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Worst gig you ever played.


Lemonade

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We got offered the opening slot for this, supporting two touring bands I'd never heard of. The promoter gave us tickets to sell but it was a weeknight and they were like a tenner a pop and none of my mates fancied it, I guess it was the same for the other guys. Tbh we didn't really make much effort to sell tickets, assuming that the touring bands, a screamo band and a hardcore band would probably sell loads, and we just hadn't heard of them because we're all too old. Cut to gig day. We turn up for soundcheck. 

"How many tickets did you sell?" asks the promoter. 

Me- "Honesty, none. Sorry. We've a few said they might pay at the door. How many are sold altogether?" 

Promoter - "None." 

Me - "So we've sold 0 tickets?" 

Promoter - "That is correct."

Cut to a couple hours later and we take to the stage in Moshulu to a crowd consisting of two people from my office, my girlfriend and our drummer's wife. Tell you something, Moshulu looks fucking big when you're playing to four people. We still got paid, somehow. I felt bad taking it. 

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Gigs to empty rooms are rough. My first ever band played a gig at Josephs Well in Leeds to pretty much my Dad and a mate from college (deservedly, probably. we were baaaad). It was a gig that the inhouse promoter put on, 4 totally different bands who didn't know each other, so the friends of the bands went into the next room where the bar is when other bands played. We brought the drumkit and bass cab for all the bands to use, and they still didn't even watch us, and it unfortunately meant we couldn't leave early.

Those gigs were weird. The promoter asked which band you were there to see when you paid in, and tallied it. If your band got less than 20 people in, you got blacklisted from his future gigs. Proper weird way of doing things, as opposed to, you know, putting together bills that make sense? The promoter, "Peanut", now plays keyboards in the Kaiser Chiefs. Or used to. I don't know if he still does. He was always a dick. I once saw him get refused entry into The Cockpit whilst bellowing "do you know who I am?!?" as the bouncers ushered him away, and that was before KC were really known. He just seemed to think he was the scene-king because he put on shit gigs at the Well, or something. Twat.

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2 hours ago, Soda Jerk said:

Gigs to empty rooms are rough. My first ever band played a gig at Josephs Well in Leeds to pretty much my Dad and a mate from college (deservedly, probably. we were baaaad). It was a gig that the inhouse promoter put on, 4 totally different bands who didn't know each other, so the friends of the bands went into the next room where the bar is when other bands played. We brought the drumkit and bass cab for all the bands to use, and they still didn't even watch us, and it unfortunately meant we couldn't leave early.

Those gigs were weird. The promoter asked which band you were there to see when you paid in, and tallied it. If your band got less than 20 people in, you got blacklisted from his future gigs. Proper weird way of doing things, as opposed to, you know, putting together bills that make sense? The promoter, "Peanut", now plays keyboards in the Kaiser Chiefs. Or used to. I don't know if he still does. He was always a dick. I once saw him get refused entry into The Cockpit whilst bellowing "do you know who I am?!?" as the bouncers ushered him away, and that was before KC were really known. He just seemed to think he was the scene-king because he put on shit gigs at the Well, or something. Twat.

Yeah, playing to nobody can be a bit of a kick in the ego. I've never played to a completely empty venue, though I have played to 0 paying customers. I played bass in Sirius for a few gigs and we were booked along with another punk band, I think Point Of Origin, for a random gig in the top floor of that Irish bar on Justice Mill Lane who had decided to start putting local bands on. Another weeknight gig, our crowd was the other band and a few girlfriends, literally not £1 taken at the door. I think that was the first and last local band night there. I had food poisoning too and spent the whole gig trying not to shit myself. Despite that, it was actually a pretty fun gig. It was a nice room, a proper big stage and a little backstage room and everything. I don't know if they use it for gigs now or what. Presumably Irish bands if they do. Eye diddle eye. 

 

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2 hours ago, Lemonade said:

Yeah, playing to nobody can be a bit of a kick in the ego. I've never played to a completely empty venue, though I have played to 0 paying customers

Have you ever played so terribly that the venue mercy-killed you by shutting the power off?

Not me, but I have witnessed it happen to another band back when I was in college. Definitely the worst band I've ever seen. The local pub had student band nights on Tuesdays, so it was always well attended. People were in hysterics at how bad they were. Then they played this song, a cover of sorts, where they jammed a whole bunch of iconic guitar riffs together to make one 'song'. That's when the guy behind the bar had had enough. Lights went out. Everyone cheered.

Brutal. That would make me never want to touch a guitar again.

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1 hour ago, Soda Jerk said:

Have you ever played so terribly that the venue mercy-killed you by shutting the power off?

Not me, but I have witnessed it happen to another band back when I was in college. Definitely the worst band I've ever seen. The local pub had student band nights on Tuesdays, so it was always well attended. People were in hysterics at how bad they were. Then they played this song, a cover of sorts, where they jammed a whole bunch of iconic guitar riffs together to make one 'song'. That's when the guy behind the bar had had enough. Lights went out. Everyone cheered.

