Your biggest gaff playing live?

PDL

Senior Member
Many years ago I had a really cheap drum throne, and in the middle of a song during a stop I stupidly stood up for effect and when I sat down my throne had fallen over unknown to me. You can imagine the rest of the story.......
 
Left the snares off to stop buzz, played most of the last song without them on thinking "oh crap, well if I play the whole song like this maybe it'll sound intentional."
Then some other guy runs over and tries to get the snares on while I'm playing and the whooooleee thing goes wrong. :D
 
On a 2/4 beat I played it reversed for about half a song, does that qualify? I don't have any real disaster stories though.

Come to think of it, another time, due to a timely convergence of a deficit of food energy, 2 shots tequila, and the consumption of a certain odorous substance, I started off a song at supersonic tempo, and played the whole thing that way. The band had no choice. I honestly don't know what the heck happened, it's like something took me over for one song. I apologized profusely afterwards and vowed to the guys to never to let myself run out of fuel, and drink tequila ever again. ;)

Alcohol seriously dulls my reactions and movements. Even one beer sets me off kilter. Forget about anything harder. Alcohol and drumming? None for me please.
 
New band and I played a set last week...

We'd done the sound check and decided to play a tune full way through so the mixing desk could ensure all the levels were right.

There was a reasonable body of people listening in...

I have E Drums and as I turned my foot clipped the power cable and yanked it out the bank of the monitor....

End of drums....

A very important lesson learnt though...THAT will NEVER happen again !!!!
 
I'll one up you Larry, I was feeling the guitar intro to a song an eight note off. It was wicked trying to getting back on. That was an interesting night.

I was playing on a deck stage the was uneven to begin with. The lead signer was jumping and rocking the warped boards. My kick mic fell and landed against my batter head! So every kick was deafening. Then the kick mic started to feedback, which is the first time that's ever happened to me. The escalating mid range hum was like the sound of alien ship landing for invasion. It was bad. I was fixing my kick mic, messing with the mixer, and trying to play all at the same time.
 
Went into the bridge after the first chorus instead of the second like I was supposed to, couldn't get back in, had to stop, apologize to the crowd, and play the next song.
 
Another throne story. Playing on an old '60s Ludwig throne (the traditional type with one main leg and two wing legs) at an outdoor gig with a cover band in about 1975. Had the main leg of that damned old throne punch right through the drum riser, dropping my ample butt on the riser right in the middle of of the crunchy part of "Free Bird" (don't kill me- it was relatively new at the time, and none of us had gotten sick of it yet!). Wham. Then silence. Then hilarity.

That initial plunge, and then trying to pull the remains back up out of the riser, mangled up the wing legs badly enough that the throne was trash... Ended up playing the rest of the set on a folding metal chair turned kinda 45 degrees sideways (to bridge over that gaping hole) with a couple of jackets folded up on top of it to get a little extra height, and had one *seriously* pissed-off coccyx for several weeks after. Went out and bought one of those newfangled modern Rogers tripod thrones right afterwards: the first piece of anything I ever owned with a memory lock. Still have that throne, actually, welded up several times, and with a Roc-n-Soc bicycle seat substituted for the old thin round biscuit. I think of that gig everytime I sit on that throne.

It's like the old story of the carpenter who has the best hammer in the world: he's replaced the handle 4 times and the head twice, but it is still the best hammer ever. And to this day (and for the rest of my career) I will always check any drum riser to make sure that the top surface is something significantly stouter than 1/2" particle board! And yes, I do carry a spare throne as well...
 
I was playing in a Big Band in front of several hundred people at a big concert. We rehearsed the final number at a a medium pace that we had rehearsed that number at for months.

Unfortunately, the seats had to be brought on quickly and the stage hands hadn't left me an unobscured view of the conductor. I couldn't get up and ask the front row to move to the left so I could see the conductor because we were on a very strict time limit. Also, due to the aspect of the Hall, I had no monitoring and struggled to hear the band.

The final intro was also without my bass playing compatriot - who could see the conductor.

