People occasionally ask musicians about their best gigs. That’s easy enough – the packed venues, the great audiences, the nights when everything clicks and you walk off stage thinking, “Yes, that’s why we do this.” The more interesting question is this: What’s the worst gig you’ve ever done? I’ve got a few candidates, all of which were in previous bands before OLDER.
The Two People and a Whippet
Back in the early 90s, we played a hall in Woking. The expectation was that a healthy crowd would turn up. We’d play our songs, everyone would have a wonderful time, and we’d head home feeling like rock stars. Instead, we looked out into the audience and discovered there were exactly three attendees. Two people and a whippet. An elderly chap had wandered in with his dog. To this day I have no idea whether he thought it was bingo night, had taken a wrong turn, or was simply curious about what all the noise was.
The other audience member was a lovely young woman that none of us knew. To be fair, she and I ended up spending some time together afterwards, so perhaps I shouldn’t complain too much about that gig. Still, I don’t think any of them paid, especially the whippet. At that point there’s not much you can do. You stop thinking of it as a performance and start treating it as a rehearsal with unusually attentive spectators – not including the whippet, and I think it’s owner left after the first song.
The Gig We Couldn’t Follow
Another memorable disaster happened on Boxing Day at our local pub. Actually, it started brilliantly. The place was absolutely packed. The kind of pub where you couldn’t get near the bar because every square inch was occupied by somebody clutching a pint. If you wanted a drink, you had to leave through the front door, walk down the street and enter through the rear door just to reach the bar and carry your pint back in reverse. The gig was pumping.
Then somebody had the bright idea of ordering a stripper for a birthday celebration. In she came. We stopped playing. The entire pub lost its collective mind. Everyone was having a fantastic time.
Two problems for the band. The first is that we were standing directly behind the stripper. I’ll leave that there. The second problem was even worse. After she and her minder left, we had to continue the gig. We had to follow that act. Think about it. How exactly does a covers band compete with that level of audience engagement?
The London Gig I Wasn’t Ready For
Then there was the trip to London. I’d joined a band about three days earlier as a bass player. They played original material. We piled into the back of a van and set off to the big smoke. Before we’d even left our hometown, the driver somehow managed to demolish an awning outside a tobacconist and seriously dent the fire van. Not exactly the confidence-building start we were looking for.
Eventually we arrived in London. Standing on stage, I suddenly realised something rather important. I didn’t actually know any of the songs – we’d had one rehearsal and that seemed more of a ‘get to know me’ jam. Not one song. I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be playing. So I spent the entire set watching the guitarist’s hands and trying to follow the chords (luckily I could play guitar so knew the finger positions). Fortunately, there was a very talented saxophone player in the band who was both loud and enthusiastic. I suspect he carried the entire performance while I desperately tried to avoid looking confused. Whether anyone noticed, I’ll never know. But I certainly knew.
Looking back, these stories are funny now. At the time, perhaps not so much. Every musician accumulates a collection of gig disasters. Empty venues, technical failures, wrong songs, bum notes, arriving at the wrong venue, really bad audiences. Sometimes serveral of them at once. Perhaps that’s one reason I don’t really gig anymore. You reach a certain age where the idea of loading gear into a van, driving for hours, setting up equipment, and potentially performing to two people and a whippet starts to lose its appeal. The studio becomes a very attractive place indeed.
Still, those disasters become the stories you tell years later. Nobody remembers the average gigs. Everybody remembers the catastrophes.
