I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: meself
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 10:21 AM

"I found meself up on the rickety wooden stage"

So you found me! I guess it wasn't the best hiding place ...

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: black walnut
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 10:41 AM

After confidently introducing a song I'd written about a gorgeous sunset over Lake Ontario ("Angels of the Wild"), my sideman and I hit the first chord. He was playing guitar and I was playing fretted dulcimer. Unfortunately, he was in D and I was in C - every one of my strings was tuned down as though I was singing it solo, not with him.

In the audience were some members of a Juno award-winning band I really admired. I felt very sheepish.

~b.w.

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: GUEST,Bill Hudson
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 11:59 AM

Good Post
Well down through the years, yes there are a few times that things went bit nuts.
Here’s one:
I was playing at this gig that no matter what you sang people were talking very, very loud (it was a bar). As the night got on I did every trick I could think of to hook them and it just did not work. It was one of those nights that makes you wonder why they have live music at all.
So as the night wore on I started getting mad so I got to think of one more trick…moon them, why not?. That’s right show them my better half (what little I have). What the worse that could happen, they don’t ask me back to this hell hole?
So when the timing was right I did just that and what ya know, they all just stopped dead and for about 30 seconds. I figured I was going to get kicked out when the bar owner came over to me and asked, “Is this where the party is?â€쳌 So they did not kick me out and then this waiter started doing his Elvis thing on top of someone’s table which was very strange.
The funny thing is when I went back at that bar for a drink with a friend I saw this sign of rules for the bar and one of them said, no mooning.

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: Nick
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 12:18 PM

I have a crowned canine tooth which comes loose occasionally. I have twice spat it across the room when singing in mid song. It's always a decision as to whether to continue in a blase fashion or not. Perhaps it'll come loose on Speak Like a Pirate day.

(As two complete aside I once worked as an Estate Agent and knew a bloke who also worked as one in Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire (I think it was Black Horse Agencies office if I remember and I think his name was Bob). He had a false hand which once came off when he was gesturing (vigorously one presumes) at a client. The hand came flying off and embedded itself in the bottom corner of the wall map. The hand was retrieved but the hole remained for many years.

A little more off topic and more apocryphal probably was the man with a wooden leg who managed to stop a group of people hassling him by plunging a large knife into his leg and smiling at them.)

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 06:23 PM

true leg tale.
Was working at Scunthorpe some time ago.
All work done we held our "hey its friday lets get pissed and play cards at work" party..
This degenerated into General horse play.
I and the team leader got past the mouthy stage and got to tussleing.
Until his leg fell off!

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: GUEST,Ballyholme
Date: 08 Sep 09 - 09:03 PM

The Yorkshire Folk & Blues Festival is generally acknowledged as being the greatest outdoor festival disaster ever. Rain, high winds and chaotic organization turned the festival site into a mud bath.

I was there and can remember that Fairport Convention defied the elements and played a great set. What I didn't realize at the time was that bass player Dave Pegg had his own personal disaster on stage:

"If I could be remembered for one thing - Well I did have a nasty accident at the Krumlin Festival in the 70's when I was wearing a pair of white trousers. I had rather too much to drink and when I got on stage I actually shat myself which was very embarrassing as the back of my white trousers changed colour very quickly. Behind me were all the other acts that were on, including Elton John who wasn't very famous at the time and The Move who were people that we knew from Birmingham. I was a laughing stock. It was incredibly embarrassing and I couldn't turn around to adjust the volume on my amp because the audience would have seen the brown mass that was attached to my arse and would have know for sure what had happened."

What a trouper!

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: GUEST,Frug
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 05:47 AM

Way back we were performing at a school charity event and had been asked to allow a floor spot to a pupil of the school the youngest daughter of a well respected local man. The lass was about 13 at the time and had heard us perform on a number of occasions and asked if we would accompany her on Guthrie's Deportees. Trouble was she froze after the first line and so I knelt down and prompted her for the whole of the song. Naturally she got an ovation from the audience (many of whom were priests and nuns) who realised what was happening. When she had left the stage we decide to recover the set with a few upbeat numbers and in introducing the medley I inadvertently parodied an old John Lennon gaff." Please join in if you know the words, if you don't shake whatevers hanging loose or just rattle your rosary beads"

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 09 Sep 09 - 02:04 PM

I'll never forget one of my first ever folk festivals, with the young, fresh and not very traditional acoustic band I played in. I should have know we were in for a rough ride when we came on after the local hero, and the compere simply said "follow that.. if you can"

During the set I was having trouble keeping my guitar in tune. Afer a particularly long period of turning the pegs I announced it was "close enough for folk"

I learned what two hundred people simultaneously drawing in breath in disapproval sounds like...

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrassment
From: Gurney
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 01:30 AM

Doing the intro to a song made famous by TWO blind singers... "So it seems that singing this song is ONE of the things that make you go blind....."

The only people who laughed were the coachload of blind people! They thought I was taking the mickey, but I'd come in late and not seen them.

Subject: RE: I shouldn't have done that...onstage embarrass
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Sep 09 - 01:21 PM

One embarrassing moment I haven't forgotten occurred when I was performing at an open-mic evening at the famous Passims Club in Cambridge. I came early so I wouldn't miss my chance to sign up. But it was still at least an hour before my name was called and I marched up to the stage, banjo in hand. I stepped up to the mic, carefully adjusted it, then swung the banjo over my head and adjusted the strap. That's when the tiny black plastic part, the lock nut, came off and bounded across the black carpeted stage. I quipped to the audience "I had a dream like this last night!" But I did find the little plastic lock nut and did my set of songs with no further mishaps, and the full attention of the audience.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble