Pre Gig panic experiences - Do share

MrGuitarabuse said:
Greetings all
After long pandemic and crap I am finally back in Japan on a part leisure / business trip.
I decided to go to a "musicians karaoke bar". If you can play decent enough you can join the house band.
So went to Bauhaus Roppongi, https://rockbarbauhaus.com/

Brought my own Ibanez JEM since their loaner guitars are usually shitty. Opted for Crazy Train and enjoying a beer when the bar man tells me:
"oh, you know they are all tuned half step down"
CRAP!
There I am with a floating Floyd 15 minutes to stage in standard tuning.

Into panic re-tuning mode and made it with seconds to spare

So, do share your pre gig panic situations

Happy Friday
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get some change and block the floyd, press down put the change in and then tighten the screws, i've done this in a pinch, a few quarters or a couple nickels and bob's your uncle.
 
I do have a panicky one... this weekend, did sound check with my wireless, everything great. 5 minutes before the gig, intro is rolling, I hit the tuner to just check, and it's going crazy. Literally will not lock onto a note. I grab a headstock tuner, and it's fine.... so it's the wireless. Turn off the tuner, and it sounds like someone is trying to tune in Tokyo on my amp. I had to re-scan (sennheiser felt like it took a month), synched, and turned up the volume and go. Uggh.
 
In the 80s... About 20 minutes from a club (90 minutes from home) the van starts to die. We limped along and somehow got there - with literally 10 minutes to load in and set up. We went without subs and skimped on monitors - no mics on amps or drums - no sound check, and started playing asap. The club owner called our agent and told him to tell us to go home, we suck. Hilarious. We stayed over in the hotel anyway, and 2 guys dealt with the van - alternator! Drove home the next morning. Good times.
 
Show in 1987. Introtape is running. I drop my plectrum. Bright yellow so no problem. I pick it up from the wooden floor and get the splinter from hell in the indexfinger of my fretting hand. Felt my heartbeat in that finger the whole show. After the show somebody told me he would get a nurse who happened to be at the venue. Turned out that nurse would be the runner up in the Dutch Miss Universe election a couple of years later. So all in all………
 
The night of the arrested drummer. When I was at UMKC I was in a cover band that used to play often at a bar called the Merry Go Round in Shawnee, Kansas.

It was a huge and rowdy place with 3 separate bars - a rock bar with live bands, a country bar with live bands and a disco. It was split into 18 and over (3.2 beer) and 21 and over (full bar). On the country side there was a mechanical bull. You can imagine that in the early 80s the country and rock crowds did not mix well. There were constant fights and the police were there often. It was similar to playing in Patrick Swayze's Roadhouse on some nights.

Unbeknownst to us our drummer (who was always a slut) was invited over to the country side to ride the mechanical bull slow-mo with an amazing looker in cowboy boots about 20 mins before we were to go on. We asked our friends where the hell Jarvey (our drummer) disappeared to and they explained he was on the country side riding the bull with a cowgirl. We went to collect him and noticed the fisticuffs already under way between Jarvey and a large angry cowboy who had taken offense to Jarvey riding the bull with his fiancee. Both large cowboy and Jarvey were summarily arrested and we couldn't play that night. Management was not pleased and they banned us for a month. It would have been permanent if the female talent manager didn't also have a thing for Jarvey.

In case you were wondering apparently there were favors exchanged, I guess you could say Jarvey took one (or gave one) for the team. So in the end it was hard to stay pissed at him since he got us back in there and it was a very good paying gig in those days.
 
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dpeterson said:
get some change and block the floyd, press down put the change in and then tighten the screws, i've done this in a pinch, a few quarters or a couple nickels and bob's your uncle.
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In this day and age of cash less society, who got coins :D but good idea. Could pop a blocker that fits in the gig-bag just in case... Didn't see this coming though. I played with this singer before with other bands and always standard tuning
 
MrGuitarabuse said:
In this day and age of cash less society, who got coins :D but good idea. Could pop a blocker that fits in the gig-bag just in case... Didn't see this coming though. I played with this singer before with other bands and always standard tuning
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Yell out to the other guys on stage - "excuse me guys, do any of you have quarters in your coin purse?"
 
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