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Location: south east Michigan | Okay... I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.
This recent incident brought about the idea for this thread because..... well... to be honest... it's all about making me feel better. Misery loves company ya know.
This was at the marina gig last saturday. "Pretty Woman" was the first song of the second set. We choose that song because we knew it would be a strong opener. Brian starts the classic guitar lick. The drummer joins in. Time to strike that A chord and start singin'!! Then terror struck me. I completly blanked out on the first line. I scrambled to remember.... no good. I thought "Damn Brad... sing something..... anything!!". So I latched onto the second half of the second verse. After that line I had no logical place to go. So... I did it. I violated the Musical Prime Directive and committed the #1 Cardnial Sin. I stopped the song. My partner BrianT aways said that absolute worst thing you can do is to quit on a song. I apologized to the small but enthusiastic crowd and said I'd take another run at it in a few minutes. And I did. That time it turned out just fine.
And... earlier that same night, in the middle of a song, a little moth flew right into my eye. I tried to blink it away. I could see one of it's little wings covering part of my pupil. Now that was damn distracting.
Note to BrianT... If you dare list your worst moment as when I stopped in the middle of a song.... I'll kill ya. |
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Location: NJ |  |
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Location: south east Michigan | Gee... I forgot about that one. |
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Location: Budd Lake, NJ | Mine was actually yesterday morning; the pianist that I lead worship with didn't realize during a quick pre-service warm-up that she was only hearing Jewel through the mains, not the monitor. Not a bad thing, until everyone else began to sing with us. We avoided disaster until our next-to-last chorus, when we got majorly out of sync. (Something which has never happened before.) Oh, well, as my Quaker brethren would say, "My soul hath been meeked."
--Karen |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | Never had one. |
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Location: South of most, North of few | Originally posted by cliff:
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Location: south east Michigan | Check out Moody's "deer in the headlights / Damn, someones got a camera" look on his face.
Karen.. I like the saying,...."My soul hath been meeked." |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Hmmmmm, worst moment...
I'm 17. Filled in for this bands regular bass player and the rythm guitar and I hit it off. Discovered we were both songwriters and wrote folky stuff, though we played in Rock bands.
Both quit band work and practiced a folk duo thing for 6 months. Tight harmonies, intricate guitar work.....even bumped into "Our Sound" where we did fingerpicking bass lines against fingerpicking lead lines. (Still sounds pretty good, if a little intricate, on tape)
Our first night at a local coffee house, we take the stage, powder the left hands (all that fast, intricate fretwork) count it in..... and blow it.
Both suffering the worst case of stage fright we've ever encountered (before or since) we fumble through two songs and slink off stage.
We're still best buds but,aside from a few band injury/one-night fillins, we've never played out together since. (Though we still sound good in the livingroom!) |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | There's was this time... I was drunk and thought my guitar was my girlfriend.... |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | 1964. Jr high school talent show. Full house. I was playing rhythm guitar with a make-shift group of fellow 7th graders and we were the second to the last number on the program. The drummer gets sick at the last minute and can't play. I agree to take his place. I had never been on a drum set in my life before then, but with my dance background, they figured I could keep a beat better than they could. We played Thank You Girl by the Beatles. The song went off o.k. until the end. No monitors. I couldn't hear anything other than my own drumming. They ended, I didn't. Four times. Some teacher finally came out and tapped me on the shoulder that it was time to quit. Everybody in the place was just staring at me. I should have stuck to tap dancing. |
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Location: New South Wales, Australia | When I bought my O 13 years ago I wasn't sure what I was looking for.
Walked into the local music shop and played a few guitars and then I saw my 1860 on the wall and I knew I had to have it.
I didn't think my skills were worthy of such an instrument but the salesman craftily said..."not everyone who drives a sportscar is a racing driver.......play it."
For me it's always a bit intimidating to play in a music shop and make it look like you know what you're doing, but I prepared nonetheless.
As I was about to play my first chord I fumbled and dropped the pick. Foolishly I thought I could catch it but my reflexes were not what they once were. As I bent and twisted I knocked over a Yamaha 12 string and then bumped my head on a shelf as I came back up ---- minus the pick.
