The Steel Guitar Forum

Intros have always been my undoing. Kicking a song off in the wrong key happens all too often. But this one was really bad: I was sitting in with a band and they wanted to do "Someday Soon". No problem, I know it, what key? Count it in...

For some mysterious reason my brain decided to play the intro to "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" instead. Different chords, different groove. I was soooo confident, and it sounded just horrible. The poor singer could not go on; she just couldn't recover. What I played was too alien. The band stopped and decided to play another song instead.

What was your worst screwup on stage?

I was playing Over the Rainbow, and my mind wandered either from boredom or being tired, but I couldn't remember the chords.

Every once in a while, I'll plug my guitar into the wrong hole on the amp, and wonder why it doesn't work. With my different amps, I may go into the center on one amp, and into the left on another amp. This happens about once every five years, but it's still often enough to make me laugh at myself.

Here in Baxter Springs, Ks. about 4 yrs. ago I had a singer on my set I took the ride in a different song but managed to circle around and get back in. My face was very red.

Playing a lot of jams backing singers; they mention a song and I do the intro only to find its a different song with the same or similar name.

My worst gaffe was many years ago when I was in the Air Force and at a talent show. I was playing upright bass on our song and exited to the wrong side of the stage. Luckily the judges didn't deduct any points for that and we won 2nd Place. It was at the 1960 Air Training Command E District talent contest finals. The first place band, in the Country and Western division, could have been a Nashville road band - it was "no contest" for the first prize.

I've had many, but once I was playing a gig on tricone and the upper part of my pick somehow got stuck on a string and came off my finger, locking it around a string and effectively making the guitar temporarily unplayable. This was during a solo.

Seconds before kicking off a big show and discovering I had left the tone bar back in the green room.

Followed by the walk/jog/sprint of shame to retrieve it.

h

I did the same thing that Mike Neer did with a fingerpick while playing dobro awhile back. And last winter in a theatre gig I kicked off in the wrong key - was able to recover and when I apologized for it later it became clear that I must have done so in a hurry because it either went largely unnoticed or was quickly forgotten. Also there was a solo I had played on the artist's record that I really had trouble duplicating on stage - to me what I was playing was a train wreck and again it was not something that seemed to attract a lot of attention. It almost became a regular thing that I would get psyched out and not be able to execute it. Eventually I came up with a slightly different part that I actually like better - end of problem. But the lesson was that the music kept on going and everyone remained happy even though the mistakes seemed bad to me.

I remember my worst screw up!! I wanted to post it so no one else will make this mistake because it's real bad!! It happened when I was playing electric guitar at a senior center. It was before I even had a steel. We were setting up our equipment and there were limited plugs. Another musician was filling in that night and I had never played with him before. He had one of those extension cords that is on a reel and has 4 plugs in the center. He said I could just plug my amp into his cord with him. Little did I know, he had cut the ground prong off so he could plug in to receptacles that didn't have the third hole. I was asked to sing about three songs in. I bumped the mic with my mouth and the lights went dim and the shock almost knocked me down!! So don't plug in to somebody's stuff without checking!!! It's a shocking experience!!

My worst was about two months ago. I was playing a guitar gig up in New Hampshire. I got to the gig, opened the back of my car, unloaded my amp and a box of accessories... No guitar! I forgot to take my guitar! And I was in another state and didn't know where I would get a guitar. Fortunately our singer plays acoustic/electric and she plays at a very low volume, so I played her guitar through my amp. She held a tambourine and sang. Actually, it worked out fine, but I was pretty embarrassed about it and the band is still razzing me about it.

Howard's story reminded me that in a cabaret-style show with Andrea House in a downtown theatre about a year and a half ago. The show kicked off with a cover of "All of Me", with a verse of instrumental at the start, with the steel taking the first half, so essentially I am kicking off the show. This was a pretty fancy show - we were all dressed in suits and such. Sadly, I had been fine-tuning with headphones before the show and had left them plugged into the back of my 112. Big announcement, applause, out we all come from behind the curtains for the dramatic entrance and I could tell my amp was as dead as a doornail…no sound. I looked at the guitar player who was about to count us in and mouthed "no sound". Then I got up and looked at my amp and saw the problem, unplugged the phones and away we went. But it led to a few seconds or so of silence during the big entrance, with a full house all looking at us (well, at Andrea, happily). Felt like a whole lot longer. Ouch. After that it was a great show, but a couple of people did ask me if something funny was going on at the beginning.

I was once playing a concert with the Marvelettes a million years ago in a full auditiorium, and I had my music (about 6 pages of medley, taped together) on a stand. When they were introduced, they whirled out on stage and the breeze they generated blew my music right off the stand. There was NO piano player on the gig, by the way. Flop sweat....

Dimly lit stage with 2 dobro's D & G tuned.

Kicked off tune with much authority. Took about a micro second to realize I had the wrong guitar.

Too late!

h

Back in the 70's we were doing a Gospel Concert in Roseburg Ore...and during one of the songs we did I watched as the 6th string unraveled from underneath my bar...well I was so shook my that, that when I was to kick off the next song, in 3/4 time, I kicked it off in 4/4 instead...YIKES...my brother was playing bass, and just started pulling harder on the strings to get us/me back in time...

And then this last weekend I did something I've never ever done before...I restarted a song that after 3 or 4 bars in, I was so confussed, that restarting was the only thing I thought I could do...

