Embarrassing Moments ..

bread

Power User
Thread dedicated to when you make an absolute nob of yourself.

I was at the London Drum Show years ago with my son who was only about 13 at the time but a monster drummer doing his trinity guild grade 7 exams.

We saw this guy playing in one of the booths and he was amazing so we got chatting. I asked him if he took lessons and if he ever did the trinity guild curriculum because he was doing really well... (amongst other things)

A few hours later at the live drum session in the theater along comes Thomas Lang onto the stage and introduces the guy we were talking to as no other than Kenny Aranoff to perform an artist performance in front of about 500 people.

I still cringe ..
 
G3 2001 I'm 16, me and my friend are first in the venue

We got in... sat in the front row- we were like 4th or 5th row anyway- but no one else was there... then we realized they shut the doors after we got in and no one else was in the venue.

So we're watching these roadies do sound check for 30-40 minutes by ourselves and they're like REALLY good

It was Mike Portnoy and John Petrucci rehearsing. JP cut his hair and we didn't know who he was- and he didn't have one of those Ibanez Picaso's either he was using a weird guitar I never seen before (EBMM).

They went on stage- and I figured out who they were.

ALSO SAME SHOW- I asked another roadie for a Steve Vai guitar pick- he let me grab one off of one of his guitars... Vai goes on stage- the 'roadie' was Dave Weiner... his guitar player. who now i've been friends with for almost half my life.

What else... I have about 1000 embarrassing stories- so many.
 
Most embarrassing night.

We once many years back did a mini 'tour of the north' - meaning we travelled over to the north of England and had 3 gigs in working men clubs around the Tyne and Wear area.

On our first night we sound checked early at the club management's request because 'the bingo' was on before the band. Finding ourselves with little else to do we decided to join in 'the bingo'.

Moment 1: Unfortunately we didn't know how seriously the locals took the game and were threatened with getting thrown out because we talked to each other while the game was on.

Moment 2: Not knowing the rules I shouted 'Line' when all my numbers on that line on my card had come up ..... unfortunately someone had already called 'Line' a few numbers back and there can only be one 'Line' winner per game. The compere shouted out over the mic 'Ignore that Ladies and Gents we have a "stupid fookin wonka in the hoose"'. Bad enough but then add the extra where the whole room turned and looked at me like they wanted to rip me limb from limb ....... not even a sympathetic smile.

Moment 3: We opened our set with One Vision by Queen .... gave it the full intro ..... the keyboardist on stage on his own playing with a single spot on him then the rest of us coming on quietly to be ready for the main riff. Out I came last and did a Pete Townshend arm swing and .... silence .... forgot to turn on the guitar transmitter pack .

Moment 4: We had brought some of our own power can lights on stage and it turned out one of the electrical cables was resting against a light's casing and halfway through the set the damn thing melted and shorted out the entire floor of the building. It took over 10 power cycle trips while turning things on/off before we worked out it was the stage left lights causing it ...... by which time the audience had all groped their way out in the dark and gone downstairs to the other bar.
 
Our singer introduces me just before I hit the solo in Easy Lover and if it's in a theater I get a follow spot on me.

Once as soon as I hit the first big chord I broke a string so all the people got was ...

"Ladies and Gentlemen I give you Mr Paul Bread"....

Then the string snapped taking my trem bridge way out of tune so the next notes were like ping pong pangggg as I turned in the follow spot that followed me running off stage into the wings to get my backup, then followed me running back on only arrive back at my board at the end of the solo.

It must have been a very strange sight to see.
 
I don't embarrass very easily, but I've had plenty of mishaps on stage...too many to count. One that I think I've mentioned here before was back in the '80s when I did my Pete Townsend jump at the end of the organ solo on Won't Get Fooled Again, but forgot the stage at that venue had a very low ceiling in the spot where I was standing (about 8" above my head). I jumped as high as I could, which on that particular night was only about 8", and cold-cocked myself. I landed sitting upright on the floor leaning against my speaker cab...unconscious for a few seconds but playing the correct A chord. We ended the set on that song, and played one more set that night, but I was in a fog for the rest of the night and most of the next day. (Pretty sure I gave myself a concussion.)
 
2005ish. I called out a guy who had just put out a new product on The Gear Page...some inane question on the order of 'who is this, and what are these outrageous claims?' A back and forth debate with another member. I asked who I can ask about this 'revolutionary device', and was promptly told by another poster 'dude...you're talking to him'. Cliffc<somenumbershere> username.

To this day I cringe.
 
Oh I just thought of something

I saw Elton John in Vegas

The drummer was so off the first song- none of the band was even half together (the bitch is back)

It was pretty awful- the first song or two- total trainwreck- thought he might be a fill in or something-

Googled it at my seat during the second or third song- it's his original drummer that literally played on EVERY SINGLE ALBUM

It was the 'red piano' show in Vegas- 80% of the crowd didn't know any songs 20% of people knew less than 5 songs and only clapped not in the beginning, not in the intro- but only after the first complete line or two of the song they clapped to acknowledge they knew the song

and we're not talking obscure songs either- we're talking- the hits
 
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