The Yamaha was not damaged but my pride took a beating. Couldn't find the pick and decided to buy the guitar and get the hell out of there.
That night whilst enjoying my new acquisition I found the pick from my earlier aborted performance ---- it was in the guitar. :D |
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Location: Omaha, NE | I'm trying to figure out how you can remember the opening line to a song named "Pretty Woman" when the song starts out with "Pretty Woman..."! :)
Actually, my worst moment ever wasn't too far from that.
I was playing with a particular church group for the first time. There were four of them, one guitar, all four singing. I was there to lend support on guitar.
Anyway, we start a song (the "gloria"...this was a Catholic mass) and the other guitar player starts off in the wrong key. Not sure of what was happening (I knew one of us was off, but which one?) I stopped playing to try to figure it out. At which point the entire group stopped and stared at me. And so the entire congregation of 1000+ stops and stares at me.
Not too fun. Thankfully, the Priest decided to close my shame window by saying the gloria instead of singing it. It was all over pretty quickly. |
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Location: Omaha, NE | Originally posted by Omaha:
I'm trying to figure out how you can remember the opening line to a song named "Pretty Woman" when the song starts out with "Pretty Woman..."! :)
Actually, my worst moment ever wasn't too far from that.
I was playing with a particular church group for the first time. There were four of them, one guitar, all four singing. I was there to lend support on guitar.
Anyway, we start a song (the "gloria"...this was a Catholic mass) and the other guitar player starts off in the wrong key. Not sure of what was happening (I knew one of us was off, but which one?) I stopped playing to try to figure it out. At which point the entire group stopped and stared at me. And so the entire congregation of 1000+ stops and stares at me.
Not too fun. Thankfully, the Priest decided to close my shame window by saying the gloria instead of singing it. It was all over pretty quickly. |
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Location: south east Michigan | Originally posted by cwk2:
Never had one. Come on Bill... it does not have to be a tragedy on my level. Didn't you ever even have a string break on ya???
I'm trying to figure out how you can remember the opening line to a song named "Pretty Woman" when the song starts out with "Pretty Woman..."!
Hey... remember now.. the whole purpose of this is to make me feel better.
But I know what you mean.
And it's not really helping to know that I was also a player in Cliff's train wreck. |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | It was a pretty train wreck. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | I was playing a coffee shop deal in Snobsdale and started the song singing one octave too high. I don't have a great range to begin with, but this was just aweful.
Second embarrasing moment actually was not caused by me, but I was involved. In college I worked in a high end audio salon and the cool thing was they were closed on Sundays, so at the close of the day Saturday I could bring home whatever gear I wanted to and play with it and return it Monday AM. The owner was a cool guy and he figured it was a good way to make sure his sales guys really knew the gear well. So one Sat night I bring home a Linn Sondek turntable (this was like 1978). Anyway, the party ensues and mass amounts of beer are flowing as we listen to a rather nice hifi setup. My friend Walter is too buzzed to find his way home so he sleeps on the couch. And in the middle of the night gets up to piss and thinks the turntable is the toilet. He lifts the lid and wizzes all over the Linn and a MFSL copy of Tea For The Tillerman. What a freaking mess.
I ended up buying the turntable. Glad I didn't bring home the SOTA.
Dave |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | Originally posted by Jeff W.:
There's was this time... I was drunk and thought my guitar was my girlfriend.... Your guitar is your girlfriend, Jeff.
My worst time was probably my first time playing in public, and my last for many years.
I was in my friend's dad's cowboy bar where they had a gal playing some CW 3 chord stuff. I was pretty drunk as usual and went to take a leak. I came out to a round of applause and wondered if I left something undone. My friend had set me up to sing and play the next song. I had just started playing guitar, so I picked the easiest song I knew, "Make it With You." Forgot the last verse, so I kept repeating one and the chorus, thinking that the end would come to me. It never did, so I just turned a really short song into repeating, "I Wanna Make it With You" for about 10 minutes to a bunch of drunk cowboys.
