I've tended to find it is the personel rather than the instruments that cause the problem. The worst nightmare I had was with a 3 piece band we put together for an £80 lunchtime booking in a pub. The line up was me: various strings and melodeon, Alan: a Northumbrian Pipe/ Whistle Player and Dave: a guitar player. We all sing a bit as well.

We knew each others playing and material and we had 1 run through were everything worked and it looked like it was going to be easy. The trouble was on the day, the guitar player turned up blind drunk and his playing was appauling. I'll never forget poor Alan trying to play Bridget O'Malley and trying to keep in time with the guitar - the tune became unrecognisable - ? a rock version?...

We got through but Alan and I spent 2 hours just wishing that the ground would open up and swallow us it was so embarrasing.

Jon