.etc still to this day escapes me as the station was right on a main road and lots of people would have passed me.

I got back on a train heading back to London as my stop was on the way, sure enough I fell asleep again.....The only thing that stopped me from waking up back in London again to repeat the journey all over again was my phone alarm going off as I had luckily not turned off my work alarm for the weekend. It woke me up just as the train was approaching my stop.

Eventually got home just before 10am if I recall, got in to find the other half asleep. When she eventually woke she asked me what time I got in the night before and did I have a good gig..etc as she had been sleeping since around 10pm*

To be young and foolish! Never again and learned a very valuable lesson that day. I actually have the DVD of the gig still at home as it was filmed by the promoters and I have watched it once. It’s shocking. Watched it once and the fear/dread came over me soon enough, then locked it away to never see the light of day again.

* I eventually fessed up as I felt bad about lying and sheepishly told her the story a few days later.