And my wife wonders why I didn't want to see Brokeback Mountain. |
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Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | To bad most of the stories start out... "Back when I was 18...".
But I'm starting to feel better.
Please... keep it up. |
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Posts: 1792
Location: Rego Park, NY, | Originally posted by Jeff W.:
There's was this time... I was drunk and thought my guitar was my girlfriend.... I guess you didn't need Gorilla Snot after that! :eek: :D |
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Posts: 812
Location: Hicksville, NY | Back in my college days in the summer of 1996 at Plattsburgh, NY, Roy Hurd [a.k.a. Poncho] was performing at a benefit concert. Prior to the show, there was a sign-up sheet that was going around for those who wanted to perform during open mic session, and I decided to sign in.
I'd been told that the open mic would take place after Roy finished his set, but there was a change of plans, and the organizers decided that there would be an open mic first. To make matters worst, I found out that I was the only idiot who signed in, thus making me his opening act! Since I was it, one of the organizers asked me to come up with at least a half hour's worth of material. Performing for Roy was the largest audience that I ever had that night. Before that, I used to play in small intimate gatherings of no more than 10-15 people in coffee shops, some dorm rooms, and in not-so-crowded open mic sessions every now and then.
Maybe it was a combination of stage fright, and some cockiness accompanied with plain stupidity on my part, I just performed the worst 25 minutes of my life on stage. There were songs where I either messed up the lyrics, or the guitar playing, or a combination of both. There were also a couple of songs where there was a "frog" in my throat, and I end up cracking in the high notes ... needless to say, it was quite embarrassing. I was quite disappointed, knowing that those were songs I played and sang with ease during practice, but messed them up big time during the performance!
I never performed in public since ...
well, until these past two years with the help, support and encouragement of fellow OFC member[s]. |
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Posts: 98
Location: SF Bay area, California | Embarrassing, but amusing:
Late one Sunday night I saw a craigslist post and dashed off to buy a package deal of a '76 Fender Twin and a Crate CA125D acoustic amp. Both were pictured poorly and described as needing work. The Fender he said needed tubes and the Crate 'had the electronics blown'.
It was too late at night to test them when I got home, so I started the next morning. I plugged in my Custom Legend, which was in a stand beside the Crate amp. I set all volumes and gains down, and turned it the amp on. I reached over and plucked the low E, and turned up volumes - it sounds good! I tried the other input jacks, it still sounded good. I plucked the D string and got a terrible buzz. I tried fussing with all the pots and sliders and switching jacks, and I've still got the buzz. However the E would ring true, weird.
I spent 10 minutes fussing with it before I took the guitar from the stand and strummed an awful sounding chord. Have you figured it out yet?
Darned how bad it can sound with a pick left tucked into the strings!
If only my playing were as good as my diagnostic capability!
Cheers,
Mark |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Mark, it's not embarrassing if there's no witnesses.
Which is why I now take a gun to all my gigs.... |
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Posts: 1609
Location: Colorado | Playing in pit orchestras - cramped space - and actual musicians playing things like harps and oboes - when mixed with guitar players can bring about a few yuks...in Les Mis once - Capoing in the dark can be tough...so what if I missed by one fret - and made Gary Morris sing the first verse of Bring Him Home 1/2 step higher - when the strings entered for verse two - it was... shall we say - a little off for a while until I figured out the others were not the problem.
Once for Lion King - it took me a few bars to realize - I had my korg tuner set about 50 cents flat - that went over real well too...yes - all three axes!
Finally - and the worst - in Tommy - starting the opening riff of Pinball Wizard - and sending the pick right into the 12 string's hole...kinda anti climatic! |
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Location: SoCal | You know, I'd post a story or two, but sometimes I think I'm just too big a target..... |
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Location: south east Michigan | Come on Paul... fess up.
This thread is all about the clearing of the soul under an umbrella of amnesty.
And face it.... you can't help being a big target. |
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Worst or Most Embarrassing Guitar Moment