Brutal. That would make me never want to touch a guitar again.

Not shut off but we got asked to stop once in a local pub in our covers band because we were too loud. I think I was 17, I called the landlord a bitch or something through the microphone then went and stood outside in the rain in a sulk and refused to come back in. That showed them. 

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Wow, I've never heard of them but there are some AMAZING quotes on their Wiki page... for example:

"This 'Albucrazy'-based band has done for MySpace emo what some think Soulja Boy did for hip-hop: turn their career into a kind of macro-performance art that exists so far beyond the tropes of irony and sincerity that to ask 'are they kidding?' is like trying to peel an onion to get to a perceived central core that, in the end, does not exist and renders all attempts to reassemble the pieces futile."

"even if I caught Prince Harry and Gary Glitter adorned in Nazi regalia defecating through my grandmother’s letterbox I would still consider making them listen to this album too severe a punishment."

Just look at the state of them:

mg_music1_3428.jpg

Edited by Mac Atom
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It was really to support Yashin that we took it. But jesus. No access the Warehouse's backstage. And got told we can't talk about Kerrang around them (Kerrang had absolutely destroyed them for weeks 'cause they're trash). Also, I was allowed to use Yashin's bass rig. I came on to set up and realised the first support had just knocked over his Ashdown bass head and left it on the floor. Oh, and then when BrokenCYDE took to the stage, they would go "we ain't playing the next song till the girls take their tops off!"

 

they said that to a crowd mostly made up of people under 16, accompanied by parents.. Absolute trash. 

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On 6/2/2018 at 10:00 AM, Jaaakkkeee said:

I Oh, and then when BrokenCYDE took to the stage, they would go "we ain't playing the next song till the girls take their tops off!"

 

they said that to a crowd mostly made up of people under 16, accompanied by parents.. Absolute trash. 

that doesnt surprise me at all, was there not a big scandal about them being peadophiles?

also lol at 'crunkcore' cos Crunk wasnt quite bad enough already

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Critical reception

Brokencyde is widely panned by critics. Cracked.com contributor Michael Swaim said the band sounded like "a Slipknot-Cher duet",[20] while another Cracked contributor Adam Tod Brown commented on their song FreaXXX "I hate that song so much that I would hold it face down in a bathtub until it drowns if I could."[21]

British comic book writer Warren Ellis considered Brokencyde's "FreaXXX" music video "a near-perfect snapshot of everything that’s shit about this point in the culture".[22] A writer for the Warsaw Business Journal attempted to describe their music: "Imagine an impassioned triceratops mating with a steam turbine, while off to the side Daft Punk and the Bee Gees beat each other to death with skillets and spatulas. Imagine the sound that would make. Just try. BrokeNCYDE is kind of like that, except it also makes you want to jab your thumbs into your eyeballs and gargle acid."[23]

The New Musical Express stated in a review of I'm Not a Fan, But the Kids Like It!, that "even if I caught Prince Harry and Gary Glitter adorned in Nazi regalia defecating through my grandmother’s letterbox I would still consider making them listen to this album too severe a punishment."[24]

August Brown of the Los Angeles Times writes:

"This 'Albucrazy'-based band has done for MySpace emo what some think Soulja Boy did for hip-hop: turn their career into a kind of macro-performance art that exists so far beyond the tropes of irony and sincerity that to ask 'are they kidding?' is like trying to peel an onion to get to a perceived central core that, in the end, does not exist and renders all attempts to reassemble the pieces futile."[25]

 

 

Good read.

Edited by James Broonbreed
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Callahan got roped into playing a comedy night by Gav Downstairs once - after 2 hours of horrific unfunny worst student improv nonsense you've ever heard they all left and we played to Steve Bruce. Steve only stayed cos Geoff was on drums - and he was getting paid to do sound.

 

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Oh, hi. 

With Carson Wells, supporting Rod Jones from Idlewild's band The Birthday Suit at The Woodend Barn in Banchory. 

Beautiful venue but a bit bleak when 6 people show up (two of which were my Mum and Dad, on one of the only times they saw us). Sound was gash. The house bass amp that Huw was, for some reason, asked to use, kept cutting out, so he kept turning round to it mid-song. Given he was our lead singer at the time, all those 6 lucky individuals really witnessed was scratchy guitar and booming drums (due to the large, empty venue). This was also from our earlier years where our music was pretty rubbish/horrible anyway. It was just a noisy, hot mess that we've since agreed never to talk about that. 

And I said 'thanks to Rod Gilbert' whose someone else entirely. 

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Not sure if it was the worst but it was a bit....meh. Taking the ferry up to the Isle of Lewis to meet Deek from Oi Polloi (as he was doing gaelic radio up there) and play a gig in the the gym hall of a school with Filthpact and In Decades Decline. I think about 7 people showed up adn they all sat at the back of the hall.

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