Well, the inevitable happened. The conductor counted off the piece about 20BPM lower than we had rehearsed at and I was playing at the 'normal' speed. It took me four bars to realise - because I couldn't hear the band - and the conductor wasn't experienced enough to bring the band down slightly to compensate.

I was absolutely fuming afterwards. To this day I still blame the conductor.
 
Alcohol seriously dulls my reactions and movements. Even one beer sets me off kilter. Forget about anything harder. Alcohol and drumming? None for me please.

I've been attending a small jam at a cool little bar lately very informal but fun as I get to play with lots of different people. Last week, this bar has a drink up on the specials chalk-board and it's called a "pickle back". The bartender informed me that this is a shot of "the cheapest whiskey we can find" followed immediately by a shot of chilled pickle juice.

You might be thinking, "that sounds like a bad idea". You'd be right. I was already bordering the buzzed line when I gave in to sheer curiosity an ordered some pickle backs.

And of course, just as I'm thinking, I should chill out or I'm not going to be driving home later, someone puts a pair of sticks in my hand and literally pushes me up to the kit with no time to argue or grumble as I might.

Of course I stunk the place up. I've known folks that can play fine while drinking, but I'm not really one of them. I think for me the thing that suffers most is my ability to think ahead while I play, and I end up reacting to things just micro-seconds later than I would have had I not been drinking. All I know is it's enough to make me look like a bad drummer in a bar with people trying to drink without my nonsense.
 
Oh man these stories are a blast. Skod, funny stuff man, welcome to the forum.
Dr. Watso, you're killin me!
Bretton, you had to stop completely? Ooo that is ugly. Wanna crawl away and die ugly lol.
Duncan, Oh man, a big band? Those guys never mess up! You have the best excuses possible though.
jmck, that is a common thing, an over-gesturing singer who you think is cueing you but isn't. They need to use their motions in a non confusing way for us. I mean help us out just a little right?
Andy, you think I would flake out, not be like the Road Runner. Beep Beep!
Squad leader, that can't happen with A drums, that's the real lesson. :)
wsabol, how do you manage an 8th note? I'm trying to imagine that......

Still trying...
 
Big venue, good crowd including some good local musos we knew. Bad stage monitoring, couldn't hear and went for the flashy (previously unattempted) fill over the bar line, came in on the off beat and didn't realise for a bar or so.

Trainwreck. We stopped playing! STOPPED PLAYING, god damn it!! Who the hell stops playing other than the absolute beginner? We were experienced enough to know better. In a run of the mill 4/4 rock band, that was easily fixed by two lefts on the snare. It was many years ago, but I'm still cringing recalling it here.

Total amateur hour.

Have also fallen off the seat. the back legs slipped down between the riser and back wall. But it was before we'd started so the only real damage done was to my pride.
 
haven't really had a bad one yet.....


worst one so far would probably be after a couple hours into the gig my hands were a little sweaty, in the middle of a guitar solo i had a roll/fill, as i was going down the toms one of my sticks slipped loose and went flying and proceeded to bounce off the guitar players arm and land in the middle of the dance floor full of people...
 
About 10 years ago I got a gig helping a friends band, they were a Bon Jovi tribute act and their drummer was away and they had a contract to fill. I was well paid for it so said yes. I spent a month learning the 13 songs in my basement, and the day before the show went round to their house to discuss. Unfortunately they'd given me the wrong tape, they did the live versions not studio. So the day of the show and the first three songs went really well, I could see the band getting into in. Then came a song with a massive impro middle, of course I was lost, I tried numerous times to break back into the verse but no one was watching. Eventually I make eye contact with the keyboard player and he looks like he's going to kill me. So the rest of the show went down hill my confidence was shot, they paid me half of what they said and we ain't spoke since. I blame them for giving me the wrong versions and I cringe when I hear Bin Jovi.
 
I was playing at my church in one of those fully-enclosed drum booths. We were about 3/4 of the way through a rather spirited number when the back wall fell over, the top crashed in on me then the clear front and sides came down. I didn't miss a beat though and finished the song ;-)
 
dropped a stick and grabbed a freshie out of the bag, but it was still in the sleeve with another stick...took a good 3-4 beats to get it loose from the paper it was in....

Im a dummy


F
 
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