I started off Harper Valley PTA for Jeannie C Riley one full step off. I had to start it over for her. That has to be my worst.

Thanks guys. Now I don't feel so bad.

My worst screwup wasn't really on a stage. I had played an afternoon Jam in Vermont was sitting in with a friends band. I had a 9 oclock gig with my group in Connecticut and I showed up at the wrong place about 30 miles from the actual gig. I got there about 10 minutes into the second set and everyone had a good laugh at it. I paid the band extra that night or their efforts in covering me. They never let me forget it tho.

One time when I went to hear a friend's band play, he asked me if I wanted to sit in on his pedal steel for a couple of songs. He reminded me that he's tuned to D9, not E9. So I'm thinking... he's tuned a whole tone below... As soon as I got on stage the band asked me to kick off some classic Country song, Key of E. No problem.. I counted the song, played the intro... Train Wreck! I was a whole step below the rest of the band! When I heard them say "Key of E" I immediately went to fret 7 to play the intro, even though I had reminded myself seconds earlier that the guitar was tuned to D9. Old habits are hard to break!

Never had anything go wrong

When I was 15 I was playing with a band to a sold out show at the Wheeling Jamboree. It was also a radio broadcast and the band leader called "Pan Handle Rag". I was already nervous because I'd never seen a crowd like that. Got through the head ok but when it came time for my solo, the bar flew out of my hand making a loud banging noise on the wood flooring of the stage. It rolled to the side of the stage and I had to get up and retrieve it. Talk about embarrassing.

My band, Jump 'n The Saddle, arrived about an hour before start time to play at a banquet hall for a wedding. The guests had already arrived so we quietly loaded in and set up behind the stage curtain. We got all set up and went to check with the bride and groom to make sure they were running on time and wanted us to start at 8 PM as contracted. The bride and groom were busy doing some wedding activity stuff (taking pictures or cutting the cake) so we waited to talk to them. It was about 8:15 and one of the band guys went to look for a bathroom. He discovered that there was another banquet room with a wedding in progress at the facility and pieced together that we were set up at the wrong wedding! We quickly moved everything to the alternate room, apologized for the mix up and played the other wedding after sweating a few bullets.

I was playing singing and accompanying myself on a resonator guitar at a folk club in England. I decided, for a change, to sing Beyond the Reef, which I usually play in C6 on a lap steel, even though it was like nothing they're used to hearing at a folk club. Forgetting that the resonator guitar was tuned to G, which has the same intervals except for the missing string in the middle, I got to the instrumental break after the first verse and wound up completely confused.
Ironically, afterwards, a couple came forward and praised me for my slack guitar playing. I didn't have the heart to tell them that I've never played slack guitar in my life.
To add insult to injury. a friend of mine videoed the whole thing, so I got to watch it later from the audience's perspective.

Here's one from my band: We did the Tanya Tucker classic "Delta Dawn", incl. key change. Problem was that half of the band raised half tone while the others raised full tone. Total confusion followed because nobody knew what to do - change again while the others change too? Took us about ten seconds to get back on track and I tell you, ten seconds can be like eternity.

After the set somebody from the audience said to us that one of the instruments must have been out of tune. Go figure!

Kind Regards, Walter

Does just showing up for the gig count?

There have been many, but the one that keeps popping up in my mind was this one. In the 70's I had only been playing maybe 5 years. I was playing at a place in Fremont, Calif. One night after a Loretta Lynn show in Oakland, Bob Hempker, Don Ballinger and one of Loretta's sons came in. The waitress came up to the stage and said that Loretta Lynn's band was here. We said, "yeah right. What would they be doing in this small out of the way club". We had a girl singer and thought we'd be smart asses and play "When a Tingle Becomes a Chill" During the intro, I looked to the back of the club, and there was Bobby. I came totally unglued, playing wrong notes, dropping my bar, and generally just coming apart at the seams. I knew who he was from the year before when Conway and Loretta were in town (the night I met John Hughey). I'm sure there is no way he remembers this, but at break time I went to talk to him. I must have been fumbling over my words. That night, and many playing in front of and beside Bobby Black got me over my fear of playing in front of other steel players, including pros.

I can't tell you how many times I've had a "that was SOO much cooler in my head" moment. Unless I'm playing a set piece (say, the harmony part to the ride in "Working Man's Blues" or the ride on "Highway 40 Blues"), almost everything I play is off the top of my head. So wrong notes and solos going off the rails will happen if I forgot what I was gonna "say" next. Fortunately I get a LOT more right than wrong, so good musicians like playing with me.
My worst mistake was when I played a Friday night (after working the day before) til 1, driving out to my day job to sleep in front of the gates (got there at 1:20 and went straight to sleep), worked from 5 til noon, had a lunch date (I was recently separated, I was allowed that sort of social butterfly life), worked on my car, then went to the gig that night (so from Friday morning at 4 AM til Sunday morning 2 AM, I got three hours of sleep in the drivers seat of the car). In the third set, I kicked off "I Never Go Around Mirrors", played fills for the first half of the first verse, sang my harmony part for the first half of the chorus. At the end of the song, I got nudged by a Tele headstock in my shoulder and "Mr. Gray, would you care to join us?"
I slept through my solo, the second verse, and the ending...